A new Web site is aimed at advocating for the safe reopening of the wedding and event industry in Pennsylvania.
The Private Event Professionals of Pennsylvania, in partnership with the Pennsylvania Restaurant & Lodging Association and the Philadelphia/South Jersey/Delaware chapter of the National Association for Catering and Events, recently launched a new Web site, LetPAMarryUs.com.
The group is urging the Wolf administration to reopen the private event industry to 50 percent capacity, effective immediately, and provide a plan on how it achieves 100 percent operational levels.
Industry professionals and the public are encouraged to visit the site to send e-mails or tweets to the Wolf administration in support of the safe reopening of the event industry in Pennsylvania.
“How, after nearly a year of managing this pandemic, do we not have clear steps and metrics outlined to return businesses to full capacity?” asked Tim Sudall, president of NACE Philadelphia, South Jersey and Delaware.
“It’s a failure of leadership to not be planning and communicating now for the eventual rollback of these mitigation orders.”
Weddings represent more than 65 percent of the private event industry in Pennsylvania and impact more than 40 other professions or industries in Pennsylvania.
These include farmers, food purveyors, caterers, venues, hotels, restaurants, entertainment, photographers, videographers, breweries, wineries, salons, florists and more.
In 2019, Pennsylvania ranked sixth nationally for the number of weddings held. Despite the nearly $2 billion of economic impact weddings and private events generate, there currently is no plan from the Wolf administration for reopening indoor event venues in Pennsylvania.
Events, like weddings, take six to 18 months to plan. Without a clear guidelines or metrics for reopening, customers do not have the confidence to book their events now, thus delaying the sectors recovery.
“The private event industry has been decimated by the administration’s mitigation and the steps to reopening it have been too slow in coming,” said John Longstreet, PRLA president and chief executive officer.
“This segment of our industry is a vital component of our recovery and survival and the delay in communicating how it will reopen is putting it in peril.”
“Safety of our staff and clients are our top priority,” said Domenick Savino, CPCE, managing partner, The Drexelbrook.
“Fortunately, we’re a highly-regulated industry that has protocols in place to do just that. Rather than allow us to open fully like neighboring states, the administration has shut us down, driving events into unregulated locations [and] doing more harm than good.”