THE ASSOCIATION of Music Managers and Organizers held a press conference in Zagreb to warn about the crisis that the coronavirus pandemic has caused in the music industry.

Darko Tucek, the president of the association, Alek El-Kazal, the project manager of Ultra Europe, Branko Paic, director of Scaradona, and a musician Indira Levak attended the press conference. Other musicians such as Mia Dimsic have joined via video call. 

Because of the situation caused by the coronavirus pandemic, more than 90 percent of all musical events have been canceled this year. The consequence of that is that the organizers of concerts, festivals, and other musical manifestations, production companies, musical managers, technicians, sound engineers, drivers, stagehands, electricians, security guards, agency workers, and many others, didn't generate almost any incomes in the last six months. They include more than 15,000 people and their families whose existence directly depends on the creative music industry, they warn. 

"For the last couple of months, we have been facing the lack of precise and on a national level agreed recommendations for concerts and other public gatherings, and the local coronavirus task forces are today arbitrarily deciding on the matter. So, the recommendations exist but are interpreted in different ways in a town or a county level. We had an idea to organize 20 concerts at 20 city stadiums, but we got only two positive answers, one of which had a limit of 1,000 people. Some of them pointed out that it will leave the consequences on the existing tourist season on the Adriatic coast. We are not allowed to work, which is why we made an appeal to the government for urgent implementation of measures for saving the industry which annually accumulates expenditure higher than 10 billion kunas, of which the state has a direct benefit," Darko Tucek, the Association of Music Managers and Organizers Director pointed out.

"Today we have a situation where Dubrovnik Summer Festival, Split Summer, Split Festival are taking place while at the same time, for example, Pula Film Festival and many other events are canceled due to the epidemiological measures. As things stand right now, with the prescribed measures, it's impossible to organize commercial concerts because from the start the organizer has expenses such as VAT rate of 13 percent on tickets, then 13 percent of the expenses for the ticket system, then ZAMP (Croatian Copyright Protection Service) 10 percent, and then all other expenses that are included in the concert organization," said Branko Paic, director of the record company Scardon.

"Since the beginning of the pandemic, around 30 of my concerts have been canceled, and my team is also among the 15,000 people that this industry employs. Our sector is one of the rare ones that actually stayed in the lockdown this entire time, and since every one of us who is doing this job is actually connected to many other industries and businesses, together we make a large chain; the existence of a large number of people is threatened today," said Indira Levak.

Alek El-Kazal, project manager of the Ultra Europe festival in Croatia, referred to the influence that music festivals such as Ultra have on the tourism sector and the total GDP and revenue. 

"In the last seven years, ULTRA Europe Festival guested more than a million visitors from more than 143 countries. During Ultra, in just one night, between 40,000 and 50,000 people stay in Split, who generate the total expenditure of more than 525 million kunas. It's clear how much financial influence do these events have on the Croatian economy," he said.

They also pointed out the economic measures that they consider crucial, and that are in connection to an urgent opening of a special line of credit in Croatian Bank for Reconstruction and Development modeled on the economic measure of solidarity for the tourism sector. They also include forming a special fund at the Ministry of Culture during the pandemic for all individuals from the music industry who worked via temporary service contracts and aren't receiving a minimal income. Besides that, the creative music industry representatives ask the government the retention of the current financial aid for preserving jobs, as well as reducing the tax burden for tickets to music manifestations by five percent, and setting up a fund to support the marketing activities in the music industry on the domestic and foreign media market.

They pointed out that the majority of the EU member states have already implemented urgent measures of grants with a goal to financially help the music industry. They say that Germany has so far given around 50 billion euros, Italy 130 million euros, and the UK 1.57 billion pounds, while Croatian companies in this sector are still waiting for the government's reaction.