The Purple People Bridge will be awash in red tonight from 9 p.m. to midnight as part of a regional and national effort to recognize hardships faced by the hospitality and entertainment industry and its employees as a result of the COV-19 pandemic.

“This is a regional and national effort to make the public aware of the hardship these businesses are suffering because of the of the coronavirus pandemic and the fact these they are not able to operate during this time, which also means that their employees cannot work,” said Mike Claypool, owner and president of MAC Productions, which is celebrating its 50th year as a business this year.

Arts, cultural, and live events as well as conventions were among the first industries shut down because of the pandemic and most of them remain closed today, which means that millions of people in our region and across the nation who work in this industry are unemployed or underemployed, Claypool said.

“Unfortunately, these businesses also will be among the last to return to operations once the crisis is over, which looks like it will be in 2021 at the earliest. As a result, about one-half of these businesses are expected to lose between 70 percent to 100 percent of their business this calendar year, and unfortunately, that means that many of them are not likely to make it through the pandemic.”

These businesses also are asking the public to support the RESTART Act, which would continue and expand the pandemic unemployment assistance legislation passed by Congress earlier this year that provided funding to many of these employees who are out of work. This legislation is currently stalled in Congress.

Jack Moreland, president of the Purple People Bridge Company, the 501(c)(3) organization that operates the pedestrian-only bridge between Newport and Cincinnati, said his organization is among those in the region who have been adversely impacted by the pandemic.

“As a nonprofit organization with no endowment or readily available sources of private or public funding, we operate the Purple People Bridge primarily from the rental fees we get from events on the bridge,” Moreland said. “While the bridge remains open to the public during the pandemic, since March, we have not held any events on the bridge, a situation that looks like it’s going to continue for a while, unfortunately.”

Among the other venues that are participating in the Red Alert

  • Aronoff Center for the Performing Arts
  • The Carnegie
  • Cincinnati Museum Center
  • Cincinnati Shakespeare Company
  • Covedale Center for the Performing Arts
  • Duke Energy Convention Center
  • Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati
  • Great American Ball Park
  • Heritage Bank Center
  • Know Theatre
  • Music Hall
  • Northern Kentucky Convention Center
  • Playhouse in the Park
  • PNC Pavilion at Riverbend Music Center
  • Riverbend Music Center
  • Taft Theater
  • Warsaw Federal Incline Theater
  • Washington Park Stage
  • Woodward Theater