Speaker 1: It's Friday, September. I'm Oscar and Mirrors from the Daily
Speaker 1: Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is reopening America.
Speaker 1: Music festivals and the live events industry are trying to
Speaker 1: create their own bubbles to get people out again. One
Speaker 1: strategy that is being explored is two stage COVID testing.
Speaker 1: Get a test a few days before the event, and
Speaker 1: then another quick test before you can get in. While
Speaker 1: there are some limitations, this could be a model to
Speaker 1: get live events going again. Michelle Luke, independent counterculture journalists
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg News, joins us for more. Thanks for joining us, Michelle,
Speaker 1: Thank you. You know, as we're trying to get things
Speaker 1: back to normal, there's a lot of different ways to
Speaker 1: go about it. One thing in particular that I know
Speaker 1: a lot of people are missing want to get back
Speaker 1: to normal with is music. Live music, music festivals. There's
Speaker 1: you know, it runs the gamut. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: things that are going out there. But right now, music
Speaker 1: festivals are trying to create their own bubbles to get
Speaker 1: people to get out there and enjoy that once again.
Speaker 1: So they're looking at these kind two stage COVID testing.
Speaker 1: Maybe test before a few days, then you're going to
Speaker 1: get a quick test at the door, and if all's good,
Speaker 1: you can go inside and party. So there's already been
Speaker 1: one festival who tried this out. This is over the
Speaker 1: Labor Day holiday. Michelle tell us a little bit about
Speaker 1: that and then the broader strategy overall. So that festival
Speaker 1: was called Utopia. It took place in the Poconist Mountains
Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania. It was an LGBT festival, and I think
Speaker 1: that the promoter told me that he was really looking
Speaker 1: for a wave for his community to come back together,
Speaker 1: so he was actually replicating a model that another festival
Speaker 1: did a couple of months ago, where they also did
Speaker 1: two stage testing. And basically how it works is that
Speaker 1: before attending the festival, about four days before, you have
Speaker 1: to go to a medical facility or order it at
Speaker 1: home COVID test and those were sent to a lab
Speaker 1: and then once you got the all clear from that,
Speaker 1: you were able to sort of car pool to the
Speaker 1: festival and you and your car be placed into a
Speaker 1: quarantine area six ft apart where everyone took a rapid test.
Speaker 1: And what was really interesting to me is that they
Speaker 1: actually managed to screen out some people who tested positive.
Speaker 1: I think in total around six attendees had to be
Speaker 1: turned away, and so a few of the attendees who
Speaker 1: managed to make it through the gates also told me
Speaker 1: that even though you know, it was extra money and
Speaker 1: a lot more effort to attend the festival, the sense
Speaker 1: of freedom that they got on the other side made
Speaker 1: it worth it. Yeah, and I'm sure there's a lot
Speaker 1: of people that are willing to go through those steps
Speaker 1: to get out there and enjoy themselves once again. But
Speaker 1: let's talk about some of those hurdles. Obviously, there's a
Speaker 1: cost associated with this for the attendees and for the
Speaker 1: event promoters. You know, the costs are gonna I'm sure
Speaker 1: double in some parts of it. And then there's also
Speaker 1: kind of the logistics of all of that too. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's more time intensive, right, You're getting tested days
Speaker 1: before the line to get inside is probably that much longer.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about some of those things. So one
Speaker 1: thing while writing this story that I wanted to figure out,
Speaker 1: you know, it's could this method work for other festivals
Speaker 1: or is it only applicable to like a certain type.
Speaker 1: And I think in general, yeah, it doesn't really work
Speaker 1: for festivals where people aren't camping on site. Because of
Speaker 1: the nature of creating a bubble, you kind of have
Speaker 1: to stay within the ground for the entire time. Even
Speaker 1: leaving to go to like, you know, a grocery store
Speaker 1: to pick up some supplies or something could compromise everybody.
Speaker 1: So that's one of the hurdles. I think that it
Speaker 1: doesn't really work for larger festivals like let's say Coachella. Also,
Speaker 1: the promoters told me that when it came down to
Speaker 1: the numbers, you know, he had to really beef up
Speaker 1: his staff in order to provide the kind of attention
Speaker 1: that you would need to do all of the testing
Speaker 1: and just give people sort of like reminders to wear
Speaker 1: masks and things like that. There's just more staffing needs.
Speaker 1: So his staffing costs went from ten percent to so
Speaker 1: pretty much doubled, and the testing altogether took up thirty
Speaker 1: percent of his budget. So this wasn't really a money
Speaker 1: making operation for him. He said he saw it as
Speaker 1: more of an investment in his future because he's planning
Speaker 1: to keep doing this again. He already has another that
Speaker 1: can come for Halloween. In that specific example, I guess
Speaker 1: the prophet margin was about eight percent compared to an
Speaker 1: average oft before the pandemic, so definitely not a big
Speaker 1: money maker on that front, which you know would put
Speaker 1: a lot of promoters off. And you know we're talking
Speaker 1: about also huge festivals like Coachella. Let's say, it would
Speaker 1: be so hard to get some of this done, and
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, if you're not camping there, it breaks
Speaker 1: the bubble. There's a lot of stuff that goes into this.
Speaker 1: But they're really looking at this model as something that
Speaker 1: could at least hold them over for now, because you know,
Speaker 1: a vaccine is still gonna take some time. Beyond that,
Speaker 1: to get people actually vaccinated in large numbers is going
Speaker 1: to take time, and in the meantime, you know, these
Speaker 1: events promoters want to get back to action. People wanted
Speaker 1: to They want that escape. They don't want to be
Speaker 1: closed down anymore. So they're still kind of looking at
Speaker 1: this two testing stage thing as a possibility exactly. And
Speaker 1: I think it's such an interesting time for nightlife and
Speaker 1: music events. You know a lot of promoters have not
Speaker 1: been doing anything, or they've you know indefinitely post full
Speaker 1: or in some cases we've seen some festivals kind of
Speaker 1: schedule some things for one. So you know, on one hand,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of events organizers just don't feel
Speaker 1: like it's safe to be doing anything right now, and
Speaker 1: they really pushed back on anyone throwing events. So that's
Speaker 1: another part of the conversation that I thought was very interesting.
Speaker 1: But then you have promoters like the one who was
Speaker 1: behind this festival who really think that there is a
Speaker 1: light at the end of the tunnel, and that's focusing
Speaker 1: on COVID testing is one way that they can do
Speaker 1: this now and create a community that you know, is
Speaker 1: engaged with them during this strange pandemic time. And to me,
Speaker 1: I think another side of the story was to kind
Speaker 1: of try to figure out if COVID testing is accurate
Speaker 1: enough to make this a viable solution. To me, that's
Speaker 1: what the story really hinged on, right like can we
Speaker 1: trust the COVID testing. That's in a very important point
Speaker 1: because the classic test, the nasal swabs, the ones that
Speaker 1: are sent to labs, are a lot more reliable than
Speaker 1: these rapid response tests. So you might be getting something
Speaker 1: a few days ahead of time that says you're good,
Speaker 1: and then rapid response test the day of could give
Speaker 1: you maybe a false positive or false negative things like that.
Speaker 1: So that's definitely another thing to be ware of. So
Speaker 1: I actually took this question all the way up to
Speaker 1: the New York City Department of Health as well as
Speaker 1: the Office of Nightlife to try and figure out as
Speaker 1: we should get some guidelines from you know, city officials,
Speaker 1: and unfortunately, you know, what was striking to me is
Speaker 1: that both of these departments kind of told me that
Speaker 1: they basically couldn't comment, that they couldn't really say without
Speaker 1: any clear guidance from city officials. This answer is a
Speaker 1: little bit difficult to answer, but the fact is that
Speaker 1: organizers of events are doing it anyway. And I guess,
Speaker 1: you know, the promoter of this festival recently told me
Speaker 1: that he had zero confirmed cases after the festival, so
Speaker 1: I guess you know, there's that. Yeah, I mean, that's great,
Speaker 1: and that's what people look to. You know, you try
Speaker 1: this kind of experiment, did it work, and then you
Speaker 1: can build off of that. So it's an interesting thing
Speaker 1: and everybody's trying to get back to normal. So this
Speaker 1: is just one aspect of exploring that. Michelle Luke, Independent
Speaker 1: counterculture journalists at Bloomberg News, thank you very much for
Speaker 1: joining us. Thank you for my Oscar Ramirez, and this
Speaker 1: has been reopening America, don't forget defforts days big news stories.
Speaker 1: You can check me out on the Daily Dive podcast
Speaker 1: every Monday the Friday. The follow us on I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio or wherever you get your podcast