Packing into a small, dimly lit room while you and a few hundred strangers dance and listen to your favorite artists is one of the many small joys we’ve been missing for months. For many of those spaces and their fans, that experience could be gone forever if a new piece of legislation called the Restart Act doesn’t pass Congress before it goes on recess in August.
That’s according to Audrey Fix Schaefer, spokesperson for the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA). It’s a group made of of nearly 2,000 indie venues across the country that has been lobbying for federal support.
“We did a survey of NIVA members a couple months ago and found out 90% of them — 90 — said that if the shutdowns lasted six months or more with no federal help, they would never be open again,” says Schaefer.
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