Either unlock or lock, the German private organizers no longer want to accept this concept of dealing with the existentially threatened cultural scene.
You are now proposing a detailed step-by-step plan.
The German event industry challenges cultural policy with a detailed step-by-step plan.
The concept takes many key data into account, including the incidence value, the size of the room and the hygiene concept.
The “Manifest Restart” was sent to the Prime Ministers and the Federal Chancellery.
By ordinance, this has been fairly easy for almost a year: prohibit or allow to take place, and this before 500, 200 or, as in the special Bavarian case, 50 visitors.
Too easy, as the Event Management Forum finds.
The associations of the German organizers have come together here to develop what politics has failed to do so far: a detailed concept of the conditions under which, for example, a concert may take place.
Even more: how the cultural life can be started up again.
"Experts from the event industry have so far only been marginally involved in politics," criticizes Jens Michow, President of the Federal Association of the Concert and Event Industry (BDKV).
This was shown not least by the individual step-by-step plans of the federal states, as circulated in the run-up to the deliberations of the Prime Ministers and Chancellor Angela Merkel.
“Manifest Restart”, the title of the counter-draft, is now intended to provide a practice-oriented, highly differentiated, uniform concept throughout Germany, on the basis of which the appointments can be planned and carried out.
Test or proof of immunity allows full hall
A table, a so-called matrix, was developed for this purpose, which only looks complicated at first glance.
But for the first time, all the key data that are important for an event are entered here: incidence value, room size, type of seating or hygiene concept.
The latter is the most important: The manifest distinguishes between three different packages of measures.
Firstly, keeping your distance with a protective mask, ventilation and simple contact detection, secondly, keeping your distance with a more specific hygiene concept and special contact detection, thirdly, events with test or immunity verification.
The proposal provides that the organizer and the licensing authority can use the table to decide whether and in what form the concert or performance can be carried out according to risk levels.
This can best be illustrated with an example: According to this matrix, with a simple protection concept and an incidence of between 20 and 35, 75 percent of the visitors would be possible in a hall with between 1000 and 5000 seats.
If the incidence rises to over 35, the event may not take place.
The situation is different in the same hall with protective measures of level two.
If the incidence is over 35, 50 percent of the tickets could still be sold.
The optimal case would be protection level three, i.e. with test or proof of immunity.
All events are allowed to take place here, provided the incidence does not exceed 200.
"Everything that ran in 2020 was not profitable"
Sounds tricky, but in individual cases it is not.
The table with its key values can be understood relatively quickly.
The “Manifest Restart” brings a new quality to the current opening debate.
"It is easy to use for organizers and authorities," says Marten Pauls, infection protection and hygiene officer at the BDKV.
Since the different venues have different requirements, the providers simply have to orientate themselves towards this.
After all, in the past few months there had been “some excellent concepts” that still failed due to approval.
"Everything that ran in 2020 was not profitable," adds Timo Feuerbach, Managing Director of the European Association of Event Centers.
"We need 100 percent again." In addition, they do not want to undermine the Corona measures, but rather "make safe encounters possible".
The “Manifest Restart” has been with the Prime Ministers and the Federal Chancellery since Monday.
Whether and how far it will find its way into the lockdown debate remains to be seen today.
The initiators are only too aware that everything is heading towards increased test capacity - as is already being done in some cases in Great Britain.
Therefore they are demanding financial support for the increased logistics effort.
Graduated plans that have been circulating up to now do not offer a reliable basis for planning events.
In addition, they are inconsistent.
“It is of course clear to us that the Chancellor will not have everything unlocked again on March 25,” says BDKV President Jens Michow.
"We are concerned with what is possible at the respective risk level."