Jason Maindonald, the man behind the Havre des Pas Seaside Festival, claimed it had almost reached the stage where, ‘unless there is some miracle, there might not be any events’.
And James Robertson, who runs the Events Shop, said organisers had been left ‘frustrated’ and ‘bitterly disappointed’ after the reopening date was once again pushed back.
The Island is due to host several large festivals later this year, with the 10,000-capacity Weekender Festival scheduled for 4 and 5 September, while Electric Park is due to take place two weeks later. The Out There dance music festival is planned for 21 and 22 August.
Stage seven of the Island’s reconnection roadmap would see all final restrictions lifted and would enable nightclubs to reopen, stand-up drinking to resume and large-scale events to take place. At this point, the limit on the number of people allowed to gather in homes and gardens would also be removed.
However, with a surge in cases – which yesterday hit 1,731 – and predictions that as many as 500 new cases a day could be identified next week, ministers put the brakes on the Island’s final easing of restrictions, citing 5 August as the earliest date when such a move could take place.
Mr Robertson said: ‘The industry had a feeling that it was not going to happen but we were not given any communication in the meantime. That has been the big frustration.
‘The summer season is decimated. You cannot call it a season. Usually things start firing up around Liberation Day, and June, July and August are the busiest months. The best we can hope for now is middle of August but the damage has been done.’
He added that large events took months of planning and that the final lifting of restrictions would not suddenly allow the industry to restart.
‘I don’t tend to have events with a lead-in time of anything less than three months. I am going to be lucky to get anything before September now.
‘Government has a serious lack of understanding about how our business works. You can’t just turn the tap on and everything comes flowing back. We need some lead-in time,’ he said.
He added that every government delay led to more cancellations and that ministers had failed to engage with the industry about the difficulties businesses were facing.
Guernsey’s Covid strategy has largely allowed the island to continue as normal, albeit with tougher travel restrictions, while the UK government is planning to ease most restrictions on Monday, with several large events due to take place this month.
Mr Maindonald said: ‘Why has Guernsey got it so right for the second year in a row when we have got it so horribly wrong? Guernsey had all its events last year. That is what I struggle with.
‘We only got told when we watched [the briefing] on Facebook. I think all the organisers would feel better if we just had some dialogue and knew what was happening. That is what all of us have been asking for.’
He said that if the 500-a-day case-rate prediction was correct, it could be ‘the middle of September before you can start contemplating opening back up again’.
‘I have spoke to a lot of events companies that have been decimated by what is happening,’ he said.
JP Anquetil, who runs Rojo nightclub, said he was ‘lucky’ that he had already cancelled the Wonky Festival which had been scheduled for this weekend.
‘We would have had contractors on site this week who would still have had to be paid,’ he said. ‘The government has said it has done plenty to help but I don’t think it has been targeted in the right places. In the UK, nearly every festival and nightclub has had some sort of grant to help them. This is going to be two years now of not running the festival and trying to keep it going.’
