ALICANTE. “Valencians and Valencians, the restrictions have almost died.” And with them, life has increased in the streets, on the terraces and, soon, the night movement due to the fall of the curfew starting tomorrow, Tuesday, June 8, in the Region. Despite the relaxation of the rules, the increase in capacity and the greater permissiveness of certain actions, there are still sectors that are tremendously affected and whose recovery will be slow and no one said it was easy. The hospitality industry is one of those sectors touched and culture, too. And if they come together, touched and sunk. The son between the two could be the concert halls, where live music has been banned for practically the entire state of alarm.
The pandemic has turned live music into a poisoned gift: the public appreciates it and, although concert halls do too, agree that It is not very profitable now because of the reduced capacity, the artists’ cache or the ticket prices. That is why some spaces have decided not to program live music for the moment, such as the Jendrix Rock Bar, a Alicante pub famous for its DJ sessions. Your manager, Juli Mohedano, has confessed to Alicante Plaza what, with the capacity allowed and the closing at 2:00 am, they cannot afford “the luxury” of hiring a DJ. Even more so when they have been closed for practically the entire pandemic.
“We opened a couple of weeks in August, but when we closed we realized that the economic costs for those 15 days of operation were too high. At Christmas we tried for a few days, but we also had to close. We did less on New Year’s Eve than on a normal day “, exposes the situation. The Jendrix will start up again during this second week of June, in which the Valencian government has relaxed restrictions on nightlife. But Mohedano is aware that this reopening will be “limited” and trust the DJs to return to the pub “when the numbers balance. Before September or October we will not re-program”, come on.
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At the other end is the sanjuanera Euterpe room, which resumed the concerts in April 2021, although with a much lower audience than usual. “The normal capacity is 115 people, but with the restrictive measures they can fit 30. With these figures, at an economic level it is unsustainable and the income deficit, atrocious, “he outlines. Fran Bordonado, manager of the room together with his partner Raquel Molina. Despite being corseted in terms of audience, the ‘cultural pub’ has designed a day and evening program, although it is aware that “as long as you cannot have a standing audience in the concert halls, it will be very difficult for it to be profitable. It is very likely that this summer we will not program or that we will program very specific things. With the full capacity of the old normality, the numbers were already coming out badly. “
However, Bordonado is confident that after the summer a common protocol or regulation will be drawn up that will allow for a little more stability. “The current measures are valid for 15 days, so it is not worth putting together a plan. We are waiting for them to draft legislation that will last at least a quarter to prepare the October, November and December campaign “. At the moment, the venue wanted to regain the habit of consuming live music, since around 400 days passed from the last concert until the programming was resumed.
In this sense, the manager says that from March to June 2020 Euterpe had to cancel more than 35 concerts, although at first they were “optimistic” and only canceled the programming one month away. “The surprise was capital”, expresses Bordonado before what was the reality. In the summer of last year the room did not organize live music and only opened with a hotel service. However, the August decree forced what is considered to be nightlife to lower the blinds again and Euterpe raised them again only a few days at Christmas. “It was an act to indicate to people that we were still here, “he reveals.
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“To this day we still do not know what the solution is to recover from this (the closure, the cancellations …)”, he declares Pau Chisbert, communication director of one of the great halls of the province of Alicante, the sanvicentera The One, which for now has suppressed live music and will work “as a disco, at least until September.” Chisbert agrees with Bordonado on the need to develop a common action plan and to stick to a date to work on, since designing a musical program requires time.
With this lacking panorama, The One intends to start its new programming “last September. I do not know if as in the old normality, but we do hope that concerts can be made that remind us a little of what we lived before March 2020, “he sets the goal. In addition, live music has a particularity:” It is a table with many legs (living room expenses, talking to the artist to lower the cache because fewer people come …) You have to find a balance between so many people that right now there is no solution “.
“It’s something that is also happening at festivals,” says the communication director of the Pirata Rock Festival in Gandía. “Although this year they can be celebrated with reduced capacity, many of them decide not to organize them because they are not profitable. The artist has a cache and, if fewer people come, either you raise some tickets at abusive prices to be able to pay for it or it doesn’t pay off.“, reasons the problem.
Despite the fact that the Pirate continues to be announced, Chisbert is aware that the cancellation is a possibility that is on the table and the difference is that “insecurity is greater in the management teams of a festival like El Pirata than in The One room. In the latter we hope to organize concerts with a minimum of normality before the end of the year, but the festivals are they have turned into massive events; if 40,000 people do not go, it is not done because it is not profitable. So even though we are still advertised, each day that passes the hope is a little smaller“.
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