Live music venue’s owner calls for guidelines clarity ahead of re-opening
A LIVE music venue in Inverness has called for greater Government guidance on re-opening.
Ironworks in Inverness was told under Level 1 lockdown guidance in Scotland it would be able to re-open with restrictions.
However, owner Caroline Campbell still has not been told exactly what those restrictions are.
She said: “Our contacts at Highland Council and the Scottish Government have been very supportive and understanding.
“But unfortunately they just don’t have the guidelines in place to allow us to open at this point, despite Level 1 guidelines stating clearly that we can. It feels like it was forgotten that the Ironworks – an independent, commercial, largescale music venue that isn’t publicly funded, existed in a Tier 1 region.
“Despite small live music events being permitted, to date no guidelines at all have been published or are available and nobody has been able to advise me on what is and isn’t possible.
“I need formal approval to re-open, once it is safe to do so, and without guidance in place this isn’t possible.”
She continued: “I received a holding response this morning to say there is still no guidance available, but that once there is it will be shared with me.
“As a business owner with a large number of staff and a much larger local supply chain, I don’t think that’s acceptable.
“Yesterday, Nicola Sturgeon tweeted that ‘woolly words don’t pay people’s wages’ – I absolutely agree and hope clarity will follow soon.”
As an independent music venue, Mrs Campbell said she has received no funding to help with her business while it was forced to close.
She said it had been incredibly tough, adding: “I have a large number of employees, most of whom have been furloughed.
“We have several strings to our bow and as the delivery partner for Xponorth have been able to reassign some members of staff such as the box office manager to alternative projects including the successful shift of the Xponorth conference from a physical event to a virtual one in early summer.
“But our core income is obviously from hosting events, which we haven’t been able to do now for over seven months.
“Whilst we welcome the rightful pause on business rates, we still have to pay rent, insurance and a huge number of other operational costs, so the financial impact has been significant.”
When asked about how she believed live music venues could re-open safely with physical distancing in place, Mrs Campbell said the team had a number of ideas – offering to be the test venue for the measures.
She added: “We have a number of innovative ideas which we could deliver quickly, including marking sections within the venue to host family unit zones of say, two, four or six, or for seated events, removing or marking up unusable seating to allow for the required social distance.”