Covid-19 Restrictions Return For NZ Music Venues
In an emergency announcement at 9.15pm last night, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Dr Ashley Bloomfield revealed there were four cases of Covid-19 detected in Auckland’s community. They declared the super city region will shift to Alert Level 3, and the rest of the country will move to Alert Level 2, for a period of “at least three days” from noon today, while the scale of the community transmission is assessed. This development sadly brings to an end Aotearoa’s much-touted status of no cases of Covid-19 in our community (at 101 days), confirming last week’s statement from Bloomfield that we all need to be actively vigilant in preventing the spread of Covid-19.
UPDATE 14/09/20: Auckland is to remain at Level "2.5", with the next review to take place on Monday 21st September, with a view to increasing gathering limits for events. Restrictions on public events are capped at 100 attendees (no groups of over 10 people, social distancing required) and seating / table service required. Private social gatherings are capped at 10 attendees / gatherings of up to 50 people are permitted for funerals and tangihanga.
The rest of Aotearoa outside of the super city boundaries will move to Alert Level 1 on 11.59pm on Monday 21st September, "contingent on cases tracking as they are."
What does this mean for Aotearoa’s music community?
Auckland: Live music venues can now host seated events of up to 100 people (max 10 people per group). Social gatherings are capped at 10 attendees — more details on Alert Level 2 specifically for Auckland here.
New Zealand outside of the Auckland super city boundaries: Alert Level 2 alert restrictions are in effect. Venue capacities will be capped at 100 attendees / gatherings of up to 100 are permitted. All public venues are asked to keep records to enable contact tracing. Stores can continue to be open but social distancing is required — more details on Alert Level 2 here.
We’ll keep you updated as more information comes to hand, as we did the last time around — all ticket holders to UTR events will be contacted via email of the updated event info.
How to help support our music community:
- For those who have the means to do so, we encourage ticket holders to consider opting to hold onto tickets, opting out of refunds and opting out of booking fee refunds.
- If you haven’t done so already, now is the time to download the contact tracer app and use it — download it here.
- Here are the health and hygiene guidelines to help prevent the spread of Covid-19 — please mask up.
- You can keep supporting your local record stores by ordering online.
One thing you can rely on is we will keep bringing you the very best local and international music news and more, during the latest curveball 2020’s thrown at us and beyond. We’re collectively crossing our fingers that further restrictions won’t be required — we’ll provide rolling updates for the above information as details become available.
Here's the full announcement from last night...
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