The outlook as seen by four hosts of international events
GERMAN FETISH BALL WEEKEND
René of Xklusiv, GFB promoter (above)
(This piece was submitted just before Angela Merkel announced a new German restriction limiting public gatherings to two people.)
Regarding the restrictions: this is a very dynamic situation. A week ago everything was looking fine as long as [individual events] stayed below 1,000 people.
But the situation is developing rapidly. It doesn’t look like anyone has a clue about what is necessary or not, and new restrictions come on a daily basis.
Under the current regulations, all clubs, bars, restraurants, etc in Berlin will remain closed until April 19 [a week after Easter].
So we plan at the latest to have a definite solution by Easter, when it becomes clearer what the pandemic situation will be in May.
For us this is a super-complicated situation. While a shop or restaurant simply reopens and hopes locals will come back and revert to normal, an international event requires some planning time for most guests.
And with global travel bans, cancelled flights and a diving economy all over the planet, many will reconsider a trip, even when it should be safe in Berlin in two months’ time.
For the small businesses looking forward to selling at the German Fetish Fair, for the fashion designers producing the colourful outfits for our guests, and for all our clubs and partners in Berlin, postponing the GFB Weekend would be another blow.
Also, people will be looking for a distraction after weeks or months in quarantine. So this has to be taken into consideration as well.
Luckily we still have two months until the event, which gives us two to three more weeks to decide what to do.
By Easter we will have a clear picture, and a month prior to our event allows us to pick up promotion again for a decent GFB outcome, or cancel the event and give everyone notice well ahead.
We are preparing a statement to all our guests at the moment, to let them know that we are watching the situation and that every day, we are weighing up the chances of the event taking place or not.
And if the end of May turns out to be unrealistic? As soon as the original schedule becomes unlikely, we will postpone the GFB and stage it in one of two alternative formats later this year. Tickets will remain valid or will be refunded.
Our main focus and concern at the moment is the German Fetish Fair. Small labels are under pressure, with shops that stock their goods closing all over the world, meaning zero income [from those outlets] for the next weeks or month(s).
Many of these labels are young and not so financially secure. If people don’t buy outfits for events now, even their online sales will be bad. An expo to sell their products will help them make money again, but quite a few might not be able to pay their stall fees or afford the travel.
We are aware of this and will talk to all the designers and work on a solution, that could be anything from the cancellation of the Fair to a different venue or set-up that allows much lower prices.
And even if GFB has to be postponed in total, this problem for small labels will still exist in late 2020, so a new concept has to be found for that too.
In short: we have alternative plans for the GFB but it is too early to take any action. Ticketholders are safe; even if the event has to be postponed, no money is lost.
For the fetish fashion labels and designers that suffer from this crisis, we will find a solution for them to be part of GFB, whether it is in May or later on.
SUBROSADICTUM
Carina Meyer-Broicher, SubRosaDictum PR/marketing (below)
Even before parties in Germany and Switzerland were cancelled by our governments, we decided to cancel our smaller events like Freud in Frankfurt and Fetish Fusion in Zurich for the safety of our guests.
As event organisers it’s not only we who are affected by the current situation, but also a lot of people who earn a living from the events and parties — from tech equipment suppliers to bar staff to rental companies and artists.
Right now we don’t know where we go from here, since our big events are getting closer and we know nothing about the course of the Corona crisis. For sure our first thoughts are about the safety of our guests.
In Munich, our main location, all events are currently postponed and there are not so many venues where big events are possible. So even if it’s possible to re-stage postponed events later in the year, this may not happen because of the shortage of venues.
Nevertheless we are staying positive, and wish the community all over the world the very best. Stay healthy and kinky!
TORTURE GARDEN
Charlotte Heti, Torture Garden managing director (below)
Like everyone, we are in limbo at the moment. Such an unprecedented situation means no one can predict how long this may go on for, or what the long term consequences may be.
Everyone from all walks of life is in the same boat, so all we can do is wait and see. Big businesses and small are all affected in different ways. Small businesses won’t have any money put aside for rainy days,
Again, like all businesses, we have been waiting to see what relief would be offered from the government regarding rent, rates and sick pay. The slow drip of information hasn’t been helping anyone to know how they will fare over the next few months.
For now we have closed TG HQ. As we also have a production company side to the business, this has very sadly meant we’ve had to make a warehouse staff member redundant, though we hope to be able to offer them work again once this has passed.
The rest of us will be working from home on the kind of projects we always wished to have time for, as we all wait to see what the future holds.
As a company we will have to tighten our belts and take some hits. We can survive without events for a while — but obviously not forever. We hope for the sake of everyone that life gets back to our version of normal as soon as possible, but we’ll plan as we get a clearer idea of the time frame for this.
I think everyone will be ready for a party once we are confident that the risk has passed. When that time comes, we plan to put on whatever size of event is appropriate.
With the entertainment industry coming to a standstill, so many of our crew and performers are finding themselves without work that we are thinking of them all, as well as all the customers that pass through our doors.
We hope that everyone is staying safe and well. We’ll see them on the other side for post-apocalyptic partying!
SIN CITY FETISH NIGHT AND VANCOUVER FETISH WEEKEND
Isaac Terpstra, Sin City & Vancouver Fetish Weekend producer (below)
It’s a little bonkers. In Vancouver we now have any businesses over 50 people shut down, with all bars, nightclubs etc closed. In addition to running a monthly fetish night, and Vancouver Fetish Weekend every July, last August we opened a small club in downtown Vancouver.
Being in the first year of business, we’re still heavily into investment and renovations, and nowhere near any kind of payback for our expenditure yet.
Actual profit wasn’t due to start until maybe August, but now that’s all in question too, and we’re fighting to keep the bar from going under and closing, and losing all our work and investments.
That’s literally every penny I’ve earned from my day job in film and from every event I’ve put on for the last year. Six-figure loss, easy.
One result of this has actually been that I haven’t gotten my VFW tickets out anywhere near as early as I like to, but in a way, that’s a blessing in disguise.
Many people have reserved hotel rooms and bought plane tickets, but they can get out of those if needed, whereas for me as the overall event organiser, I don’t actually have any ticketholders to consider yet.
For now it’s still in the phase of people wanting to know what’s going to happen, if we are a go, or if we are rescheduling. This is far less gruesome to deal with than the situation of our friends running festivals where hundreds (thousands!) of people have already bought tickets.
As of this moment, all our venues are still confirmed and ready to go for VFW at the end of July. This puts us right in the cusp of still not knowing exactly what’s going to happen.
It’s definitely a given that this global health situation will persist for at minimum a few months. Possibly that would leave us in the clear to still launch the event — and we definitely would have the ability to mobilise super-quickly.
But this wouldn’t leave a lot of international guests much time to plan — and who even knows what the regulations regarding international travel will look like a few months from now?
So, as it is, we’re still in ‘wait and see’ mode. We have the option and everything ready to go should we be able to. But even if we are a go for the same weekend we normally have it, it seems pretty likely it would be scaled down from original expectations.
Before this, we were expecting a huge spike in attendance this year, based on the successes of past years, the fantastic reputation for quality and consistency VFW has earned, plus the fact that (finally!) Uber and Lyft launched in Vancouver.
Or, we might end up having to look at the option of pushing to later in the year — not as optimal, since the summer in Vancouver is a huge part of the attraction.
Or, there is also the possibility we would have to cancel this year and just straight-up push it to next year.
Basically it’s still too early to tell; any of these scenarios could come to pass! But we’re taking no chances with any risks to people’s health, it’s just not worth it. We can always push things back if we have to!
EVENT LINKS
thefetishistasdirectory.com
floridafetishweekend.com
german-fetish-ball.com
subrosadictum.de
torturegarden.com
wasteland.nl
IMAGE LINKS
heinrichvonschimmer.de
picturesinblood.com
romytreebusch.com
BELOW, TG MD Charlotte Heti: ‘We’ll have to tighten our belts and take some hits’ (@picturesinblood)
Tags: Community, Coronavirus, Covid-19, Health