Here’s What Attending Live Concerts Might Look Like Post-COVID
Ticketmaster has just announced an ambitious plan to restart the concert industry.
It’s no secret that fans and artists alike are impatiently waiting for the return of live concerts and other big, in-person events. But increasingly, it’s looking like the experience of going to see your favorite country act may never be the same.
Large gatherings like concerts were singled out early on in the pandemic as obvious places for COVID-19 to spread rapidly, and they’ve remained shut down even as other things like restaurants and bars have slowly reopened. Even after a vaccine becomes available, it’s not like Eric Church and Carrie Underwood can just hit the road right away. The risk is too great and the control measures are almost non-existent, but there are fixes in the works.
According to a new report published by Billboard, Ticketmaster is developing a plan that would allow for live concerts and other large-crowd events to resume. They describe a complicated, three-part system that basically aims to prove each individual fan either has the vaccine or has tested negative just before the show. It’s “a framework for post-pandemic fan safety that uses smart phones to verify fans’ vaccination status, or whether they’ve tested negative for the coronavirus within a 24 to 72 hour window.”
The article goes on to describe a multiple-step process for each fan, involving a Ticketmaster mobile app, testing and vaccination providers like like CVS and Labcorp, and companies like CLEAR Health Pass or IBM’s Digital Health Pass. To put it mildly, it will change the way we attend live concerts — maybe forever — and will require a lot of getting used to. But for fans of live music, almost any cost is worth it.
Here’s how it would work, if approved: After purchasing a ticket for a concert, fans would need to verify that they have already been vaccinated (which would provide approximately one year of COVID-19 protection) or test negative for coronavirus approximately 24 to 72 hours prior to the concert. The length of coverage a test would provide would be governed by regional health authorities — if attendees of a Friday night concert had to be tested 48 hours in advance, most could start the testing process the day before the event. If it was a 24-hour window, most people would likely be tested the same day of the event at a lab or a health clinic.
Once the test was complete, the fan would instruct the lab to deliver the results to their health pass company, like CLEAR or IBM. If the tests were negative, or the fan was vaccinated, the health pass company would verify the attendee’s COVID-19 status to Ticketmaster, which would then issue the fan the credentials needed to access the event. If a fan tested positive or didn’t take a test to verify their status, they would not be granted access to the event. There are still many details to work out, but the goal of the program is for fans to take care of vaccines and testing prior to the concert and not show up hoping to be tested onsite.
Ticketmaster would not store or have access to fans’ medical records and would only receive verification of whether a fan is cleared to attend an event on a given date. Different states will have different requirements. The main role of companies like health pass companies will be to collect data from testing and medical providers and deliver status updates to partner companies in a secure, encrypted way that complies with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
All of this is still just an idea, since some of it will require new technologies to be developed — and it’s not necessarily the only idea, just one of the first. But no matter what, we will need something to help live music get back into arenas and stadiums and even small clubs. What do you think? How far would you be willing to go to see a concert again?
