KUALA LUMPUR: 7 April 2020: The ARTS, LIVE FESTIVALS AND EVENTS ASSOCIATION (ALIFE) supports the Director General of Health, YBhg Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Bin Abdullah’s advise on being cautious in participating in mass gatherings in the coming months as the country continues to mitigate the spread of Covid-19.
“In the Covid-19 era, any gatherings will be deemed as a risky activity. As live events organisers, we understand that ensuring the safety and health of our attendees are of utmost importance. Thus, as the guardians of the events industry, ALIFE has formed a task force which comprised both local and international players and will draft a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for management of events with preventative measures,” said Rizal Kamal, President of ALIFE.
This new SOP is part of ALIFE’s strategy in the recovery of Live Events post COVID-19. The post-pandemic SOP in events organisation includes will include providing acceptable standards of screening and other health protocols in the continuous effort to mitigate the spread of COVID 19, which will also increase our readiness of potential health threats in the future.
The task force, which combined industry players from the live and business events eco-system, from events organisers, venue owners, ticketing, F&B to security, will be working closely with renowned health and technology consultants, and benchmark global best practices to produce the most current and effective preventative, screening and sanitisation efforts.
“As an organization that champions the industry, we are working toward ensuring the recovery of live and business events post the pandemic and evolve to cater to the new norm. The goal is for the live and business events industry to start operating again, in smaller scale beginning August this year and gradually move on to larger scales, thus slowly revitalizing the tourism industry,” added Rizal.
The ALIFE Task Force will be presenting the new proposed Live Events Industry SOP to the relevant authorities such as Ministry of Health and Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture for their feedback and guidance. ALIFE hopes that with close public and private partnership, events can be revitalized and will help jump-start our nation’s economy.
The global live events industry which comprise live concerts, comedy, music festivals, exhibitions, expo and meetings, have been brought to a complete standstill since the onset of Covid-19 and the local spread of the virus in February this year. ALIFE has been working tirelessly to support members of the association by facilitating dialogues with various ministries and local bodies in trying to secure aid from the government to keep business owners, event organisers, vendors and suppliers as well as event venues and spaces afloat through this unprecedented, challenging times.
“ALIFE estimated a loss of over MYR1.5 billion in the live and business events industry for the year 2020 and just like all other industries affected by this pandemic, we are anxiously awaiting the day it will be business as usual,” Rizal added further.
