The governments of two Scandinavian countries, Sweden, and Denmark will continue to allow for financial compensation to organizers and entities of those who have had live events hurt by the Covid-19 pandemic. In February of 2021 Danish Minister for Culture, Joy Mogensen, proposed an extension of the compensation that was put in place in 2020 to provide assistance to event organizers through this summer. In Spring of this year, the Swedish government also moved forward with a proposal of its own event cancellation compensation fund for events that would take a hit from July through December of 2021.

Now, due to current restrictions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson announced at a press conference that financial assistance will be extended through March of 2022, with a pledge to introduce further cancellation compensation in the future if necessary. Event compensation amounts to 70% of costs that are “directly necessary” for the event, up to a maximum of SEK17.5 million (€1.7m) or $1.9 million U.S. The aid applies to events that would have taken place between June 2021 and March 2022.  In Denmark, compensation has a bit more limited restriction for now. The Dutch Government will put in place a new plan to cover venue cancellations, postponements or significantly changed indoor events.  For now, however only events that had a planned audience of between 51 and 349 standing attendees will be provided financial assistance. Other governments such as those of the United Kingdom have implemented a backup plan to support the live events sector in their country.

Sweden and Denmark are no strangers to events headlining Electronic Dance Music or EDM artists. DJ’s like Avicii, Alesso, Axwell, Eric Prydz, and many others all stemmed from Sweden.  Then there is Denmark’s Roskilde Festival, one of Europe’s largest festivals that has been boasting an ever-growing list of EDM headlining artists for years.

Image Credit: Summerburst Gothenburg 2019