Minnesota music venue operators and promoters are used to tardy performers and fashionably late fans, but their patience is being tested like never before by the federal government.
More than 100 nightclubs, concert halls, theaters and promotional companies across the state — along with thousands more nationally — lined up last week to finally apply for some of the $16 billion in relief promised in the so-called Save Our Stages bill that Congress passed in December.
When the online application process began April 8, however, the website set up by the Small Business Administration quickly crashed and never came back up. Not a single application was processed.
Ten days later, hopeful recipients of what's now officially called the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program are still waiting to apply for the grants, which they began lobbying for more than one year ago.
"At this point, the delay is nothing short of devastating," said Shayna Melgaard, president of the Minnesota Independent Venues Alliance.
Already stretched thin by nine months of COVID-19 lockdown when the bill, co-authored by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., was passed, presenters endured four more months of waiting — and then had to wade through an arduous application process including a 58-page guide.
Said Melgaard, "It's certainly adding more stress on venue operators and promoters who [were] already burdened with trying to navigate the lengthy and overwhelming application questions, and now can't even access the portal to begin the process."
The New York Times reported that the vendor behind the SBA website initially scrambled to fix it that day, but after a few hours "shut down the portal to ensure fair and equal access once reopened, since this is first-come, first-serve." Comparisons were made to last year's meltdown in applications for the Paycheck Protection Program.
