No jabs, no show: Adelaide Festival, Fringe consider ticket ban on unvaccinated showgoers

The Adelaide Festival and Fringe will consider allowing only fully vaccinated people to attend shows in their programs next year.

The Adelaide Festival and Fringe will consider requiring audience members to be double vaccinated to attend shows in their programs next year.

Other major event organisers are also looking at the “vaccination passport” concept in order to reintroduce major concert tours and music festivals, as well as sporting and cultural events.

However, the South Australian Jockey Club said it was “too early to speculate” on entry requirements for the Adelaide Cup, which is also held in March.

Festival artistic directors Rachel Healy and Neil Armfield recently travelled to shows and events in Europe and the UK, where similar vaccination requirements are already in effect.

Adelaide Festival artistic directors Rachel Healy and Neil Armfield were given permission to travel to Europe, the UK and US to source acts for its programs. Picture: Tricia Watkinson

“It was incredibly instructive in terms of Covid management plans and which countries are doing it well,” Ms Healy said.

“We’ve seen what Australia will be in six months’ time. It was just fantastic to see audiences – particularly in Europe – back in theatres at full capacity and observing all the health settings.

“It felt seamless, well organised, as safe as possible – and artists were back at work.”

Fringe director Heather Croall said it also had been closely watching Covid management at festivals and events in Europe and around the world.

“If SA Health was to make vaccination passport on entry a requirement … we would be supportive of that, seeing how successful it has been overseas,” Ms Croall said.

“Countries that have been in lockdown for many months are now enjoying enormous festivals and concerts, and living life – it seems it is a great way to open up.”

Much will depend on the success of national rollout and whether the double vaccination target of 70 to 80 per cent of the population is achieved.

Adelaide Fringe director Heather Croall, second from right, with performers Roshanne De Silva Wijeyeratne, Elizabeth Dawson-Smith and Yasemin Sabuncu. Picture: Emma Brasier

“It looks like that could happen before December in South Australia,” Ms Croall said.

Ms Healy said that she and Mr Armfield, who also travelled for work in the US, were “100 per cent supportive” of the double vaccination.

“The Adelaide Festival is a statutory authority so we will respond to SA Health’s requirements,” she said.

“However, a number of commercial promoters have come out in the past couple of weeks and announced that their festivals and events will require either proof of vaccination or evidence of a negative Covid test 48 hours prior.

“That is consistent with where Europe and the UK have gone.”

In the US last month, major international tour promoter Live Nation said it would require all artists, crew and attendees to show proof of full vaccination or a negative test at their venues and festivals from October 4.

“Vaccines are going to be your ticket back to shows,” Live Nation chief executive Michael Rapino said.

The company will follow a model developed for its Lollapalooza music festival in Chicago in July-August.

Roger Field, president of Live Nation Asia-Pacific – which presents the Download Festival, Splendour In The Grass and Falls Festival in Australia – said that proof of vaccination or a negative test was an effective way of getting fans back to big events.

“In Australia, when the timing is right, we need to work with government to explore and trial these kinds of initiatives as a way to get the show back on the road,” Mr Field said.

An SAJC spokesman said it would work through its admissions plan for the Adelaide Cup at Morphettville Racecourse on March 7 “at the appropriate time”.

“Like all major event venues, we are actively monitoring the discussion around vaccination minimums,” the spokesman said.

“However, it’s too early to speculate on what entry requirements what might be appropriate for the 2022 Adelaide Cup.”