The Verdict is In! YOU Want These Covid Measures at a Festival!
Here’s What Covid Safety Measures YOU Want to See at YOUR Next Festival!
*Written by Savannah Rae*
Hey everyone! We’ve been asking you to take our survey about festival covid safety precautions for a while and we finally have the results ready for you to check out! We found some interesting trends and data, which we plan to send off to event companies. The Festival Voice has always been about making YOUR VOICE heard at festivals! Here’s the verdict and what YOU want to see at festivals! Now keep in mind, this data is primarily what the people want to see and open-ended answers are grouped together at the bottom of the article! We did survey industry professionals, but we will highlight those results later in the piece. Overall, 18, 498 respondents took the survey.
The Verdict on Festivals Returning Says…
First off, it seems that people do truly believe that festivals will return to their former glory. However, people seem split between whether that will happen this fall or in the spring of 2022. In addition, people are split on the level of herd immunity needed for them to feel comfortable at festivals. You have people who believe it doesn’t matter and people who believe in a high percentage of herd immunity. These two results correlate with each other.
What Covid Safety Precautions Do People Want at the Festival?
Next up, we see that hand washing and sanitizing are highly important to festival consumers. In addition, 70% of survey takers believe that proof of covid vaccinations will help them feel comfortable at the festivals. Safety procedures such as temperature checks, limiting sales, rapid testing, and mask-wearing also have nearly half of participants responding yes. There is a sharp decline when people limit interactions with other festival-goers. This echoes my feelings because honestly, a festival or event isn’t the same without the human interaction that takes place! In regard to vendors, people believe that the merchandise shouldn’t be touched.
The Verdict on Vendors and Masks
We continue our discussion of vendors but this time discuss the food and alcohol vendors. The majority of people are concerned about the health and safety of the food vendors, including sanitization. They also believe that masks should be worn by workers. However, in regard to public mask usage, after herd immunity is reached, participants do not believe masks should continue to be worn.
Social Distancing Perspective
We continue with participants’ perspectives on social distancing. Overall, people believe it will difficult to practice social distancing at a festival like this. In addition, some people are ready to jump right into the crowd yet others are skeptical.
Apps and Reduced Capacity
These covid safety precautions will cost money for the festival to implement. However, the majority of people are not willing to pay much for reduced capacity. Many people responded with not at all, yet some are willing to pay a little bit. Overall, it seems that participants do not want to pay much for extra precautions. However, they are willing to work with a contact tracing or COVID passport app. These will hold vaccination records so that people do not need to worry about losing their vaccination cards. You can check out what London is doing with these here!
The Verdict on Vaccination and Offsetting Costs
Overall, an overwhelming majority of participants either have taken the covid vaccine or plan to. The majority of the festival demographic is in the younger cohort, which leads to a delay in having covid vaccines available to them. This correlates with the results, although I am surprised at how many people have already gotten to take their vaccines!
Earlier, we talked about helping the festival offset the costs. Most people were not willing to help pay for reduced capacity festivals and these results correlate with precautions as well. People are willing to help pay more, yet money is tight for many festival-goers, making this a challenge!
The Toilet Dilemma
That being said, people sure are willing to pay for cleaner port-a-potties! I concur, those things are nasty! One thing I’ve learned from festivals and events is that we take running water and toilets for granted.
Next Up, The Industry Professionals Share Their Views
These are not the views of festival citizens, such as yourselves. These are the views of the professionals out there, including DJs, press, organizers, vendors, etc. While this survey was very similar to the original survey that Festival Citizens took, there were a few differences we will highlight. Overall, the performers are ready to be back! It seems that they are ready to be back to work, which is understandable because the music industry is struggling financially. However, it seems people would like there to be some herd immunity.
What About Other Industry Professionals?
Up next, we’ve got people working events. Interestingly enough, the data between both performers and workers are very similar. This seems to me because everyone is ready to get back to work!
What About Vendors?
Vendors are ready to be back as well! The majority say that they are ready to be back in business as soon as the local authorities say they can. This all makes sense because the industry professionals are the ones who rely on the income from festivals.
Similarly, agents feel the same as most vendors. Overall, the industry is ready to be back up!
And there you have it! Overall, there are many trends in the data and we are thrilled that your voices were heard. Be prepared to see more surveys in the future from us! Once festivals are back up and going, The Festival Voice wants to be your voice by letting you speak about the things that are important to you. And the verdict is… we’re all ready to be back once it is safe. Much love, fam.
Open-Ended Responses to the Question, “Additional Concerns, Comments, or Suggestions”
For most people this will one of those TL;DR moments, BUT to many industry leaders, this information is extremely valuable as this is direct feedback from YOU in your own words!
