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From the NY Times:
"FOR UK BANDS, TOURING EUROPE IS NOW A HIGHWAY TO BREXIT HELL
LONDON — When British rock band Two Door Cinema Club began running shows across Europe a decade ago, three members of the group jumped into a van, threw their instruments behind and got sweaty from their then hometown, Belfast, Northern Ireland. Used to go Clubs in Amsterdam, Berlin and Paris.
“We’ve done this hundreds of times,” the group’s bassist, Kevin Baird, said recently over the phone. “Everything was there at a moment’s notice,” he said.
Now, it’s not that easy for Two Door Cinema Club – or any British act – to tour Europe. Last Friday, the band opened the Cruella Music Festival in Barcelona, Spain, attended by an audience of 25,000 shouting fans. But due to Britain’s 2020 departure from the European Union, known as Brexit, the band spent weeks before applying for a visa and immersed themselves in complicated new rules for trucking and exporting goods such as T-shirts. gave.
Baird said it cost the band 7,500 pounds, about $10,400, two additional musicians and an eight-person crew for visas and travel to apply for them. The new rules mean that a British tour van carrying audio and lighting equipment, or goods, can only make three stops in mainland Europe before returning home.
“It turned out to be a headache when I’ve never had a headache before,” Baird said. “If we were starting a band, we wouldn’t do this,” he said.
For much of this year, Brexit has been an even bigger topic of discussion in the UK music industry than the coronavirus pandemic. Since 1 January, when a trade agreement between Britain and the European Union came into force, hundreds of British musicians, including Dua Lipa and Radiohead, have complained that the deal makes it more expensive to tour the continent for stadium acts, and for new Almost impossible. band.
The new rules for young musicians are “an imminent catastrophe,” Elton John wrote on Instagram in June. He said, “It is about whether one of the UK’s most successful industries, worth £111 billion a year, is allowed to prosper and contribute immensely to both our cultural and economic wealth, or to accidents and burns.” is,” he said.
Musicians who supported Brexit have also complained. Bruce Dickinson, lead singer of Iron Maiden told a TV interviewer in June That, although he welcomed Britain’s departure from the European Union, he found the new rules unfair. Then he addressed the UK government: “Do your job together,” he said.
The uproar over the rules has sparked a blame game between the UK government and the EU, which is responsible for the new barriers, and which made viable proposals when negotiating a trade deal.
The issue of who is responsible has become an embarrassment for the British government. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said his government is acting “flat” on the issue. “We must fix this,” he told lawmakers in March.
So far, there hasn’t been enough progress to make musicians happy. In June, Britain agreed new trade deals that the government said would allow musicians to tour freely in Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. It was met with disdain: “The infamous tour of mountainous Liechtenstein with a total lack of ah airport,” Simone Marie of the band Primal Scream. wrote on twitter.
“We are all becoming increasingly frustrated,” said Annabella Coldrick, chief executive of the Music Managers Forum, a trade body. In June, she helped launch Let the Music Move, a campaign for the government to compensate artists for new additional costs and to renegotiate tour rules.
“Problems are only starting to become apparent,” said Coldrick, “as soon as the coronavirus pandemic eases and bands start booking tours.” He said the biggest thing was that vans and trucks could only stop three times before returning to the UK.
Many British music trucking businesses have already moved some of their operations to Ireland to achieve the regulations. But Coldrick said it wasn’t a viable solution: Trucks would also have to travel longer to pick up the band, driving up costs. That said, it also looked like a bad outcome for Britain, as the country was losing companies and workers.
For Two Door Cinema Club, the main issue was visas, said the band’s manager, Colin Chevrian. In June, a member of the band’s crew was rejected for a visa on a technicality related to her job title, so she had to reapply. Another band member based in Belfast was told they had to go to Scotland for a visa appointment.
Last Friday’s Two Door Cinema Club show went off without a hitch, despite the band’s problems prior to their trip to Spain.
“The things we were worried about didn’t work out,” said bassist Baird. The band’s equipment, traveling in a truck from London, cleared customs from the British side in 25 minutes; Checks at the border in France only took 10. The band, whose members flew to Barcelona, had no problems at the airport.
Once, the group was so excited to play a show after months of sitting at home during the coronavirus pandemic, taking selfies of every moment, Baird said.
Mark Lone, 36, a fan in the audience, said the crowd was equally excited. “I made sure I didn’t drink too much so I didn’t have to miss anything,” he said.
“It was amazing,” Baird said of the night.
Brexit was the last thing on his mind during the gig, Baird said, but it raised its head the next day when the band and crew headed to the airport to go home. members of the Irish passport group, whom everyone born in Northern Ireland can hold a British passport as well as a British passport through passport control; Only those with British passport were stuck in line for an hour.
The band was happy with the tour but Baird was concerned about how a more complex schedule would work. “We know all too well that it was a one-off concert,” he said. “What we are apprehensive about is next year when we are playing three different countries in three days. I expect it to be very difficult.”
"FOR UK BANDS, TOURING EUROPE IS NOW A HIGHWAY TO BREXIT HELL
LONDON — When British rock band Two Door Cinema Club began running shows across Europe a decade ago, three members of the group jumped into a van, threw their instruments behind and got sweaty from their then hometown, Belfast, Northern Ireland. Used to go Clubs in Amsterdam, Berlin and Paris.
“We’ve done this hundreds of times,” the group’s bassist, Kevin Baird, said recently over the phone. “Everything was there at a moment’s notice,” he said.
Now, it’s not that easy for Two Door Cinema Club – or any British act – to tour Europe. Last Friday, the band opened the Cruella Music Festival in Barcelona, Spain, attended by an audience of 25,000 shouting fans. But due to Britain’s 2020 departure from the European Union, known as Brexit, the band spent weeks before applying for a visa and immersed themselves in complicated new rules for trucking and exporting goods such as T-shirts. gave.
Baird said it cost the band 7,500 pounds, about $10,400, two additional musicians and an eight-person crew for visas and travel to apply for them. The new rules mean that a British tour van carrying audio and lighting equipment, or goods, can only make three stops in mainland Europe before returning home.
“It turned out to be a headache when I’ve never had a headache before,” Baird said. “If we were starting a band, we wouldn’t do this,” he said.
For much of this year, Brexit has been an even bigger topic of discussion in the UK music industry than the coronavirus pandemic. Since 1 January, when a trade agreement between Britain and the European Union came into force, hundreds of British musicians, including Dua Lipa and Radiohead, have complained that the deal makes it more expensive to tour the continent for stadium acts, and for new Almost impossible. band.
The new rules for young musicians are “an imminent catastrophe,” Elton John wrote on Instagram in June. He said, “It is about whether one of the UK’s most successful industries, worth £111 billion a year, is allowed to prosper and contribute immensely to both our cultural and economic wealth, or to accidents and burns.” is,” he said.
Musicians who supported Brexit have also complained. Bruce Dickinson, lead singer of Iron Maiden told a TV interviewer in June That, although he welcomed Britain’s departure from the European Union, he found the new rules unfair. Then he addressed the UK government: “Do your job together,” he said.
The uproar over the rules has sparked a blame game between the UK government and the EU, which is responsible for the new barriers, and which made viable proposals when negotiating a trade deal.
The issue of who is responsible has become an embarrassment for the British government. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said his government is acting “flat” on the issue. “We must fix this,” he told lawmakers in March.
So far, there hasn’t been enough progress to make musicians happy. In June, Britain agreed new trade deals that the government said would allow musicians to tour freely in Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. It was met with disdain: “The infamous tour of mountainous Liechtenstein with a total lack of ah airport,” Simone Marie of the band Primal Scream. wrote on twitter.
“We are all becoming increasingly frustrated,” said Annabella Coldrick, chief executive of the Music Managers Forum, a trade body. In June, she helped launch Let the Music Move, a campaign for the government to compensate artists for new additional costs and to renegotiate tour rules.
“Problems are only starting to become apparent,” said Coldrick, “as soon as the coronavirus pandemic eases and bands start booking tours.” He said the biggest thing was that vans and trucks could only stop three times before returning to the UK.
Many British music trucking businesses have already moved some of their operations to Ireland to achieve the regulations. But Coldrick said it wasn’t a viable solution: Trucks would also have to travel longer to pick up the band, driving up costs. That said, it also looked like a bad outcome for Britain, as the country was losing companies and workers.
For Two Door Cinema Club, the main issue was visas, said the band’s manager, Colin Chevrian. In June, a member of the band’s crew was rejected for a visa on a technicality related to her job title, so she had to reapply. Another band member based in Belfast was told they had to go to Scotland for a visa appointment.
Last Friday’s Two Door Cinema Club show went off without a hitch, despite the band’s problems prior to their trip to Spain.
“The things we were worried about didn’t work out,” said bassist Baird. The band’s equipment, traveling in a truck from London, cleared customs from the British side in 25 minutes; Checks at the border in France only took 10. The band, whose members flew to Barcelona, had no problems at the airport.
Once, the group was so excited to play a show after months of sitting at home during the coronavirus pandemic, taking selfies of every moment, Baird said.
Mark Lone, 36, a fan in the audience, said the crowd was equally excited. “I made sure I didn’t drink too much so I didn’t have to miss anything,” he said.
“It was amazing,” Baird said of the night.
Brexit was the last thing on his mind during the gig, Baird said, but it raised its head the next day when the band and crew headed to the airport to go home. members of the Irish passport group, whom everyone born in Northern Ireland can hold a British passport as well as a British passport through passport control; Only those with British passport were stuck in line for an hour.
The band was happy with the tour but Baird was concerned about how a more complex schedule would work. “We know all too well that it was a one-off concert,” he said. “What we are apprehensive about is next year when we are playing three different countries in three days. I expect it to be very difficult.”
