Good morning and welcome to the IC’s live blog, where our writers round up the biggest business stories of the day.
From the 2020 Summer Olympics to Glastonbury, the events industry has been one of the most acutely hit by Covid-19.
Small wonder, then, that Informa (INF.) has endured a major blow at the hands of the pandemic. With business exhibitions delayed and cancelled in countries around the world, the FTSE 100 group said this morning that full-year revenues dropped more than two-fifths to £1.7bn. Pre-tax losses came in at a whopping £1.1bn.
Blue-chip peer Relx (REL) has also suffered from event restrictions, with most prevented from taking place in Europe and the Americas last year. Exhibitions made up 5 per cent of 2020 revenues, the group said today.
But there are signs that live audiences are making a comeback. News emerged today that the Brit Awards will proceed next month, forming part of the government’s events research programme (ERP) which aims to gauge how to bring back big crowds this summer.
The Awards will take place at London’s O2 arena on 11 May with an audience of 4,000 people. The audience will be maskless and won’t be socially distanced – but they’ll need to show proof of a negative lateral flow test (a rapid test) to enter the venue. Inevitably, perhaps, demand for such diagnostic kits is only rising as lockdown eases.
Similar trial events have been hosted in the past. An experiment in December in Barcelona, co-organised by Primavera Sound, offered a glimpse of how concerts could be held on a smaller-scale without stringent measures in place.
In any case, evidence of how festivals and music events can be carried off safely would be good news for entertainment and ticketing companies like America’s Live Nation (US:LYV).
Elsewhere this morning, shares in Nestlé (SWX:NESN; Buy, 30 Jul 2020) edged up roughly 3 per cent in early trading as organic sales rose 7.7 per cent. Perhaps tired of lockdown restrictions, customers reached for caffeine – making coffee the largest contributor to the Swiss consumer goods giant’s growth.
And on the subject of food, Domino’s Pizza (DOM: Sell, 14 Sep 2020) said today that it served up “exceptional trading” over the new year period.
You can find our analysis of today’s developments below:
