Are shows still being booked? What is Afton’s plan?
Afton Show’s plan during the COVID-19 live events ban is to continue supporting our employees, our venues, and our artists. After much discussion between our team members, it was decided that the best course of action for everyone involved is to continue planning, booking, and promoting our late May/June/July events as usual. We are working closely with each venue, to monitor and adhere to the guidelines and restrictions put in place by local and state governments.
Things are uncertain now but could potentially change quickly. Nobody knows exactly when the live events ban in your specific city will be lifted, and we feel it is irresponsible to blindly cancel all shows for the next 6 months and shut down our planning, booking, and offering of dates to our artists. If we did this, it would be impossible to quickly put together shows to support our venues when the ban is lifted. As an example, on April 24th Georgia is re-opening many of its businesses.
Of course, we respect our artists’ decisions, so if you don’t feel comfortable confirming a show quite yet just let your Booking Rep know.
But remember this!
AS SOON as the live events ban is lifted, every tour, every show, every artist will be desperate for dates and we are confident that almost immediately EVERY DATE and EVERY SLOT will be booked up for many, many months. This is a key reason we are continuing to offer our show dates to our artists, because if you confirm a show in May or June, but it gets rescheduled due to COVID-19, you now will have a secured slot on the reschedule show in the future.
You are SAFE to confirm shows with us, because any tickets sold will be honored to a reschedule date if that becomes necessary. Also, because we are not going to allow any shows to happen unless the venue and the government officials in that area are allowing live shows to happen.
It’s been reported that Event Brite (a major player in the event industry) has laid off close to 50% of their employees already. Our goal at Afton is to do our best to keep our employees supported and employed during this crisis, so that the minute the live events ban is lifted, you still have a Booking Rep at your service!
We owe it to our artists, venues, show managers, and booking staff to be ready when live events can continue safely (which could be within the next month). We also owe it to our MyAfton artists to continue building features and services such as Afton LiveStream so that we can help you no matter how long this live event ban lasts.
Other Resources
Afton Shows Supports Independent Music Venues
