Music and live performance are in de facto lockdown. Urgent measures are needed

The world of music and live performance is in a de facto lockdown situation. This is the complaint of the StaGe! Coordination, which brings together more than one hundred associations of companies, artists and workers in the music and live performance industry. Urgent support is therefore needed for the entire industry and the convening of a crisis table for the sector, StaGe knows.

StaGe, reads a note, “expresses first of all the discomfort and disappointment of the entire sector because the government’s responses to our closure are at the moment totally unsatisfactory and deficient and disregard in the economic part the just claims of companies, artists, workers and representative associations of the sector. This is why we are calling for an urgent meeting with the Ministry of Culture and relevant ministries such as the Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the other ministries involved to open a Crisis Table for this sector that urgently needs extraordinary interventions.”

Several problems noted by StaGe: according to the coordination, the last decree supports, the FUS call and the calls still waiting to be published “do not satisfy in any way the whole chain of independent and emerging music and entertainment in our country, which makes about 70/80% of productions with thousands of realities entrepreneurial realities and hundreds of thousands of artists and workers involved directly and indirectly and receives at most 20/30 % of the funds that almost always go to a few very large realities, often foreign, with positive budgets at this stage, which in these two pandemic years risk having the entire market in their hands wiping out the entire independent and emerging music supply chain, which for at least 50 percent is risking total closure.”

The situation is therefore very serious, StaGe points out. And adding to the drama is theinsensitivity of most of the stars. Among the few who have moved, StaGe names artists such as Coez, Salmo, Piotta, Ultimo, and Tommaso Paradiso (not coincidentally all from the independent music world), who have realized the lack of a real restart of the music, entertainment, and arts sector. The risk is to bring the supply chain (and musicians are only the face: behind them moves a complex machine of which technicians, turners, venues, attorneys working in the areas of production, scouting, research and innovation are part) to closure, or to deliver it into the hands of foreign companies.

We are therefore faced with a “de facto lockdown,” StaGe bitterly notes, “what’s more, not declared by the government, which with the latest Supports Decree does not compensate for the damage resulting from the sudden Christmas and New Year’s closure. The entire industry chain had to stop suddenly with a loss ranging from a minimum of 20 percent of turnover up to 100 percent of festivals, street events, discos, clubs, dance halls and dance clubs in addition to all the workers, organizers, artists and workers, who lost their engagements. We therefore ask as a first thing that all Extra Fus Calls are activated, made in a simple and immediate way, which will compensate all these figures, as soon as possible given the irreparable damage they have received from an economic point of view and in terms of prospects for the future of work. We call for an immediate restart of Concerts and Live Performances in every venue with Green Passes, Masks and Temperature Control, where necessary, with 100 percent of the capacities, perhaps restarting all live from the first days of February at the same time as the Sanremo Festival, which is in fact taking place at full capacity and which we urge to remember during the five days all businesses, artists and workers stopped while the musical kermesse takes place.”

StaGe also lists a number of points to nurture the industry: new and significant refreshments, non-repayable supports and Extra-FUS calls, simplified and easy, abolishing “the wild and often wrong model of Ateco Codes, for all entities and enterprises in the performing arts and entertainment sector, parameterized to reductions in 2020 and 2021 revenues compared to those produced in 2019, regardless of the periods of decreed closure of activities.” new and significant refreshments for all discontinuous workers entertainment and entertainment sector (self-employed, temporary or intermittent employees), who had a minimum number of seven performances in 2019, as already provided for previous refreshments; tax credit of at least 50 percent of expenses incurred in 2021 for the implementation of any activity live performance; extension of the “cassa integrazione in deroga” and social security and welfare bonuses for intermittents and the self-employed,effective immediately for the entire current year; raising the percentage for Tax Credit Music and Videoclips; new Bonus and Calls for Authors and Publishers, Performing Artists and Producers with no limit at the bottom to support the entire artistic supply chain; Incentives for audience participation in performances, shows and events in attendance, such as the recognition of a significant deduction from income tax for the purchase of tickets to musical, theatrical, choreographic, film, festival and dance entertainment and concerts (discos, clubs, dance halls) and for the purchase of cultural products.

And then again, a revitalization of the calls already made in 2021, with more resources, specific on music and live performance and entertainment for a next great spring and summer restart, the full readiness of RAI’s public broadcasting service to carry out programs and festivals of independent and emerging music, on all the various and different platforms, to open the hospitality in the spaces of the already existing talks and programs to new artists of the independent circuit so that they can offer to a wider audience that music that fills festivals but is almost never found in public service; incentives for participation in music, theater, dance, dance and art courses and the purchase of records and musical instruments and for the creation of Music Production and Research Centers; Culture bonus of 500 euros expanded to an even wider audience active in the culture sector, such as all high school and university students; the immediate implementation of theAmendment proposed by the Honorable Gribaudo and Rossi for the Ristori to the whole Chain and the provision of an extra fund to program and distribute the products already made by the independent and emerging circuit on TV, web TV, radio and web radio and streaming platforms; the favorable vote and the start of the concluding process in the current legislature to the bill for live cultural spaces and festivals, with particular reference to historical ones, as proposed by the Honorable Matteo Orfini first signatory of the bill; the conclusion in the current legislature of the processes of the Live Performing Arts Code and the Reform of the Welfare of the Performing Arts in order to systematize the sector as soon as possible, something that has now been awaited for more than 25 years; the activation of new funding lines for the sector, for example through the PNRR, that facilitate with ad hoc calls for proposals the participation of this cultural segment (music and live performance); and maximum attention in the FUS Calls for Proposals that are coming up for maximum openness to Contemporary Popular Music Festivals.

“In such a situation of great difficulty for a sector that represents hundreds of thousands of businesses, artists and workers,” StaGe concludes, “we expect to be convened as soon as possible and to formally open together a Crisis Table for the Music and Live Performing Arts Sector as is the case with other sectors.”

Music and live performance are in de facto lockdown. Urgent measures are needed

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