Can I Postpone or Cancel My Booking If It’s Affected By COVID-19?
Postponing or cancelling your event is a difficult decision and for personal family events like weddings a very upsetting one to have to make. We can’t take all the pain out of the process, but we will always try to make changing your booking with Solid Steel an easy process
Throughout the pandemic Solid Steel has allowed its clients to simply postpone their bookings when requested to do so and will continue to do so. 90% of our clients who have requested cancellations of bookings for their events because of Government restrictions have been allowed to do so without triggering any cancellation terms on their contracts because such cancellations were obvious force majeures. When a client’s reason for cancelling isn’t a force majeure, we have encouraged them to postpone rather than cancel their date and comply with the cancellation terms on their contract.
From October 2020 the Government’s restrictions are expected to be further relaxed, 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, and it’s possible that larger gatherings are able to take place thereby allowing higher populated events 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 and is not a force majeure. But local lockdown measures may still be ordered at very little notice and we’re prepared to accept your postponements and cancellations no matter how last minute they are!
How Do I Make Changes To My Booking?
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 I Be Charged To Amend or Cancel My Booking?
In the event that you need to postpone, cancel or reschedule due to the Coronavirus, we won’t charge you any admin fees to make changes to your booking and we’ve updated our cancellation policy to ensure all deposits are transferable against a new deposit. This ‘deposit credit’ can be used 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 are entitled to seek fees to recover the income they’ve lost when cancelled for reasons that are not a force majeure.
As a small business whose livelihood is being threatened by the pandemic too, we cannot pay them if we haven’t been paid 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, and 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 and our band get through this difficult period now.
What If Solid Steel Isn’t Available For My New Date?
The talent pool of our band is such that this is entirely unlikely, but if it were the case we would be duty bound to provide a deputy band that you would be asked if you approved of beforehand. If you don’t approve of our choice, we will refund any deposits already paid.
I’ve Already Moved My Booking - What If I Need To Move It Again?
We will allow our clients to transfer their deposit credit multiple times, as long as their new event takes place before 1st January 2024, with no admin fees charged to amend your booking.
What If I Have Wedding or Event Insurance?
It’s a good idea to check your policy to see under what circumstances you are covered before cancelling. This may help recover some, if not all your costs.
What If the Situation Changes?
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 continued support 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, and we will be following the guidance laid out by the government 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, regular, thorough handwashing, frequent use of hand sanitiser and strict social distancing during when accessing any venue and setting up equipment.
- Our recording studio is now restricted to having only a single person operate it following government advice.
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