Wales has slightly relaxed coronavirus-enforced restrictions on music venues and comedy clubs.
This latest development comes after the Welsh government confirmed late last month that live music could resume in music venues, bars, pubs, cafes, restaurants and licensed premises in the country providing a risk assessment is completed.
The rules on capacities for music and comedy venues have now been changed to be “in line” with hospitality venues, meaning groups of six people from six households can now attend a live music or comedy event in Wales.
Each venue’s permitted capacity will now be determined by its size while businesses must continue to follow strict COVID guidelines, such as implementing a one-way system.
Responding to the news, the Music Venue Trust’s Mark Davyd told the BBC that while the organisation – which represents 50 independent grassroots music venues in Wales – “appreciates” this slight easing of restrictions, the change is still not “economically viable” for many venues.
“Venues will be doing it to reconnect with customers. It is good news everything is moving forward. Not as fast as we would like but we appreciate everything [First Minister] Mark Drakeford has done,” Davyd said.
“But how many venues will be able to open in Wales is a slightly different question, because they still have to do social distancing.”
Predicting that a number of venues in Wales may now trial putting on multiple shows a day in order to turn a profit, Davyd added that venues “need to make sure that what we are doing makes sense” as they wanted “to drive toward full capacity reopening”.
Over the weekend Foo Fighters performed to a fully vaccinated crowd in New York City after the city lifted most of its coronavirus restrictions.
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