Organisers of The Good Business Festival at ACC Liverpool, part of the Government’s Event Research Programme (ERP) said the atmosphere was “electric” at the event and attendees didn’t want to leave.

Liverpool is playing a huge role in the ERP. Tonight, 30 April, will see the Circus nightclub host the first of two 3,000-capacity shows with acts including Fat Boy Slim and Sven Väth. Then on Sunday, 5,000 people will attend a sold-out outdoor show, organised by Festival Republic, at Sefton Park.

No social distancing or face coverings are required at The ERP events. The BRIT Awards on May 11 at London’s O2 Arena will welcome 4,000 guests as part of the programme.

The events follow the results of a 5,000-capacity indoor pilot concert in Barcelona that showed that it had no impact on the spread of Covid-19.

Faye Dyer, managing director of The ACC Liverpool Group said that including staff and media, The Good Business Festival was attended by around 550 people.

“It was exciting and emotional to see people coming back through the doors again,” she said. “There was a lot of laughter and confidence among delegates and by the end people were deep in conversation standing close together – many didn’t want to leave.”

Delegates were required to take a lateral flow test within 24 hours prior to attending and were encouraged to take a free at-home PCR test on the day of the event and also five days afterwards. The negative test result was integrated into TicketQuarter’s platform to verify digital tickets with ingress enabled via a QR code.

TicketQuarter is also handling ticketing for The Circus and Sefton Park shows.