Vaccination Passport: The first positive evaluation in festivals and cinemas

There are no traffic jams at the entrance, the concert started late or aggressive … Many festivals draw a positive assessment of the first days of the vaccination passport.

a little slower

Sure it slows down the entry process a bit, but it went well, it’s not too much of a burdenPropaganda against the court, notes Chloe Al-Sayegh. This event features concerts on the water at Parc Jean-Drapeau, in Montreal, from Wednesday through Saturday evening.

All went well, and people were comfortable showing their vaccination passports, explains Marie-Pierre Letourneau, director of communications at Festival de la poutine, which opened its doors Thursday in Drummondville. Thursday evening was festive, and there was a sense of being back to normal.

The same goes for the Emerging Music Festival (FME), which takes place Thursday through Sunday in Abitibi-Témiscamingue. We are pleasantly surprisedsays Magali Mondiri-LaRoche, Director General of the FME Foundation.

It must be said that FME, like other festivals, has revised its logistics to adapt to this new procedure. A central kiosk has been set up to check vaccine evidence and the identity of members of the public to simplify the process. About twenty people take turns informing people and putting a bracelet on their wrist once they have verified their QR code in order to give them access to the fifteen festival locations.

As for the VaxiCode mobile app, it satisfies festivals. It’s not perfect, says Magali Monderie-Larouche, but it’s not too bad. The app works better on iPhone than on Android.

Cinephiles arrive ready and ready

As for cinemas, the vast majority of people also arrive with their own QR code. The mobile app works great, notes Mario Fortin, president and CEO of Boubyan Cinemas, Park and Museum in Montreal.

He adds that many people appear with paper rather than electronic evidence. This requires a small period of adjustment, as the paper tends to curl unobtrusively or print in fairly even quality, making the QR code difficult to read.

However, the big test has yet to take place, according to Eric Bouchard, co-chair of the Association of Cinema Owners of Quebec (APCQ) and owner of Cinemas Saint-Eustache.

Wednesday was a good time to learn about this new procedure, because the weather was nice and back to school, so there weren’t many people aroundHe said before specifying that rain is expected on Monday in the Montreal area.

Reflections on attendance?

At the moment, it is too early to assess the consequences of applying the vaccination passport to cinema attendance. We expect a decrease of 20-30%Mario Fortin explains.

He decided to cancel one session per day and per room to space the sessions and thus facilitate access to the rooms despite the control of vaccine evidence. If things change, we’ll add a session.

In addition to the financial losses caused by this 20% reduction in supply, there are expenses incurred in a hundred or so overtime hours resulting from the vaccination passport verification.

If the festivals had received requests for ticket refunds after the announcement of the creation of the vaccine passport, they were able to resell some of those seats. This is the case of FME, which repaid 300 tickets out of the 20,000 tickets passed. About half of these places found their captors, refers to Magali Monderie-Larouche.

The Poutine Festival sold out on Friday evening, after the first evening during which capacity was almost reached.

We received between 10% and 15% of requests for reimbursement, but we met our goals for this first year of the Contre-CourantFor its part, confirms Chloe Al-Sayegh.