Omicron Pulls The Plug On Live Events & Fests, Shrinks Big Fat Weddings

The festival and live events calendar was filling up for the new year, that was until Omicron threw a wrench in their comeback plans.

- Mohua Das & Sharmila Ganesan Ram

Since lockdown ended lastyear, venues, both big andsmall, had demonstrated their resilience by working hard to mitigate risks and safely bring audiences back to live performances. The festival and live events calendar was filling up for the new year, that was until Omicron threw a wrench in their comeback plans.

In a grim reminder of the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, the rise of the highly transmissible Omicron variant has pulled the plug once more on live shows across the city forcing venues and organisers to cancel, postpone or scale down events.

“It’s a bummer because we had started hosting physical events from December. Our social distancing and sanitisation protocol were well worked out and we had quite a few collaborative events lined up in the first quarter of 2022 that we’ve had to reschedule. But we’ve been down this road twice already. Safety is most important,” said Asad Laljee, curator, Royal Opera House.

To ensure safety of the artistes, staff and audiences, the NCPA Theatres have postponed all the performances scheduled up to January 31. “We will ensure there is no loss to the ticket-holders and request people to retain their tickets if already bought for the refund,” stated the NCPA management.