On Aug. 26, Chancho en Piedra played its first concert in 17 months. It was part of the “Music Rehearses Project,” which is experimenting with returning to in-person concerts. The public was monitored before and after the event, as part of the sanitary measures.
Chilean band Chancho en Piedra presented its first live show since the beginning of the pandemic on Thursday, Aug. 26. The show was part of a clinical experiment being carried out by Universidad de Chile, along with Sala SCD, an event company part of the Chilean Society of Musical Authors and Performers.
The concert was part of the “Music Rehearses Project,” a project that seeks to evaluate the potential risks of live music performances.
The show had a capacity of 200 people, all of them masked, fully-vaccinated, and armed with mobility passes and negative PCR tests.
The PCR tests were taken hours before the show, and part of the experiment includes further testing eight days later to confirm that no one was infected during the concert.
Also read:
Another measure taken was the implementation of CO2 ventilators, so the venue had continuous ventilation and air flow.
This experiment is based on post-pandemic live music experiences in Europe, where concerts and other cultural events have already returned.
The lead immunologist for the study, Alejandro Afani, said that the public “had behaved in a very good way, people used their masks and didn’t remove them for the entire evening; everyone was in high spirits musically … it was an extraordinary event.”
The “Music Rehearses Project” is set to continue as the results keep coming in, every time with a bigger and bigger audience, to see what happens as live music returns to its prior proportions, but with aggressive sanitary measures.
Afani mentioned that the increase in capacity limit “needs to move forward very slowly, to keep things safe and responsible.”
Javiera is from Santiago de Chile, she is studying journalism at Universidad de Chile, since 2017 and doing her internship at Chile Today.