A new pilot Live Performance Support Scheme has been launched by the Department of Culture, Arts, Media, Tourism, Sport and the Gaeltacht to assist commercial venues, promoters, and producers in preparing for live performances, which may subsequently have to be curtailed, cancelled or postponed due to Covid-19.

The key aim of the Live performance Support Scheme is to assist commercial venues, producers and promoters of live performances to provide employment to workers in the creative industries while also producing high quality live performances for the public.

It is proving particularly challenging for project promoters currently to implement social distancing while also being commercially viable for live performances to take place. Social distancing is financially unviable for many live performances, however this sector is proactively working to achieve the right balance and implement measures to enable their industry to reopen as soon as it is safe, practicable and viable to do so; and this scheme aims to support the live performance sector in achieving this.

Conditions and aims of the scheme include:
– Support established commercial venues, promoters and producers , who do not ordinarily receive public funding, to provide employment opportunities in the sector during Covid-19,
– Enable live performances to go ahead where ticketed capacity is restricted due to the Covid-19 and subsequently requires funding assistance in order to make live performances viable,
– Provide financial support to defray additional production costs that may be caused by Covid-19,
– Applicants can apply for a grant from €10,000 to a maximum of €800,000 which can be used to fund eligible costs at a 75% funding rate,
– All grants will be paid out on the basis of paid invoices but the Department may consider providing some advanced prepayment of the grant under certain conditions,
– Only one application per venue, producer and producer will be considered
– Applications will only be accepted by email to liveperformance [at] chg.gov.ie until 1pm on the 25th September 2020.

See link below for further details.