How to organise a music festival in a pandemic

After the dismal unity shown this spring when every venue in Europe (with the exception of Belarus) was mothballed, there are signs that the complete moratorium on performances with audiences is being modified. Summer did not happen in anything like the way it usually does but neither was it completely moribund. As the warm weather turned hot outdoor venues became safer, and some countries decided to have more nuanced approaches than the initial total ban.

The conversations around the likely problems changed too. The question became less about whether to reopen if governments allow and more about whether it was be financially possible to do so if a combination of social distancing rules and public confidence mean that audience numbers are unfeasibly low. Some performances remained impossible: full orchestras crammed on a platform was clearly out of the question. The normal staging of opera was difficult. If it happened it likely involved a lot of duets happening from opposite sides of the stage and a reduced band in the pit.

Earlier this year, I spoke to several festivals dealing with the summer months in different ways.

'Its going to be really difficult,' says Andre Cunha Leal, the director of the Music Days Festival at the riverside Belem Cultural Centre in Lisbon. 'Normally we have several rooms operating more or less at the same time, ranging from 200 hundred to 1500 seats, with each event lasting for an hour in the daytime and longer events in the evening.' Forward booking has been severely hit. By the middle of May, 'over 1000 people had cancelled. Now we are reviewing all our programmes.' As well as the main auditorium he usually uses the two foyers, three education rooms and the square outside. All that is being reconsidered, along with who will perform. Andre sees there having to be a big shift from musicians based abroad to ones from nearby, especially if flights and hotels remain a problem.

However he refuses to be defeated. 'We can't let the performances die. It is hard enough to protect the arts, even in normal times and I am very worried for future years, not just this festival. When we last had a crisis [the financial crisis of 2008/09] we had 30% cut in our funding in one year and another 30% the next. We don't get any subsidy for performances and in Portugal there is no encouragement for philanthropy. While we may get some help now, the obligations on our contracts will kill us later unless there is a solution for the economy that helps artists. We won't be able to plan for the future.'

Tamar Bruggemann, at Wonderfeel Festival near Amsterdam, has had to cancel this year's festival which was due to open on 17 July, even though all the events are held outdoors. The Netherlands, like Belgium, announced early that public gatherings would not be allowed until September. She has decided to move the programme wholesale to roughly the same dates in 2021 and tweak as necessary.

Tamar is something of a revolutionary, though, and feels that the virus shutdown has only accelerated changes in musical presentation that were bound to come. 'Everything that has happened was happening anyway. The 19th century system has been falling apart for decades. In a concert hall the performance is the end goal. After it you just go home. Concert halls aren't flexible, they have been built for only one purpose and one configuration.' Her festival is very different. It is spread around 60 acres of nature reserve at 's-Graveland, just outside Hilversum where Netherlands Radio is based. 'For this generation the goal is how you experience the music. There's a shift from the authenticity of the source to the authenticity of the performance.'

She sees the days of the itinerant star coming to an end too. 'The high fees are crazy, when a visiting conductor can earn more in a night than an orchestral violinist in a year. We will need to focus more on smaller venues and more local players.' On the stages she erects performances are repeated, so the audience can move from one to another without missing anything. 'So many festivals are stuck with the idea of selling single tickets. It's so limiting. We have a super-open door. We sell day tickets and repeat so there is no need to feel you have to be in one place at a particular time – and there's no risk if a musician is not very famous. I don't have to think about it. Our sales start with no programme announced.' She is also hoping to develop an app, 'or maybe a wristband with an inbuilt tracker so you can push the audience in a different direction if there's too much of a crowd;' very useful if you want to ensure distancing.

Another festival thinking of tracking the audience but for Covid reasons, is the Mersin Festival in southern Turkey. 'In order to travel at the moment you have to have an app with a no quarantine code. So this could be used for scanning audiences to instil confidence that they are safe,' says Altay Bayram. 'Our city will only support us if we have a physical programme, so even though we are exploring virtual concepts, we have to stage something.'

The Bergen Festival happened last month in novel ways, its opening concert having the soloist at home in Reykjavik playing the Grieg Piano Concerto with the orchestra and Edward Gardner in Bergen. In Ravenna, newly loosened from Italy's fierce restrictions, and with good sponsor backing, open-air performances were given to 200 people in the venue, instead of 800.

Sponsors will be increasingly important, thinks Lilian Erbil at the Mosel Festival, due to happen this month outdoors at more than twenty locations along the Mosel River in Germany. 'For all of us it's all about liquidity at the moment. We have to think inventively. Remember not every company is doing badly. There are plenty making money out of this crisis.'