How 100 Live Events Companies Banded Together to Become Pandemic Responders
“[The federal government] didn’t know about us. We’re the biggest industry you’ve never heard of,” says one of the company leaders of new disaster response coalition Live for Life
When the COVID-19 pandemic first struck the live events industry and put all concerts, sports games, and other mass gatherings out of action, three production companies got together to figure out ways they could spend the downtime helping healthcare workers. Their efforts have quickly evolved into a nationwide coalition of thousands of event workers supplying essential supplies.
Live for Life officially launched on Monday as a coalition of 90 participating companies; by Thursday, that was up to 110. Before the pandemic began, all of the companies were helping prepare conferences and conventions, auto shows, music festivals and many other types of large-scale audience events — putting up tents, graphics and temporary structures. Now they’re offering materials and manpower for 3D-printed medical devices, personal protection equipment parts, and building out larger infrastructure for temporary hospitals.
“What we do on an everyday basis is plan and organize large scale events and experiences,” George P. Johnson CEO Chris Meyer, one of the leaders of the coalition, tells Rolling Stone. “That means using the tools, the processes, the training of our people — this is what we do. We just happen to do that at large-scale conferences or a festival or an auto show or sporting events. But the principles of planning and delivering and moving an event, all of that is transferrable to whatever the needs are.”