In London, Andrew Lloyd Webber organized a pilot, social distancing performance to 640 spectators, among them public health officials and industry figures, in the 2,297 capacity Palladium on Thursday 23 July.
German Scientists went further. They put on a pop show at a concert hall packed with volunteers last Saturday to to learn how Covid spreads during crowded indoor events.
Researchers hope to understand the risks of transmission and to help create guidelines for limiting such dangers and safely restarting live performances around the world.
The pop concert study, called Restart-19, was staged in Leipzig, Germany for about 2,000 volunteers.
All the volunteers were tested for the coronavirus 48 hours before the concert, and was given a face mask, fluorescent hand sanitizer and an electronic “contact tracer” that would gather data about contact rates and distances between audience members during the show.
"There is no zero risk if you want to have life. We want to give the politicians a tool in order to decide rationally whether to allow such an event or not. That means they have to have the tool to predict how many additional infected people such an event will produce," Professor Michael Gekle, Dean of Medicine at The University of Halle, told CNN.
There were three shows all together, the first simulated an event before the coronavirus pandemic; the second, after the pandemic, with increased hygiene and some social distancing enforced; and the third, with half the amount of people and strict social distancing.
The results from the study are expected be ready in early October.
Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images