AEG Presents, the world’s second-largest live music company, announced Thursday that it will require anyone entering its venues or events to have proof of full COVID-19 vaccination beginning Oct. 1.
Affected venues include Variety Playhouse in Little Five Points, Terminal West on the Westside and the new music venue the Eastern in Reynoldstown. The legendary Georgia Theatre in Athens will be impacted as well.
AEG Presents CEO Jay Marciano said in a press release: “Just a few weeks ago, we were optimistic about where our business, and country, were heading. The delta variant, combined with vaccine hesitancy, is pushing us in the wrong direction again.”
The company did add this note from AEG Presents general counsel Shawn Trell: “Certain states’ regulations may override our mandate, or a few artists may not want to immediately get on board with the plan. But we know that using our platform to take a strong position on vaccinations can make an impact.”
AEG owns 48 venues nationwide.
The first show impacted at the Variety Playhouse, which has a capacity of 1,000, will be Yheti and Eprom, an electronic music group. Terminal West’s capacity is about 600. The Eastern fits more than 2,000.
Given AEG’s size, this announcement may generate a cascade of similar pronouncements at other music venues.
Live Nation, the largest music venue and promoter in the country, won’t be quite as stringent. It will require vaccination or a negative COVID test for anyone going to a concert at a Live Nation venue or event starting Oct. 4. In metro Atlanta, the company owns the Tabernacle, Buckhead Theatre, the Coca-Cola Roxy, Ameris Bank Amphitheatre and Cellairis Amphitheatre at Lakewood.
The company is going to require all its employees who enter any Live Nation office, event or venue to be fully vaccinated by Oct. 4.
“Our business and our industry is about uniting people and vaccines are one of the greatest tools for making sure that everyone can continue to enjoy live music together,” according to a Live Nation best practices policy that Variety magazine procured.
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