Monday Insights – January 31st

This Monday’s Insights feature brings you the industry headlines you may have missed from the previous week.

Headlines

Liverpool ACC is offering agency fees upfront! The waterfront venue is pledging to pay commission upfront to agencies placing new corporate business with them. The ACC will pay the rates as soon as the event deposit is received.

It means independent companies will not have to wait until after an event has taken place to receive their commission. That means it’s big news for corporate conferences with long lead times! What do we think? …

Jacqui Kavanagh, chief executive, EDGE Venues, told Conference News: “ACC Liverpool is taking the lead by committing to paying businesses such as mine upfront as soon as the event deposit is received. This will be vital as we move to a more flexible and positive events landscape and we hope that other organisations will follow.”

People travelling to England will no longer have to take a COVID test on arrival. Travellers must currently take within 48 hours of touching down in the UK. But, Boris Johnson has confirmed the day two tests will be scrapped from 11 February. The update last week followed the end of pre-departure tests and the change from post-arrival PCR to antigen tests.

Travel to and within EU is to become more difficult for persons holding expiring vaccination passes, according to schengenvisainfo.com.

The news site states ‘International travellers who plan to reach the European Union/Schengen Area, as well as citizens of the EU who wish to travel within the bloc, may face difficulties from February 1 as their vaccination certificates will not be recognised anymore. Following the new adoption of rules on the EU Vaccination Certificate by the European Union’s Commission, the EU and Schengen Area countries announced that additional rules will apply to all travellers whose vaccination certificates’ validity expires as of February 1.’

Read more here.

Double take

PLASA and #WeMakeEvents have published their picture of how the live events sector coped with the return of live events. The findings are based on a survey of 1,948 respondents from over 40 countries surveyed in November and December 2021. 

69% of companies reported a skills shortage, with site crew, riggers, engineers and technicians the most cited. 50% of freelancers have not returned full time to the industry, exacerbating this issue. There is a trend of companies lacking confidence in industry-relevant university courses. Collectively, these issues raise concerns that there is no quick solution. Particularly as 38% of companies report needing to take on apprentices or new entrants in seven to 18 months. 

Overview:

• 45% of businesses took on debt to survive the pandemic
• 94% of manufacturers are experiencing delays in components
• 69% of companies are experiencing a skills shortage
• 50% of our industry’s freelancers have returned full time

Adam Blaxill, chair of PLASA, commented: “Companies and freelancers are acutely aware that there is a long road to recovery in front of the live events industry. The last couple of years have been fraught with financial difficulty and unexpected challenges, and most people anticipate more hurdles to come. As a director of a company in the creative sector and as chair of PLASA, I call on the UK Government to recognise the complex challenges we face and assist in the recovery. We are renowned all over the world for what we do; our capability and the quality and creativity of our sector is world class, yet this survey clearly shows that it is being diminished – our capacity is declining and our talent is leaving!”

To view and download the full report, visit: www.plasa.org/plasa-wemakeevents-covid-survey-report-2022/