Can I Postpone or Cancel My Booking If It’s Affected By COVID-19?
Postponement and cancellation policy
Postponing or cancelling your event is a difficult decision and for personal family events like weddings a very upsetting one. We can’t make the process entirely painless, but will try to make changing your booking with us an easy process.
Throughout the pandemic our policy has consistently allowed clients to simply postpone their bookings when they request that. We’ve allowed 90% of our clients who have requested cancellations of bookings for their events because of Government restrictions to do so. This is without triggering any cancellation terms on their contracts, because such cancellations were obvious force majeures. When a client’s reason for cancelling wasn’t a force majeure, we encouraged them to postpone rather than cancel their date and comply with the cancellation terms on their contract.
From October 2020 we expect the Government to further relax its restrictions, but it has become increasingly difficult to predict how COVID transmission rates will affect events later in the year or in 2021. At the moment, there is no long-term advice on event restrictions. Therefore, it’s possible that larger gatherings are able to take place thereby allowing events with larger crowds to go ahead.
Solid Steel’s policy going forward is that any cancellation now of a booking made for a future event is precautionary rather than due to COVID. As such, it’s not a force majeure reason for cancellation. But local lockdown measures may still come into force at very little notice. Consequently, we’re prepared to accept all of your postponements and cancellations, regardless of how last minute they are!
How Do I Make Changes To My Booking?
Email communication
Please email us at info@solid-steelband.com. We’re a small company and don’t have the resources for you to do this by using any online booking system.
A simple email requesting a change will elicit a swift and efficient response.
Will You Charge Me To Amend or Cancel My Booking?
Changes to bookings made easy
Should you need to postpone, cancel or reschedule due to the Coronavirus, we won’t charge you any admin fees!
Furthermore, we’ve updated our cancellation policy to ensure all deposits are transferable against a new deposit. This ‘deposit credit’ you can use towards any future bookings with us for any event before the end of 2023. The 25% deposit on fees we currently ask of our clients we consider more than fair in an industry that is now commonly requesting clients pay a deposit of 50%.
We don’t want to ever charge any cancellation fees, and that’s especially true in the current crisis.
But if you’ve signed a contract, our individual musicians- who are self-employed professional freelance musicians- have also signed contracts. They’re entitled to seek to recover the income they’ve lost when a client cancels for reasons that aren’t force majeure.
As a small business whose livelihood is also under threat during the pandemic, we can’t pay them independently. Certainly not if we remain unpaid ourselves.
However, despite facing personal hardship as a result of this pandemic, our musicians are doing their very best to accommodate changes at no charge. For instance, most often forgo fees where they are available for a new date. Paying 25% as a down payment and postponing rather than cancelling your event should the need arise helps support them. In addition, it helps our band get through this difficult period now.
What If Solid Steel Isn’t Available For My New Date?
Able deputies provided
The talent pool of our band is such that this is entirely unlikely. However, if it were the case we’d provide a deputy band that we would seek your approval of beforehand. If you didn’t approve of our choice, we would refund any deposits already paid.
I’ve Already Moved My Booking - What If I Need To Move It Again?
Deposit credit transfers
We will allow our clients to transfer their deposit credit multiple times with no admin fees charged to amend your booking.
To clarify, this will apply as long as their postponed event takes place before 1st January 2024,
What If I Have Wedding or Event Insurance?
Wedding & Event Insurance
It’s a good idea to check your policy to see under what circumstances the policy covers you before cancelling. This may help recover some, if not all your costs.
The ultimate satisfaction of our wedding clients is extremely important to us!
What If the Situation Changes?
Flexible but competent management of Covid-19
If Government restrictions do prevent your event from taking place, you will not be held liable for any cancellation fees. You might want to keep up to date on the UK Government’s official restrictions here.
Independently of the official advice, Solid Steel is ensuring support continues for our clients and our musicians in several ways:-
- We are easily contactable by phone and email as readily as ever to support our clients and artists throughout the coronavirus crisis.
- The welfare of our clients, their guests and our musicians is our top priority. Therefore, we will be following the guidance the government has laid out to help protect everyone.
- In situations where individual Solid Steel administrators or band members may become ill, the rest of our team has immediate access to support Solid Steel’s events through our cloud based booking management system.
- As performers, we have taken the appropriate measures to protect band members and audience members alike. These measures include social distancing and hygiene considerations such as wearing a mask at all times when social distancing is not possible during performance. Additionally, we’ll practice regular, thorough handwashing, frequent use of hand sanitiser and strict social distancing when accessing any venue and setting up equipment.
- Our recording studio is now limited to having only a single person operate it following government advice.
- Finally, we have written this Covid-19 Support FAQs page!
Useful resources:
