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Chris Navratil hasn’t slept since Covid-19 swept across the country in March 2020.
That was when her Minnesota-based live events business Shamrock Productions was ordered to close. For 15 months, her more than 50-year-old family business brought in zero revenue. The home shows, ice fishing shows and large indoor gatherings that had populated local convention centers were not allowed in order to limit the spread of the coronavirus.
She’s done everything she can to keep the business afloat. She’s taken on debt and has only recently begun holding shows, but a lack of consumer confidence, the rise of Covid-19 variants and supply chain issues have all caused her countless headaches.
“It’s been pretty tough. We’ve been decimated,” Navratil said. “Every time I turn around, I feel like we were being kicked in the gut.“
She was able to access the Paycheck Protection Program and its forgivable loans, but the vast number of businesses in her industry were not eligible for the $16 billion Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program, despite promoting, hosting and working entirely in live events. That program still has money left, and it has begun awarding follow-up grants to businesses that already received money, a further frustration for Navratil.
The Economic Injury Disaster Loan program ran out of its Targeted Advance grant money in 2020, and when the program was replenished, a new requirement that businesses be in a low-income area barred Navratil from getting the full $10,000 grant she had originally qualified for. The Employee Retention Credit does not allow business owners or family members to count as employees in an industry where companies tend to be smaller, family-owned affairs, she said.
Meanwhile, efforts to provide additional assistance to small business owners, including more funding for the Restaurant Relief Fund, for gyms, hotels and others, have stalled out in a Congress that at least one lobbyist described as “Covid relief fatigue.”
“Its just been catastrophic. We’re not getting any help. It’s very frustrating,” Navratil said. “It’s just another kick in the teeth.”
For Navratil, it’s not just about helping her business and the businesses in her industry survive, it’s about basic fairness. Since the government mandated her industry shut down for the greater good, it must also help that industry get back on track.
“It’s not like we were lazy and said, ‘We were not going to work this year.’  The government has a duty to help us survive, in my opinion,” Navratil said. “My industry is going to be the last one to get up on their feet to recover from this pandemic.”
The Live Events Coalition said there are nearly 1.08 million live events businesses across the country, and 79% of them saw revenue losses of 60% or more through March 31, 2021, while 37% saw a revenue loss of 91% or more. Those businesses run the full gamut, from promoters and organizers to lighting, equipment rental and even florists and designers.
And while live events have resumed in some parts of the country, most businesses said just 40% or less of their revenues had returned.  About 41% are concerned about staying in business in the future. Meanwhile just under 9% of the live events industry was able to access the SVOG or RRF, according to surveys conducted by the coalition.
“We have broad empathy and agreement that we got left out and we’ve got need. It’s just that there isn’t much appetite for further Covid relief or recovery money,” said Dwayne Thomas, owner of Greenlight Creative and director of government affairs for the Live Events Coalition. “Everyone has Covid fatigue. We hear that a lot.”
That has meant an uphill battle in a Congress where nearly all legislation needs 60 votes to pass the Senate, and other industries are also lobbying hard for their own relief bills. The restaurant industry is still pressing for more funding for the Restaurant Relief Fund, which was quickly exhausted over the summer, as well the hotel industry and gyms and fitness centers.
But any such bill would come after Congress fully funds the government for the fiscal year, and not just approve another in a series of short-term funding bills.
“We’re well aware that the spending bill is not going to happen until they fund the government permanently,” Thomas said. “If they keep kicking the can down the road with these continuing resolutions, how long is it going to be until they get that done.”
Eric Udler, owner of Rockville, Maryland-based All Show Services, had to cancel a pet expo just more than a week before it was slated to happen back in 2020, refunding all the vendors their money and rescheduling it several times. He paid workers out of his own pocket and lived off savings.
Now, in 2021, he hopes for a break-even year.
“The government told me to shut down,” Udler said. “They’ve got a responsibility to help me open back up.”
And while he applied to the SVOG and was denied, he knows there are a few companies in his industry that received SVOG grants, although SBA could not tell him why. And while the SBA offered an Economic Injury Disaster Loan he qualified for, he would have to put up guarantees and put his house and family at risk to pay it back. He said the industry needs its own grant program until the industry returns.
“I think the live events industry is a forgotten industry,” Udler said.
Meanwhile the SBA would get billions of dollars in fresh funding to bolster existing loans and grants and create a slew of new programs as part of the newly revamped Build Back Better legislation being debated by Congress. The legislation would also create universal preschool, extend a child tax credit and provide hundreds of billions of dollars to combat climate change.
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