Any forum members work within, for or with the entertainment/hospitality sectors able to say how you are affected by the current measures?
Do you see light at the end of the tunnel?
Is it affecting you personally?
I do worry about the effects of these measures on the livelihoods and mental health of people who work in sectors that are severely impacted by the measures that are currently in place.
(
@robbeech @Randomer anyone else? )
Things are quite bleak for the whole industry at the moment, but I acknowledge and appreciate that this industry isn't alone. I has been essentially closed since February and will be for months to come. the £1.57billion that is thrown about for the general public to hear about hasn't gone further than a few carefully selected organisations and buildings. The figure includes things like galleries and museums, most of which are open and earning revenue again now. The touring events, the festivals, the theatre shows, the fireworks displays coming up in November, the Christmas lights switch on events, are almost all cancelled and the hundreds of thousands of people (the vast majority self employed) that would be working on them won't be getting paid. Meanwhile, other industries are encouraged back to work as they're able to do so.
The cold hard facts are, people don't NEED live entertainment as there's more than enough other stuff to go around. There's decades of TV shows and films for people to watch, there's decades of recorded live performances from bands and orchestras to watch / listen to. There's little pub gigs happening locally to keep people occupied, providing they start at 5 instead of 6 so they can finish at 10 instead of 11. With most people back at work (in some form or another) they are back to a regular schedule so don't have to keep themselves occupied all day everyday like many had to do from March to July.
So why are the government so actively reluctant to do anything? Well, of course it comes down to money, but also attitude. The entertainment industry has a huge left leaning attitude and has for years. There are multimillion selling bands who's music is based on politics with a bias towards the left. Live Events provide an opportunity to spread information and get people on board with different ways of thinking that MAY persuade people to change their opinions. The actions and events over the last 6 months (and beyond) have increased this possibility considerably more. And with more an more people fed up with the actions from Number 10 the risk increases again. The main focus is the finance. The people in the industry that have made the money will continue to do so in the sale of records and such, and there may even have been a slight increase in this over the last few months. TV and on demand services have made notable increases in profits when people were at home. The people doing the "shop floor" jobs in the industry don't contribute such high amounts in tax as their earnings are not that high.
Why bother helping someone who doesn't make you any money, who also calls you a bunch of four letter words?
People are estimating that there are 600,000 people in the entertainment industry who are affected by it, i don't THINK there are 600,000 other jobs available, and that would only cover this industry where many others are affected in their own way, with similar results.
On a personal level, I'm lucky enough to be in a position where i won't starve, for the time being at least. I can't envisage me doing any "real" events until next Spring, and i think that even next festival season over the summer will be affected, though hopefully not significantly. I've no rent to pay, no Mortgages, no vehicle finance, no loans, no overdraft, no credit cards with a balance that i don't pay off each month etc. But, i've no income from any work, no income from student properties that lay empty, I have to pay council tax on the empty properties now as they aren't full of students, I have received precisely £0.00 from the various schemes setup to help everyone. There's still vehicles to pay maintenance and tax / insurance for despite them not turning a wheel, there's equipment sat doing nothing that still needs to be insured, and maintained, and there's various PLI/ELI policies that you can't really cancel incase you get a gig. i'm around £130,000 down since March and this will likely double by the time we're done.
Sadly lots of people are in a position where they can no longer pay the rent, many have already taken jobs elsewhere, many will be in the next few weeks, sadly, (and this goes back to the attitude comment) many will refuse to budge and will destroy their own livelihoods expecting the government to pay them.