Coronavirus Statement for March 14, 2020 Concert
A Statement Regarding Friends of Music’s Decision to Hold the Scheduled Concert on Saturday, March 14, 2020
Published March 12, 2020 at 12:00pm; updated March 14, 2020 at 6:45am
Friends of Music has determined that our concert scheduled for Saturday, March 14 featuring The Modern Brass Quintet will take place as planned. This article explains our decision, and why we believe holding the concert as planned reasonably conforms to guidance provided by federal, State, County and local officials.
The State of California, indeed, the whole nation, is taking steps to mitigate the dangers posed by the novel coronavirus and COVID-19. The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have both published guidance that all “non-essential” public events falling outside certain criteria should be cancelled through at least the end of March 2020; concerts are among the types of events CDPH identifies as “non-essential.”
CDPH’s criteria for holding “non-essential” events includes the following guidance:
- No more than 250 people should be in attendance.
- The venue should provide for “social distancing” of at least six feet of space between attendees.
The PPC Sanctuary seats 750 people. Based on our projected audience size for this concert (well below CDPH’s maximum), we are able to provide more than sufficient space to conform to CDPH’s social distancing guidelines. In addition:
- Appropriate signage, announcements, and other guidance will be provided to remind attendees to follow the CDPH guidelines.
- Hand sanitizer stations will be at both primary entrances to the PPC Sanctuary.
- We will not pass an offering plate; plates/baskets will be available at the door for attendees’ financial gifts, and attendees will be encouraged to make donations online.
- We will not host our customary post-concert reception.
Further, we believe that many people who had planned to attend the concert will simply not come. Thus, our projections of audience size probably are larger than what the reality will be.
Friends of Music values its supporters and audience members, and we want everyone to feel safe at our concerts. If you find the steps described above are not sufficient for you personally, we invite you to self-selectively not attend the concert; in that case, we look forward to see you at future events.
We are keeping up to date on the latest available information from CPDH, CDC and other sources. If new information becomes available indicating we should change our current decision, we will post it on our Web site. At the current time, we are still planning to offer our 23rd Annual Good Friday Devotional Concert on Friday, April 10, 2020, possibly using alternative ways of providing that concert to our audience; we will continue actively considering the status of that concert, and will post decisions as they are made on our Web site.
Resources on Which We’ve Relied for this Decision