Hire Music Festivals To Vaccinate America

Musical festivals, food vendors, and production teams can run vaccination centers

Much well deserved praise is being directed to the incredible efforts and devotion of staff and volunteers at vaccination centers around the country. For the last few weeks, our synagogue has organized delivering meals to the large vaccination center at Dodger Stadium where hundreds of people administer thousands of vaccinations each day. Our “mitzvacart” project has fed and cheered the folks on the frontlines, but it also opened our eyes to an exciting opportunity.

In order to get a center like Dodger Stadium going 24/7, they are going to need an army of production people. One of the greatest production resources we have in the country are the people out of work from the cancellation of music festivals. What if every vaccination center in the country had festival food vendors and trucks, production help from festival crews, and music from musicians? 

When the COVID pandemic hit, not only were music festivals cancelled, but the musicians, production crews, and food and craft vendors lost all their business. 

After dancing and enjoying music all day or night, food vendors offer fast and tasty fuel. Thousands of creative, hard-working, music-loving folks, set up at festivals and provide a variety of food experiences which add to the beloved music festival scene. They are also experts at providing food day or night, rain or shine, in makeshift set-ups with field kitchens. The food vendors could set up at vaccination centers and offer round-the-clock food and nourishment. They could be up and running in days.

Musicians, who bring our souls so much nourishment, are hurting badly from the pandemic. I’ve met musicians now working at the vaccination centers to make ends meet. Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could pay musicians to perform music, and turn every large vaccination center into a festival of life and music?  

The hardest working people at the festivals may be the production teams who keep the festival going. Whether it’s electricity to tents and stages, or transportation of people, food, and supplies, the production teams work crazy hours, under intense pressure. These veterans know how to keep an operation going and would be an invaluable asset to getting America vaccinated.

I’ll go a step further - I propose that the governments of every state hire music festivals production companies to run more vaccinations centers. From the giants like AEG, SuperFly and LiveNation to indie operators like High Sierra, Summer Camp and Lockn’, there are talented teams and companies who excel at providing 24/7 experiences under challenging environmental conditions. 

They know ticketing, parking lots, traffic flow, food distribution, staffing, security and medical tents and much more. They can put musicians on stage to keep people’s spirits up while they wait in their cars. Festivals have the know-how and people to help vaccinate America. Even the world.

Not to take away the amazing work that local agencies, governments and others are doing. Rather we need more teams and sites, and music festival producers large and small would be an incredible new deployment of the effort to get the world vaccinated.

There may be some retooling, and a learning curve, but the people that I have gotten to know over the last decade and half providing Shabbat hospitality at festivals around the country, are exactly the people who have the energy and know-how to vaccinate millions of Americans. 

Rabbi Yonah Bookstein is the co-founder of Pico Shul, dedicated to creating a more caring world. He is the director of Shabbat Tent, and launched mitzvacart during the pandemic to get meals to caregivers at hospitals and vaccination centers. 

Ps. The food is for the volunteers and staff who are already vaccinate and are on site for many hours. The music would be played over speakers for those in their cars.