Live Nation Will Now Require Proof of COVID Vaccination or Negative Test to Attend Events

Live Nation, the largest show promoter in the country, has updated its policy for any of its show, venue, and festival attendees starting this fall. Last week AEG laid out a blanket mandate that anyone working in its venues or attending of its shows needs to show proof of COVID vaccination and they would not be accepting any negative test results.

Live Nation previously took an approach where the artists could decide on the COVID status of attendees to their shows. Which would obviously make for some potential uneven rules at venues day by day and show by show. While Live Nation’s decision gives folks slightly more leeway, it’s still a positive decision for all involved and shows leadership in the live entertainment space. The company will now require all artists, crew members, and attendees to show proof of full vaccination or a negative COVID test at their venues and festivals beginning October 4th. In addition, all Live Nation employees must also be vaccinated by October 4th to attend any of the company’s venues, events, or visit any of its offices. The mandate will be enforced where permitted by law.

“Vaccines are going to be your ticket back to shows,” Live Nation president and CEO Michael Rapino said in a statement to Rolling Stone. “As of October 4th we will be following the model we developed for Lollapalooza and requiring this for artists, fans and employees at Live Nation venues and festivals everywhere possible in the U.S.”

To add onto Rapino’s statement, a few days after Lollapalooza, Chicago Health Department officials were able to report the effectiveness of this policy and reported that the festival showed no signs of being a Superspreader event.

While it’s obvious policies like this are going to be met negatively by some, our opinion on this is still to applaud the country’s two largest promoters of live entertainment for making these decisions and be leaders in allowing many, many people to get back to work.