Mr. Semmelmann, smaller concerts have been taking place again in many places for some time.

The tours of your agency Semmel Concerts are the exception. 

Benjamin Fischer

Editor in business.

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Yes, we are doing the two biggest tours that are currently touring Germany. At Roland Kaiser there are now shows number 26 to 28 on the weekend, then we'll be through. We had over 10,000 visitors at some shows - almost like before Corona. The “Let's Dance” tour started last week and the production is even more extensive. 140 people are out and about with a lot of technology. We sold the tickets for the two tours in 2019 and we're glad that we decided to go through with them a few months ago. Under the current conditions, this is all significantly more complex than it already is, but the reactions of the audience were phenomenal and also in terms of the various service providers who are attached to a tour, it is more than worth the effort.

In view of the various regulations in the federal states, there is always talk of the "patchwork quilt", which makes tours more difficult. How did you experience it?

“Patchwork” hits it very well. We had everything from 2-G to almost no restrictions at open airs. Some of the regulations were understandable with a view to the different incidence, some of the content was completely incomprehensible - and sometimes simply not practicable. If, for example, I want to ensure contact tracking for 10,000 viewers, but this is not done precisely, then I can leave it right away. But in the end we have always adapted and according to our information only one infection has been discovered and followed up on the Roland Kaiser tour. As long as large concerts are carried out professionally and with strict admission controls, they are not an infection driver in my opinion.

Were you able to partially use the full capacity of an arcade?

We had a few concerts in busy locations, yes.

It wasn't all sold out, but we were able to accommodate the number of visitors almost anywhere.

That can also become a problem with postponed concerts if there are restrictions and more tickets were sold than are allowed to viewers.

With the option to 2-G, this could always be solved in our case, because in contrast to 3-G, this always eliminates the distance rule and mask requirement, so that we could accommodate all viewers in such cases.

Do you expect 2-G nationwide for upcoming tours soon or do you think that there will still be a mix of 2-G, 3-G and 3-G-Plus (PCR instead of antigen test required for unvaccinated and non-convalescents) ?

Ultimately, our aim is to make safe events possible for our viewers.

If the authorities ask for 2-G, then we do 2-G.

Over the weeks we have noticed that the vaccination rate at our concerts is very high anyway.

In this respect, we are not afraid of a possible nationwide changeover.