Christopher BarrettOn the back of research that found 40% of events supply chain businesses won’t survive until 1 June and 1/3 of employees have already left the sector, some of the biggest names in music, comedy and sport have taken part in a video campaign by #WeMakeEvents to raise awareness.
Sir Mick Jagger, Midge Ure, Katherine Jenkins, Paul Whitehouse, Angus Deayton, Griff Rhys Jones, Biffy Clyro, James Bay, Simon Callow, Sam Fender, Lucy Porter, and Stephen K Amos are those to take part in the campaign, which organisers said aims to raise awareness of 700,000 people in the supply chain, almost all of whom haven’t been able to work for twelve months.
The campaign, which includes a music video by Frank Turner, involves a TEXTING TEXTING ONETWO appeal to raise funds for impacted supply chain workers through industry charity Backup.
With an introduction by Simon Callow, the film features an array of artists providing their messages of support explaining how, without expert technicians, transporters, logistics experts, caterers, riggers and production staff, live events will be unable to return.
Frank Turner said, “The problem extends across the whole live events sector, with many in the events supply chain having been completely overlooked for financial support. The fact that anticipated events in August and July are sold out is testament to the Nation’s need to enjoy live events again but we need those highly-skilled people in order to deliver these events. Right now, many of them need financial support to get them through to a time where they can do that for us and earn again.”
Griff Rhys Jones said, “They have worked for us, now it’s time we worked for them.”
The campaign asks the public to make donations by texting word ONETWO followed by the amount you they want to donate to 70085 – for example to donate £5 text ONETWO5 to 70085.