NAMM is issuing an urgent call-to-action to all industry professionals to urge House leadership to bring H.R. 7481, the bipartisan RESTART Act, to the floor of the House for a vote. The bill would provide provisions for the hardest-hit businesses to access additional PPP funds, long term, low-interest loans, and supplemental unemployment insurance to assist the hundreds of thousands of creative industry service workers impacted by the pandemic.
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“It is vitally important that music and event professionals and others with concerns for people who work in this area contact Members in the US House of Representatives and urgently push for an ‘up or down’ vote on RESTART,” states Mary Luehrsen, NAMM’s director of public affairs and government relations. “The time is now to move this legislation forward to support the livelihood of tens of thousands of people impacted in this creative industry.”
The call-to-action coincides with #RedAlertRESTART, a global campaign that took place on Tuesday, September 1, 2020. The event saw thousands of buildings across the U.S. lit in red to raise public awareness of the impact of COVID on the live events industry. Earlier this year, a study from PLSN magazine indicated that 77% of professionals in the space have lost 100% of their income; 96% of companies have cut their staff;, and 97% of independent contractors (1099) have lost their jobs.
NAMM encourages live event businesses and professionals to add their voice in support of relief by contacting their representatives to provide targeted COVID-19 business relief for live event businesses and individual professionals. A letter generator is available here: https://app.govpredict.com/portal/grassroots/campaigns/ct0mb0t6/take_action
Since March, NAMM has advocated for all facets of the industry for COVID-19 business relief and, in conjunction with this, offered a series of webinars, tools, and other resources to support COVID-19 recovery. View those resources here: https://www.namm.org/issues-and-advocacy/covid-19-updates-and-resources-business
