Lancashire Cricket And Emirates Old Trafford Delighted Events Will Resume
Lancashire Cricket and Emirates Old Trafford are delighted with the news that attendance at sport and large-scale events will resume from 21 June, subject to government data proving the four key tests being achieved.
This proposed timeline would mean that supporters should be back to Emirates Old Trafford for the first time for Lancashire’s County Championship Roses clash against Yorkshire, starting on Thursday 27 May, followed by the Vitality Blast Roses Match on Saturday,17 July. However, prior to these major fixtures there will be a number of fixtures played to which a restriction of 25% of total capacity will be applied, again subject to all the government’s tests being achieved.
This summer will also see the launch of the ECB’s new competition, ‘The Hundred’, on Wednesday 21 July. Under the new roadmap, all four of the Manchester original home fixtures at the Emirates Old Trafford will be unrestricted.
In addition to the domestic cricket, Lancashire, Emirates Old Trafford will also welcome Pakistan for an International T20 on Tuesday 20 July and then on 10-14 September India for a Test Match on 10-14 September.
Commenting on the new governments roadmap, Lancashire’s CEO, Daniel Gidney said: “It’s the moment that the whole nation has been waiting for - finally there is light at the end of the tunnel, and we are extremely excited that life can return to normal and live events will be back at Emirates Old Trafford. Yesterday’s announcement was fantastic news for cricket fans who will now be able to experience the thrill of watching some of the best cricketers on the planet play at our brilliant venue later this year.
“Whilst we work to the government’s key dates of Monday 17 May and Monday 21 June, we hope to be able to host ‘Members at Emirates Old Trafford’ sooner as part of a government pilot programme to provide the data required to confirm the phased reintroduction of fans from 17 May. Our experience of successfully hosting behind-closed-door Test Matches last summer, allied to 17 acres we have on site, allowed us to safely run large scale volume testing in April and we are hopeful that we can support the government with pilots.
“We believe that most of our Members will have had a vaccine then which can only help. In addition to this we are looking at developing an outdoor café bar to enable visitors to safely attend Emirates Old Trafford when large non-essential retail, zoos, theme parks and large pub gardens re-open on 12 April.
“It's also a critical day for Emirates Old Trafford’s events business and we look forward to welcoming guests back for conferences, meetings and events from 17 May. We have a considerable number of events already scheduled for the second half of the year and we are delighted that our partners now have certainty these events will take place. We are working closely with the Meetings Industry Association to support their advanced plans for pilots in this space as well. The announcement will also offer confidence to clients and event bookers who have been waiting for the greenlight from the government before committing to their plans. We expect the 2021 Christmas party season to be extremely busy with businesses desperate to finally be able to bring large numbers of people together.
“We are delighted to have the return of live sport and events confirmed by the government. We’ve been ready to welcome guests back to Emirates Old Trafford since hosting 21 days of International cricket behind-closed-doors in a bio-secure bubble. The learning from this experience has been immense and we’ve looked to share this knowledge with the wider industry and our partners at every opportunity. We’re thrilled that we can now put our collective experience back in to practice ensuring we keep all future visitors to Emirates Old Trafford safe and secure at all times”
Mr Gibney went on to say that Emirates Old Trafford’s experience makes the club uniquely placed to develop pilots that aid the safe transition from small crowds gradually increasing back into stadia. The close geographical proximity of the club to the government’s research project out of Liverpool into volume lateral flow testing also leaves the club very well placed to potentially play an active role in supporting the government’s generation of the necessary data to enable each of the four stages of the re-opening programme. He also believes that pilots should be re-named as ‘safety preparation events’ in order to project the process enabling venues to gear up to 25% capacity from 17 May.
During the Coronavirus pandemic, Emirates Old Trafford hosted 21 days of International cricket behind closed doors last summer giving them the opportunity to completely re-write its operating procedures also hire a dedicated Covid-19 Officer, whilst facilitating the administration of more than 6,000 Covid-19 tests.
Following the experience gained from operating a bio-secure bubble, Emirates Old Trafford launched the ‘Safe in One Place’ campaign to share the knowledge and best practice gained with the wider events industry. The venue was subsequently recognised for its efforts with its Operations Team being named winning ‘Team of the Year’ by the Meetings Industry Association and also being shortlisted at the Exhibition News Awards in the category of ‘Best Venue Event Safety Plan’.
