Don’t be surprised if you are seeing red In the night of 22 June.  From around 10 pm many concert halls and theatres will be displaying red lights to draw attention to their precarious future as a result of the Corona Crisis and draw attention to the still present limitations that are still in place and threatening their future.  It’s a nationwide action that will involve some 140 locations in the Bonn-Cologne area alone, including Blue Shell and E-Werk in Cologne and The Harmonie in Bonn.  It will be the NIGHT OF LIGHT.

Since mid-March, the event industry has practically not made any sales. Unlike the manufacturing sector, lost sales can no longer be made up, and nothing can be produced “in stock”; most companies in the event industry are service providers. Even if high demand were possible after the crisis ended, the loss suffered can no longer be compensated for. The event industry as a whole is one of the largest sectors of the German economy and has around 1 million direct employees. Annual sales of around EUR 130.0 billion are generated. If you add the cultural and creative industries with their event-related sub-markets and supply markets, more than three hundred thousand companies in more than 150 disciplines employ more than 3 million people and achieve an annual turnover of over 200 billion euros! *

Due to the provisional ban on major events until August 31, 2020 and a subsequent preliminary planning for events, there is an 80 – 100% loss of sales over a period of at least eight months. This creates an acute risk of bankruptcy for the entire industry. It is important to draw the public’s attention to the particularly hard-hit event management industry and to make it clear that current aid in the form of credit programs is not sufficient. Since these loans cannot be invested to create value, but have to be used to cover operating costs, this leads to renewed insolvency in connection with over-indebtedness of the companies and institutions concerned after the loans have been used up.  A large sector of the performing Arts is on a red list towards extinction –  The red lights are a warning that help is needed from the Government – NOW!

More details to NIGHT OF LIGHT are HERE