What Does a Music Festival During a Pandemic Look Like? We’re About to Find Out

In any other year, music fans would be living out their summer music festival dreams right now—soaking in those blissful moments when a cool breeze wafts across your face just as your favorite band launches into their best song. But not this year. Due to the pandemic, every major music festival has been nixed. And yet, amid so many cancellations, two events are stepping into the void.

In late June, a poster for a metal festival in rural Ringle, Wisconsin hit the internet. It announced a three-day, 15-band event scheduled for July 16-18, ominously dubbed Herd Immunity Fest, seemingly referring to the phenomenon of spreading an infectious disease in order to achieve protection. The festival’s blasé outlook about a pandemic that has taken over 130,000 lives in the U.S. was quickly met with widespread disgust, and three bands dropped off the bill in response to the name and concerns about safety. A June 24 Facebook post by the fest’s venue, The Q & Z Expo Center, addressed the controversy by rescinding the “Herd Immunity” tag and clarifying that while its outdoor space can accommodate up to 10,000 people, only 2,500 tickets would be sold to allow for social distancing. The event now goes by the diminutive moniker July Mini Fest; three-day passes are still available for $105.50 each.

One of the bands to cancel was the Salt Lake City, Utah rock group Royal Bliss. Though the band has hosted socially distant acoustic shows at a local bar, July Mini Fest would have been its first proper show since mid-March. Guitarist Taylor Richards estimates that their cancelled dates have cost them more than $50,000 so far. Speaking over email, he says that every member of Royal Bliss had concerns about playing a music festival amid a pandemic, but at the time they were offered the opportunity, Wisconsin had not yet experienced the spikes they are now seeing. Then he saw the “Herd Immunity” poster. “I was like, ‘Oh no! Is this what we’re on? This is not good!’” he says. “As far as I know there wasn’t a name on it when we signed on. I thought it was an outdoor show at the Q & Z Expo Center, where we have played many times. They have great people up there at the Q & Z.”

As for additional safety precautions beyond the limited venue capacity, Richards was only told that festival-goers could bring their own campers to the grounds, like a drive-in concert. Given the fest’s unfortunate marketing and apparent lack of safeguards against spreading the virus, Royal Bliss’s label suggested to their management that they should pull out of the event. “Honestly, I was stoked!” Richards admits. “All I needed to hear was one person in our camp saying, ‘Let’s not do this,’ and we all fully agreed and made the call right then.”

In the two weeks since Royal Bliss dropped out of the fest, the coronavirus situation in Wisconsin has only gotten grimmer. On July 2, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services announced that the state has seen a recent surge in positive COVID-19 cases, noting that the uptick can be traced back to young people who have attended gatherings or parties. And according to a July 6 coronavirus situational report, cases in Marathon County, which includes Ringle, have doubled every week since May 25; as of this writing, the county, which has a population of around 135,000, has seen 240 positive cases and one death. In an op-ed published on a local website earlier this week, a gerontological nurse practitioner wrote that Marathon County residents are “particularly vulnerable to the virus,” pointing to factors such as obesity, poverty, and old age.

Since the Wisconsin Supreme Court overruled a stay-at-home order in May, the state’s 72 counties may mandate their own responses to COVID-19. In a statement to Pitchfork, Marathon County Health Department Public Information Officer Judy Burrows warns that large gatherings of people in close contact increases the risk of spreading the virus and urges concert-goers to follow government guidelines, but she adds that the county and state have no authority to prohibit events like the July Mini Fest. Marathon County officials are currently developing and disputing an ordinance that would potentially allow local health officials to limit mass gatherings and require face coverings in public.

The owners of the Q & Z Expo Center declined to comment for this story. The event’s Facebook description makes no mention of safety initiatives for the festival other than social distancing, and recent posts by venue owner Peggy Olson offered a glimpse into the frustrations of organizing such a contentious event: “OMG I’m going to start drinking.... I swear to God I am,” begins a post from July 1, announcing yet another lineup change.

Two days later, a much longer missive was published alongside a black-and-white photo of an earbud sitting on a piece of notebook paper that read “music=life.” The post acknowledged that bands have dropped off “for various reasons,” that the organizers have received both death threats and messages of thanks, and that, regarding the fest’s former name, “Herd immunity is not covid specific. Could it have been taken more of let’s get immune from all the negativity in this world for a few days?” A majority of the post hinges on the importance of live music. “Nobody has yet to show the world that live music can happen and happen safely. I can tell you what I am willing to do to bring live music back in everyone’s lives. It will be up to the ones that attend to show everybody how much live music means to them and fellow live music lovers from all over the world,” it reads. “If there are issues I would expect live shows will not happen for a very long time.”

Halfway across the country, another three-day event is taking a decidedly more considered approach to the pandemic summer festival. Featuring techno and house DJs, yoga, meditation, and even face mask decorating, In My Elements is an open-air retreat in northeastern Pennsylvania taking place this weekend, July 10-12.

Upon realizing that the pandemic was not going away, Brett Herman and Timothy Monkiewicz of the production company BangOn!NYC and the annual Elements Festival, began looking at cautious ways to have events. “We started with the question: Under what conditions can a limited-size gathering happen safely?,’’ Herman says. “People are going to gather no matter what,” Monkiewicz adds. “Even if the government says you can open, that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily safe. A lot of places are reopening irresponsibly and we are seeing spikes in COVID cases as a result.”

After consulting with various government agencies, in May the pair founded Tested Contained Retreats, a consultation and production company built around a rigorous two-part testing program. Earlier this week, In My Elements attendees were required to get tested for COVID-19 at sites in Boston, New York City, and Philadelphia, with results delivered within 48 hours. (Ninety percent of the event’s audience is from New York.) There was also a mail-in option in which guests received tests and provided a saliva sample, monitored by a doctor over Zoom. People are then set to arrive at the retreat in pre-scheduled windows, with vehicles separated 20 feet apart. At that point, they will have their temperature scanned and receive a COVID rapid test, with results coming back within an hour. If at any point before the event an attendee tests positive, they will be politely turned away with a refunded ticket, a $150 travel voucher, and a coupon code for a future event.

Beyond the testing, every aspect of In My Elements is designed with audience and staff safety in mind. The retreat is set to take place on an 80-acre lakeside summer camp that typically hosts 1,200 people but will only be filled to quarter capacity, or 225 people, at most. The general admission cabins where a majority of attendees will stay throughout the weekend will house up to six people, and guests must provide their own bedding. Meal plans are available, and the organizers suggest that any outside food and drink be disinfected in advance. Volunteers will be at every music and stage area to gently enforce social distancing, and there will also be measured markings on the ground as additional reminders.

One consequence of all these precautions is a high ticket price. A weekend pass—which includes a cabin bed plus the two COVID tests—costs $636. Private cabin upgrades go for $399 per cabin, and the meal plan is an additional $100. The organizers are aware that the expense is limiting, but Herman says that it currently “costs a fortune” to put on an event with the medical, security, and creative components necessary to keep everyone safe and entertained. “We want to get this one perfect for a very limited capacity, and bring down prices in the near future to be more accessible to all,” he adds. About three-quarters of the tickets to In My Elements have been sold, and the organizers say the event was designed to break even.

In My Elements’ focus on safety is a relief to some of its performers. Manfredi Romano, aka DJ Tennis, is cautiously optimistic. As he explains over Skype from his home in Miami, touring is his main source of income, and he estimates that he has lost around $100,000 since March. But in late April, when Romano was offered the In My Elements gig, he was more concerned with health and safety than money. “I said yes, with the condition that there was double testing and a no-photo policy,” he says, adding that images of groups on social media can often be misleading.

Romano notes that he was encouraged by the In My Elements organizers’ concern for their community, which is not necessarily the norm. Since the beginning of the pandemic, he has been offered gigs at private parties in the Hamptons, Miami, Ibiza, and Mykonos, but for the most part has declined, not only because of the impracticality of traveling across the globe to play a single event, but because he felt that the organizers were not taking safety seriously. And while he’s curious to see how the In My Elements crowd behaves, Romano won’t be sticking around longer than necessary. “I’m 49 years old, and I don’t feel safe at the moment, so I don’t want to risk it,” he says. “I go there and put a lot of passion into what I do, but I’m not going to hang out and party.”

Originally Appeared on Pitchfork