Shining a light on the struggle of live events workers during COVID-19
The devil makes work for idle hands, or so the saying goes. In the small hours of a Sunday morning at the beginning of August I was doing something unusual by the standards of the times we live in.
Lighting designer and Bectu member John Rogers (wearing glasses) on the #WeMakeEvents protest boat trip with his friend Koy Neminathan
I was driving a van full of AV kit to a site with people waiting to unload it once I arrived. With the help of a small team of people across a few branches of Bectu (and a few lovely individuals who simply shared our aims) we projected a video on to the side of the Houses of Parliament.
It’s important to note we acted totally in accordance with social distancing and with the necessary PPE throughout.
We also opted to ask for forgiveness (should a conversation with anyone in an official capacity arise) rather than permission.
Loud cry for government aid
The video featured well sourced statistics that made for grim reading into the state of the creative industries as a whole. It then featured selfies of individuals affected by the lack of work brought about by the coronavirus, many of them my friends and former colleagues.
It stated our aims, our hopes, our pleas for assistance. Finally, it proudly showed the campaign was driven by Bectu members and was in solidarity with the other unions, associations, federations, trusts, organisations, and campaigns that are loudly and desperately calling for timely and practical aid from the government during this crisis.
One of these campaigns is the huge and wide reaching #WeMakeEvents campaign, who at the time were well into the planning stages of their day of action on Tuesday 11 August.
They approached me during a Zoom call and asked if they could use the video content and if I knew of any other groups looking to make a statement that would like to tie into their campaign to make our collective voices louder.
With our aims being so aligned it was an easy decision to say: “Yes, absolutely, whatever we can do to help.” After that things came together quickly.
I was invited onto a podcast with a group of other professionals in the same situation. From there I was asked if I would like to take part on the 11th by joining them and some journalists on a boat with the aim of making our case.
My answer by default for all of these requests is to say: “Yes, absolutely, whatever I can do to help.”
Protest boat a surreal experience
Being on the boat was a surreal experience. In normal circumstances chatting to Billboard magazine about guerilla projections and supporting all sectors of the industry in order to come out the other side of this crisis intact would be strange and wonderful.
But for it to happen on an open top boat heading down the Thames with a huge number of comrades, colleagues and friends lining the banks and bridges was a unique experience.
I described the atmosphere on the night as being like a wake after a funeral. There’s familiar faces and old friends, you have a drink in your hand and you almost find yourself enjoying the moment until you remember the reason you’re there.
At those points I would find the organisers and implore them to put me in front of a journalist quickly. The need to not waste the moment was forefront in my mind.
Friends have asked me since if I enjoyed the boat trip. I love boats, more so than the average person. But no, I didn’t have fun, I had a job to do and to keep doing. The introductions made that night will hopefully become stories from those like me aboard, the freelancers, the workers, to get our voices heard better.
Solidarity in the time of coronavirus
The common thread throughout all this is the need, the absolute and urgent need for solidarity in these desperate times.
We projected the grim reality of our industry on to the Houses of Parliament in desperation to bring attention to our situation.
#WeMakeEvents heard us and asked us to join our voices with theirs to highlight not just our roles, but also the suppliers, the manufacturers, the venues, the artists and everyone in our sector in a unified loud and desperate plea.
We are the events industry; we need help from government to survive this crisis as surely as we need each other in order to get back to doing the jobs we love. The only way through this is together. Solidarity.