Rock concert scheduled to take place next week in Arkansas

Travis McCready, frontman of country rock band Bishop Gunn, is scheduled to perform next Friday, May 15 at TempleLive in Fort Smith, Arkansas. To our knowledge, this will be the first sizeable show to take place since the live music industry was shut down in mid-March due to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Billboard, McCready will perform to a "socially-distanced crowd" that will be comprised of special groupings that Ticketmaster is calling "fan pods." The pods are intended to be groups of 2-12 people that have been social distancing together. You can view the seating configuration here. As a result of the special guidelines, venue capacity will reduced by 80% from 1,100 to 229. Attendees will be required to wear face masks and there will be a 10-person limit for simultaneous use of each bathroom facility (which will feature no-touch soap and paper towel displensers). Meanwhile, concertgoers will have their temperature taken before entering and will move about via one-way walkways. TempleLive employees will also actively be wiping down "touchpoints" in the venue and its restrooms. Billboard also says that the venue will "sanitized by an independent third party" prior to any event. Strangely, Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson has announced that indoor venues can resume live shows on May 18, three days too late for the McCready concert. A representative for TempleLive confirmed with Billboard that the show is still set to take place on May 15, but was unable (at the time) to "address the discrepancies between the show's date and capacity intentions and the Governor's guidelines."