The Live Entertainment Industry Forum (LEIF), which represents Australia’s largest live entertainment sport businesses, has welcomed the Federal Government’s decision to further ease restrictions on organised gatherings. 

LEIF is working closely with Federal, State and Territory Governments to implement the new measures and enable the safe easing of further restrictions on organised mass gatherings, including for venues with capacities of greater than 40,000 spectators. 

LEIF Chairman James Sutherland said: “We welcome the Federal Government’s encouraging decision to enable the re-opening of live entertainment and sport. This is a great first step to bring back fans and bring back jobs to an industry that has been on its knees for more than three months. COVID-19 has had a devastating effect on millions of Australians and live events play a crucial role in the nation’s mental wellbeing, bringing people together to share and enjoy sport, music and the arts. It is part of the Australian way of life.” 

LEIF and its members have also begun the “significant work” that the Prime Minister said 

needs to be done to allow venues with capacities of greater than 40,000 to host spectators 

once again. 

Mr Sutherland added: “Australia has some of the finest stadia and venue professionals in the world. We are well equipped to manage the critical safety plans needed to ensure 

COVIDSafety in, around and to and from those venues.” 

LEIF’s mission is to support the COVIDSafe reactivation of events with live audiences across 

Australia as restrictions are eased from July. LEIF will put in place a comprehensive, flexible, 

all-of-industry re-opening and risk management strategy that meets the needs of the public, Governments, sporting bodies, venues, performers and industry, with safety at its core. 

This includes developing industry-wide measures regarding cleaning and sanitisation, crowd 

management, physical distancing plans, health monitoring and contact tracing. The objective is to safely restart an industry which supports over 175,000 Australian jobs and feeds other sectors hit hard by COVID-19 such as tourism, transport and hospitality. 

For more information about the Live Entertainment Industry Forum, please visit their website here: www.leif.net.au.