Concerts are coming back this summer. What does going to a live show even look like now?

As live shows return to the stage and people begin to head to venues for summer entertainment, many concert-goers are faced with a patchwork of guidelines when it comes to COVID-19.

Concerts and performances were some of the first events to be canceled in 2020, and they are some of the last to return as people get vaccinated. Throughout the pandemic, capacity restrictions — and a highly contagious virus transmitted via aerosol particles — kept venues shuttered and relying on virtual performances to provide entertainment.

“It’s invigorating after months and months and months of kind of staring at the governor’s orders and trying to figure out and do the math and say, ‘What can we do with 50 people as our maximum capacity outdoors? What can we do with 25 people? With 10 people?’” said David Brower, executive director of PineCone, in a phone interview with The News & Observer.

PineCone hosts concerts both indoors and outdoors at area venues and is a key organizer in the International Bluegrass Music Association’s World of Bluegrass this fall.

Venues are planning to gradually build to bigger concerts over the summer, while continuing contactless services and strict cleaning protocols. Social distancing may remain an option for patrons, although most events won’t require masks or proof of vaccination.

“I think that one thing that I’ve learned over this last year is that if you try and forecast our collective behavior and where the regulations will be, you’re going to end up spinning your wheels,” Brower said.

However, after almost 16 months of anything but normal, it comes as somewhat of a relief that concert-going may look similar to pre-COVID times.

In talking to several managers and operators of Triangle entertainment venues, trends have emerged about the future concert-going experience. Check each venue for event-specific guidelines, but here’s what you might find.

Capacity may affect scheduling

Although Gov. Roy Cooper lifted capacity restrictions on entertainment venues in May, many won’t be returning to pre-COVID size concerts quite yet.

“We have purposefully kind of used the — to borrow the term from the governor — the ‘dimmer switch approach,’” said William Lewis, the Town of Cary cultural arts manager, in a Zoom interview with The N&O.

The Town of Cary operates several entertainment venues, including the outdoor Koka Booth Amphitheatre, which typically attracts national touring acts in the summer as well as the N.C. Symphony.

“We haven’t gone in full-blown,” Lewis said. “Our capacity at the Koka Booth Amphitheatre is 7,000, and so we have purposefully not put in events that would bring 7,000 people together, shoulder to shoulder,”

As the summer progresses, Lewis anticipates bringing in bigger name performers and hosting larger concerts in the hope that vaccination rates will allow for crowded concerts to be safer.

“We do think that the larger concerts and the larger festivals will be pushed late into the summer and into the fall,” Lewis said. “Whereas normally your big concerts would have been announced and they would be happening right now, and everything would be on sale, and it would just be rocking and rolling.”

The Raleigh Convention and Performing Arts Complex, which includes the Raleigh Convention Center, the Duke Energy Center for Performing Arts and Red Hat Amphitheater, also has started slow and doesn’t plan to bring in national concerts until July 16.

“We have really back-loaded a lot of concerts, knowing that that gives people a lot of time to get vaccinated and to get back out and feel good about it,” said Kerry Painter, General Manager of the Raleigh Convention and Performing Arts Complex, in a phone interview with The N&O.

Contactless services & deep cleaning

As regulations relax, many venues are opting to continue with some of the habits and protocols adopted during the pandemic, including contactless ticketing and payment, as well as providing individually packaged food.

“So that’s one thing we know we’re going to be offering going forward,” Lewis said. “We’re going to keep things like the cashless-preferred for our concessions. And for ticket buying, you know, just encouraging people to buy online. We’re going to continue to have the self-scanning tickets. Again, just trying to make the experience as touchless as possible.”

Some venues also will require patrons to carry clear bags so security does not have to dig through them, therefore reducing the amount of contact required to keep the facility safe.

Venues are taking the experience one concert at a time in hopes of ensuring that customers are as comfortable and as safe as possible, venue managers said.

“We’re kinda taking it one show at a time and really working hard to listen to people,” Brower said. “We trust the science, and that means trusting the fact that after you’re vaccinated you cannot contact or transmit the virus, and in the off chance that you do, it’s not life-threatening.”

Many venues are also focusing on ensuring that the spaces are as clean as possible and have installed hand-sanitizing stations throughout the venues.

“It was a wonderful byproduct of COVID, if there was anything good about it, it was that all of our kind of venues learned a lot more about cleaning,” Painter said. “That’s something that will definitely stick around.”

Masks and social distancing

Most venues will be looking to federal, state and local guidance concerning masks. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has eased much of its masking guidelines for vaccinated people but still advises people to wear them in crowds, even outdoors.

While Triangle venues will continue to recommend unvaccinated guests wear face coverings, they won’t be enforcing it among patrons.

“For us, we are going to have staff continue to wear masks,” Lewis said. “Even though it’s optional for the public, it’s strongly recommended, just like everywhere else.”

Social distancing, on the other hand, will vary depending on the venue, though some venues are spreading out concert-goers in “pods.”

“The state requirements don’t require us to do anything, so we are not pod separating, unless someone calls ahead of time and tells us they’re uncomfortable with being in a public setting,” said Heidi Werner Dawson, director of sales and marketing at the Carolina Inn, in a phone interview with The N&O.

“And then we will make a special arrangement for them,” Werner said.

The Carolina Inn hosts Fridays on the Front Porch, free weekly concerts in front of the Chapel Hill hotel next to the UNC campus.

PineCone, which hosts the Down Home concert series inside the Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts, will continue social distancing for events it already sold tickets for prior to the May 18 change in regulations.

“Currently we are seating people and selling tickets socially distanced,” Brower said. “We had already sold the tickets six feet apart. We didn’t want to shock or disturb anybody.”

At recent PineCone events taking place at the outdoor Booth Amphitheatre, Bower has noticed people abiding by social distancing, even after the governor lifted restrictions.

“There is general admission seating on the lawn, but there are also pods that are painted out on the lawn,” Bower said. “People are naturally going and sitting in the pods, even though they could technically sit anywhere they want. People are sticking to the protocols, which is really interesting to watch.”

Vaccination status

Although a few venues initially considered COVID-19 vaccine passes for admission, most decided against it for a variety of reasons. Some people can’t get the vaccine, and vaccine cards aren’t state-issued.

“For the venues, we’re not going to get into the role of policing vaccination cards, because not everyone can have a vaccine,” Lewis said. “There are reasons why people can’t. And so we’re not going to say no to folks just because they may have a physical reason or a religious reason or some other reason for being vaccinated. It’s not our role to keep those people from our experiences.”

Although Bowers said he is not opposed to vaccine passes that have been proposed across the country, he compared the current vaccine cards, sometimes filled out by the patient at a vaccine clinic, to a driver’s license used to obtain drinks at the bar.

“Until we have some kind of state mandated, federal sanctioned ID, it’s really kind of tough on presenters,” Bower said. “We don’t take homemade IDs when we’re checking ID’s at the bar. You’re not going through the DMV to show proof of vaccination.”

Venues have depended on constantly shifting government regulations to tell them how to create a safe experience in the past few months, and they continue to do so when it comes to the vaccine.

Some venues that have actively promoted and supplied vaccines, such as the Raleigh Convention and Performing Arts Center, will let artists decide whether to ensure that visitors have proof-of-vaccination to attend.

“There are some artists who, we believe, might do that possibly, at some point,” Painter said. “So we will honor what the artists wants. We, as the venue, can’t do that on our own. We’re really taking the lead from our clients.”

Listening to audiences, relying on data

In their path to returning to normalcy, venues have faced many challenges deciding which COVID precautions to keep, and which to get rid of.

“The biggest challenge has been just keeping up with the constant change of ‘Where are we with COVID today?’” Dawson said.

Venues are attempting to listen to their audiences and to strike a balance between people who are ready to return to normal, and people who are still uncomfortable with crowded concerts without social distancing and masking.

“It’s been hard and frustrating for a lot of people in this business, to know what the guardrails are,” Lewis said. “So I believe we’ve gotten some good direction from our federal, and state and local folks. And so I feel like we’re on a really good path now to be able to offer what we’re doing safely, and still have a good and meaningful connection for the public and for the artists.”

Even with some of the COVID precautions that will remain, venues are hopeful that concert-going may return to normal in the near future.

“In all honesty, I think we’re heading back,short of any kind of dramatic change to the COVID numbers,” Bower said.