It’s looking like we could be seeing two summers pass without concert festivals, as it may be as late as 2022 or 2023 before festivals rev up again, according to the Chief Medical Officer.
Thinking of getting your summer festival on once the cold weather comes and goes? Well, think again, as we may not be able to go to music festivals for a long time to come.
Although the current global pandemic is rapidly slowing down in Australia, we shouldn’t anticipate everything popping back to complete normalcy for a long while.
With COVID-19 leaving the world in a state of shutdown, it seems that many health officials and government leaders fear that numbers could soar upwards if we lift all restrictions too quickly.
Maybe once the news about 57% of triple j listeners happily voting that they’d go to a music festival before a vaccine hit news outlets, the Chief Medical Officer realised that he needed to be a bit more stern about what us punters should expect.
On Wednesday, Chief Medical Officer Professor Brendan Murphy announced that any large-scale gathering, including, but not limited to, “big music festivals” would “certainly” be out of the picture until a vaccine is developed.
Even though many festivals have already rescheduled their previously cancelled dates, like the NSW festival Splendour In The Grass (which have insisted that they plan to go ahead with their rescheduling in October), it seems like these mass gatherings could be off the table for a while, yet.
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New Years festival Lost Paradise has similarly decided to not yet call off their upcoming festival, with promoter Simon Beckingham telling triple j’s Hack that there’s “a sense of optimism” for Aussie festivals to continue.
“If Australia is on top of the coronavirus,” he began, “and there isn’t any international travel then I don’t see why we have to wait for a vaccine.”
However, University of Queensland virologist Ian Mackay rebutted, stating that “gathering hundreds or thousands together would be a mistake” without a vaccine widely available.
