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With larger audiences returning to live performances, visitors need to take the lead on enforcing Covid safety protocols, says Mark Pullinger.

Summer is over, the Proms flags and bunting are back in storage. After the long Covid hiatus, which included brave attempts to salvage something from the wreckage of their 2020-21 programming, concert halls and opera houses have reopened their doors, hopefully for an uninterrupted new season. After 18 months of getting my cultural fix via video streams or attending a handful of socially distanced concerts where you file in and file out along carefully patrolled routes, what would it be like returning to familiar haunts under normal conditions? In short, it’s been unnerving.

I was at the opening night of the Royal Opera House’s season. While staff were masked or behind protective screens at the box office or bars, a lot of the audience were not. The evening before, I was at Wigmore Hall – an absolute model for safety protocols between lockdowns, with temperature checks and staggered entry times – and a number of audience members around me were unmasked. At the Barbican on Sunday, mask-wearing was well under 50%. I didn’t venture further afield than the Northern Line last week, so this piece only refers to personal experiences of concert-going in the capital.

Am I missing something? Covid hasn’t suddenly gone away... Keep reading on Bachtrack.