06/12/2021
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Monday 6th December 2021.
The Event Industry Alliance attended the Hospitality and Tourism Forum, Immediate access to supports required.
The Event Industry Alliance, today attended the hospitality and tourism forum, hosted by Minister Catherine Martin T.D., and attended by An Taoiseach Micheál Martin, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar T.D., and Minister McGrath along with department officials.
We welcome the engagement and acknowledge the fact that this has recently improved.
Today our key ask was immediate direct support.
We used the opportunity to reiterate our asks as follows:
1. Immediate access to targeted industry specific supports- via the CRSS/or look alike scheme, reinstatement of the EWSS and similar supports.
It took quite some time for supports to get through to the wider event sector. With a large part of our costs being made up of labour these supports will have a direct impact on the industry.
Many businesses have reactivated in preparation for the busy Christmas period, and onwards to the new year and now faces huge losses during what should have been a recovery period.
The eligibility criteria needs to be reviewed and simplified, and we would ask for further engagement here.
The budget submission ask was €130m, with only €25m being allocated directly. This has been increased but this still falls well short of what is required especially given the current situation. The event industry represents €3.5bn, so this is a worthwhile investment.
2. The previously requested cross department taskforce to enable more efficient communications and arrive at and influence decisions at a faster pace.
Furthermore,
Recent mixed communications and release of information on restrictions have had an extremely negative impact on our industry. While we recognise release of information needs to happen, the method of how it is released needs to managed to minimise the impact on the industry and allow business and people to prepare.
The initial release of information on the recent round of restrictions on our industry saw millions in revenues wiped immediately.
Some of our members sit across the event and hospitality industry and as a result of how the recent communications were issued, we saw November week on week trade down 85% in some circumstances.
Finally,
Targeted, meaningful supports are required and made available to the wider event sector.
As stated on many occasions, The Event Sector is a very large, diverse industry, with tens of thousands of people employed directly and hundreds of thousands of people employed indirectly and via connected industries. The sector is worth billions of euros in revenue, and spans numerous business types and sizes from small local events to Internationally recognised large scale commercial live events, cutting edge world class business events, summits, exhibitions, trade show, weddings, event sponsorship activity, as well as outdoor entertainment operators such as funfairs and circuses, and has hundreds of SME’s and suppliers involved in supporting every aspect of this once thriving industry.
The Event Industry Alliance is an umbrella organisation representing 10 key event specific event organisations from across the wider event sector, industry both the live sector AND the wider event sector, formed in response to the pandemic and serves to pull these key organisations together as a unified voice.
ENDS.
The EIA represent:
Aoife FestivalEvents: Association of Irish Festivals and Events
EIAI - Event Industry Association of Ireland
EIA- Event Industry Alliance
EII - Event Industry Ireland
EPIC - Event Production Industry C19 working group
IEOA- Irish Exhibition Organisers Association
ISG- Irish Showmens Guild (Funfairs &Circuses).
WBA -Wedding Band Association
VOPF- Venue Operators and Promoters forum.
Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media
Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment (Ireland)
