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New West, Burnaby venues going red for Light Up Live

Grassroots coast-to-coast movement will see venues and other buildings and landmarks lighting up in red to raise awareness of the live event industry and its struggles to stay afloat through COVID-19
Light Up Live
Venues across the country, including those in New Westminster and Burnaby, will be lighting up their exteriors in red for Light Up Live on Tuesday, Sept. 22.

New Westminster and Burnaby venues are lighting up in red to raise awareness for the live event industry.

One hour after sundown tomorrow (Tuesday, Sept. 22), the Light Up Live event will see hundreds of venues and buildings from coast-to-coast light up their exteriors in red.

The event is being organized by Live Event Community, an organization formed to support live event workers in Canada who’s lost their livelihoods due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s raising awareness for the live event industry – an industry that has gone dark because of the pandemic and that will be one of the last to recover from it.

Throughout the evening, images and video will be shared across social media using the hashtags #LightUpLive and #EclaironsLesScenes to boost the visibility of the movement.

The list of participating buildings across the country (find the whole list at www.lightuplive.ca/map) includes a number of prestigious performance venues, major arenas and iconic landmarks – such as the CN Tower, Niagara Falls, Rogers Arena, Roy Thomson Hall, the Stratford Festival Theatre and more.

In New Westminster, the Massey Theatre, Anvil Centre and Douglas College are set to join the nationwide event. In Burnaby, the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts, Innovation Lighting and Briere Production Group are all signed up to take part.

“We’re doing this in support of the amazing workers, artists, technicians and front-of-house people that have lost their livelihoods due to the COVID-19 pandemic, because we’re thinking about them every day and can’t wait until they return,” wrote the Massey Theatre’s Erin Jeffery in an email to the Record.

Morgan Myler, co-founder of Live Event Community, said in a press release that the grassroots event “has seemed to catch fire” across the country.

“Our goal is to ensure the government acknowledges that our industry has been uniquely impacted by the effects of COVID-19 and that it will continue to offer financial support for live event workers and companies throughout the supply chain until large gatherings are once again deemed safe and the industry comes back to life,” Myler said.

Check out www.lightuplive.ca for details, or follow along on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram @liveeventcomm.