Events professionals to take to Comedy Carpet and light up Blackpool red tonight for #wemakeevents campaign

A collective of live events specialists and businesses will gather in a socially-distanced demonstration at the Tower Festival Headland on Blackpool promenade for the launch of the #wemakeevents campaign in a bid to put pressure on the government to widen and extend their support for the creative industries.

It comes as Secretary of state for Culture, Media and Sport Oliver Dowden announced that there would be no further evaluation of social distancing practices for indoor venues until November.

But longtime sound engineer and owner of Advantage Productions UK, Josh Skorczewski, from Blackpool said this time-frame will leave many self-employed in the arts, like himself, on the brink of collapse.

Josh's last contract was in March, at Blackpool Tower for a Bongo's Bingoes live event, he said: "The effect of the closure of entertainments effects everyone in the creative industry, not just the venues.

"As we're behind the scenes, we're not as visible but this a huge problem where many freelance workers in live events seem to fall through the gaps time and time again. It does feel liek we've been left behind.

"We need grants, not loans and now with the likelihood of events not returning until 2021 we're calling for the furlough scheme to be extended, it's already winding down and that is a huge problem."

Around 120 people from the live events industry will be on the Comedy Carpet to make their voices heard this evening and similar demonstrations for the campaign are expected across the north west and beyond with demonstrations in Manchester, Leeds, Cardiff, Nottingham, Edinburgh and London

The #Wemakeevents campaign is calling for the furlough scheme to be extended, the SEISS scheme to be extended and grants, not loans, made available to all businesses in the supply chain.

It is estimated that from the UK’s live events and entertainment sector 600,000 plus jobs in outdoor events alone have been affected.

It is feared by the end of 2020 70 per cent of industry businesses will have made redundancies and looking ahead, live events may not be able to return until March 2021 due to unviable social distancing rules and the long-term planning required for many arena tours, festivals, and stadium events.

James Gordon, CEO of Audiotonix added: “The WeMakeEvents campaign has moved into the Red Alert phase, and it’s imperative that everyone from the events industry raises their voice and gets involved.

"This is a campaign for the companies, the employees and the many freelancers working in all aspects of the events industry supply chain.

"We all need government support to survive the current restricted situation, to allow us to re-emerge as the industry we were, intact and ready to entertain, when restrictions allow.

Please help us all and get behind #WeMakeEvents to make our voices heard by the government.”

The industry bodies now involved in #WeMakeEvents include: the Association of British Theatre Technicians (ABTT), the ALD - The People in Performance Lighting, the Association of Event Organisers (AEO), Association of Sound Designers (ASD), Community Leisure UK, Creu Cymru, the Federation of Scottish Theatre (FST), Freelancers Make Theatres Work, the Institute of Sound & Communications Engineers (ISCE), MUTA, the MIA, the Music Venues Trust (MVT), the National Outdoor Events Association (NOEA), Night Time Industries Association (NTIA), PLASA, Production Managers Forum (PMF), Production Services Association (PSA), Society of London Theatre (SOLT) & UK Theatre, Sustainability in Production Alliance (SiPA) and Theatre & Dance Northern Ireland.

For more on the campaign visit http://www.plasa.org/we-make-events