What counts, safety and security or hygiene? Suggestions on the reopening of major events under pandemic conditions in Germany

PurposeBetween 2020 and spring 2022, health safety was the new pressing concern among the risks at major events. It seemed that it – respectively hygiene as part of infection control – was as important as event safety if an event in Germany was to be approved. Problems aroused in terms of an equal implementation in practice. This article therefore addresses how safety and hygiene aspects interacted during event planning and implementation phases.Design/methodology/approachThe authors draw on qualitative data from a German research project. They use results from eleven semi-structured expert interviews and four field observations at major events. One guiding assumption in the content analysis is that there are major interrelations between event and health safety concepts, which become visible during planning and the implementation of event-related technical, organisational and personal measures.FindingsThe empirical data shows that hygiene is not perceived as an integral part of event safety, but rather as a disconnected pillar beside the "classical” event safety. This is reflected in an imbalanced attention as well as in separate, disintegrated concepts. This disconnectedness leaves room for unwanted interplays between event and health safety as well as potential legitimacy facades.Originality/valueMost studies to date focus on the effectiveness of hygiene concepts and impacts of COVID-19 on the event sector in general without taking a closer look at interactions between event safety and health safety.

COVID-19 Governance in the Event Sector: A German Case Study

The article reflects on the stop-and-go procedures of re-opening the event sector under pandemic circumstances in a case study for difficult political and administrative governance, confusing regulations and systemic irritation. The focus lies on the addressees of restricting regulations, i.e. event industry and in particular event organizers who have to deal with requirements from different event stakeholders. It is our aim to trace their strategies and identified margins of manoeuvre in order to re-enable events under inconvenient surrounding conditions. In times of COVID-19, major events are under general suspicion as enablers for "super spreading” or "mass contagion”. One of the major business sectors in Germany—the event sector—was among the very first that was forced to shut down and among the very last, that could re-open again. This has not only economic but also social impacts: events as social settings and contexts fulfil important societal functions. They enable social exchange, cultural innovation, and political participation and provide socio-psychological relief. The contribution of events to these elementary societal functions was strongly limited in the pandemic. Although event approving authorities and event organizers in collaboration with their service providers work intensely to re-open events under hygienically safe conditions, lastingly convincing re-opening concepts have not yet been identified. The federal system in Germany, the diversity of applicable regulations, expected measures and outcomes, the dynamics of the situation, and resulting short-term changes in legal conditions lead to a variety of concepts and measures, which differ depending on location, event, persons involved, etc.