According to the government’s Covid recovery roadmap, 21 June 2021 is the date when “all legal limits on social contact” will be removed, and the final closed sectors of the economy – including nightclubs – will reopen in the UK. It’s this date that organisers of music festivals are waiting for. After last year’s festival-less summer, the sector – which, together with the concert industry is worth an estimated £2.6bn – desperately needs to put on events in order to ensure its security into 2022.
Festivals including Reading and Leeds, Latitude and Green Man are planned to take place over the summer. But there is one major problem. Even if stage four of the roadmap goes ahead as planned, and there are no legal restrictions to festivals being held this summer, there is currently no guarantee that festivals will be able to secure Covid cancellation insurance. This means that in the event of a Covid-related cancellation (because of a last-minute local lockdown, for example), festivals have no guarantee of compensation for financial loss, leaving organisers in an incredibly uncertain position.
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