Music Venue Trust replies to Prime Minister's comments that rapid testing could help reopen venues

During his Downing Street press conference on Monday (15 February), Boris Johnson suggested that the use of "rapid" lateral flow COVID-19 tests (which can give results in 30 minutes) could help "those parts of the economy we couldn't get open last year".

According to Music Week, the UK Prime Minister added, "I think that, in combination with vaccination, will probably be the route forward."

Music Venue Trust CEO Mark Davyd has since responded to Johnson's comments, revealing that Music Venue Trust is ready for a rapid testing system.

Davyd said, "Music Venue Trust has already created the possibility of two pilot sites to host events featuring rapid testing and a range of other mitigation measures intended to deliver live music in a safe setting. How rapid testing might work to deliver such events safely needs to be tested, and we look forward to working with the government to undertake that work as soon as possible."

"Rapid testing and other forms of health passporting, including vaccination certification, represent one of a range of opportunities to deliver events safely, which we have been discussing with the government since July 2020," Davyd added. "A vital element of that work, for our sector, is ensuring that it recognises everyone's right to privacy in balance with music venues' need and duty to protect our staff and customers. Any plan for a health passport must contain rigorous safeguards against excluding people unable to be vaccinated or take part in rapid testing."

The Music Venue Trust CEO also questioned why the UK government are not looking to use vaccine passports to help reopen the economy, "It's unclear to us why the government supports rapid testing and certification to enter music venues but apparently does not wish to see exactly the same process used to understand and manage risk using the vaccination process. This presents the possibility that someone who has been vaccinated might need to also be rapid tested, which seems counterintuitive. If there is going to be a need to show evidence of being a 'safe customer', surely we want to provide people with the most number of opportunities to do that?"

In other comments to the PA news agency (via Wandsworth Times), Davyd revealed that rapid testing may provide financial hurdles if the venues are expected to carry them out themselves, "If we are imagining that every venue would carry out its own rapid test, that quickly moves into the realms of not making a lot of financial sense and also being a nightmare to administer and frankly being quite risky in terms of how efficient the testing would be." He added, "If we can rely on the rapid testing centres, then I think it’s definitely a contributor towards getting events back."

Discussions over a health or vaccination passport come after You Check announced trials of its health passport at London's 100 Club and The Exchange in Bristol to take place in March.