Concerts during a pandemic: Events lawyer shares recommended guidelines

Catching a concert used to be a fun way to unwind on the weekend.

But live music and sporting events are expected to be some of the last activities to resume in the midst of the coronavirus shutdown because they draw large crowds, making it hard to follow social distancing rules.

From buying concert tickets to going through security to where you stand or sit and how you enter a bathroom, the entire experience will be very different.

“Most artists that we tend to work with ... they definitely want to get back on stage, but they want everyone to feel safe first," Damon Hare, who books bands at an Atlanta venue, told WSB-TV. “So, it’s going to be hard to even book shows I think for a while, even if we can open.”

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So what will it take for venues to safely reopen?

Steven Adelman, vice president of the Event Safety Alliance, wrote a 30-page reopening guide about what concerts might look like moving forward.

“So, the first thing is there might be a lot fewer venues for you to go to. And the reason for that is the economics do not work right now for smaller venues,” Adelman told WSB-TV.

He said you’ll buy tickets online and you’ll be asked what time you want to line up to enter the club so you can socially distance.

“When you get to the front of the line, you’re going to have your temperature checked, and you’re also going to be asked questions like, ‘How’s your health?’ ‘Why are you perspiring?’ ... It’s getting hot out, so that requires more of an inquiry to find out if you’re healthy enough to enter a crowded place,” Adelman said.

Once inside, you’ll notice more changes to help you stay six feet away from others.

“You’ll see yellow or white tape that’s reflective on the floor marking out six lines in 6-foot squares, and that’s good,” Adelman said.

He told WSB-TV that ordering things like beers or a concert T-shirt will all be done on your cellphone, along with getting in line for the bathroom.

“You go to the restroom when your number comes up because you’ll get a push notification on your phone,” Adelman said.

For those venues able to reopen, the big question is, how soon will concerts start back up?

"We all want to be hopeful that it could happen later this year," Hare said.

“If I were an artist, I would absolutely not put my patrons in harm’s way by asking them to densely pack a stadium or arena. I would not do that until there was a vaccine or some other way of ensuring that my patrons would be healthy and safe," Adelman said.

Adelman said it will be key for concertgoers to follow the guidelines by wearing masks and keeping social distance to stay healthy and safe.

"A lot of people are going to be compliant. A lot of people won't be very excited to come back, very much, and I do think they'll want to follow it. But it's just -- it's a very hard thing to follow at the end of the day. We're all human," Hare said.

Many large stadiums have said there are so many unknowns about reopening that they don’t have anything to share yet.

WSB-TV reached out to Live Nation, which runs multiple venues, but didn’t hear back.