'Reopen Every Venue Safely' Initiative Launches in Eight Cities

Music Cities Together, a joint initiative between Washington D.C.-based Music Policy Forum (Michael Bracy) and Austin-based Sound Music Cities (Don Pitts) committed to helping local officials in cities across America improve their music ecosystems, has announced the Reopen Every Venue Safely (REVS) initiative, according to Variety.

Portland, Seattle (King County), New Orleans, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Austin, Albuquerque and Chicago are the first eight cities on board with the REVS pilot program.

The program aims to "develop and disseminate action plans and budgets rooted in a hyper-pragmatic understanding of the challenges ahead" in the COVID-19 era.

"We all want live music back as quickly and safely as possible, says Bracy. "This can only happen through unprecedented levels of communication and partnership between local governments, venues and communications experts to make sure venues are safe and music workers and audiences are protected," he added.

Pitts added that "for live music to reopen, government officials require direct and coordinated access to venue owners and other music businesses to ensure they are included in reopening strategies."

Bracy and Pitts hope to share data and "best practices" tips across the eight cities between city officials and venue owners in an effort to best strategize ways to effectively ensure venues can open safely in a coming era where social distancing may be the new normal, temperature checks at the door might be a potential mandated safety check, and city-imposed reduced capacity numbers might also become a reality, at least in the short term, for several cities until the threat of the coronavirus is eliminated.

Read the original article on Variety