The protective shield for the meeting and event industry approved by the Austrian government, in the amount of 300 million euros, aims to enable the further planning and implementation of all events (e.g. congresses, trade fairs, cultural events and sports events) despite the Covid-19 crisis and thus offers a state Protection for event planners. In addition, the value chain upstream and downstream of the event planning (e.g. catering, technology provider, etc.) should be strengthened and also supported.
The subject of the funding is a financial disadvantage that arose due to Covid-19-related event cancellations or Covid-19-related significant event restrictions.
This is intended to create incentives for planning events in order to be able to absorbe the negative effects of the Covid-19 crisis.
NEW: Protective Shield II (from July 2021 onwards)
– To ensure that large and particularly value-added events can also be supported, Protective Shield II was developed.
– This involves liability for up to 80% of the proven financial disadvantage.
– The maximum liability amount is 10 million euros per event organizer.
– The Protective Shield II can be applied for shortly at the ÖHT.
– The application will be possible until the end of October 2021.
– As with Protective Shield I, events that take place until the end of 2022 can be submitted.
Application deadline
The application for funding can be submitted from January 18 to December 2021.
IMPORTANT: The application must be submitted at a point in time at which it is not yet certain that the event can only take place to a significantly limited extent, or that it must be postponed or cancelled. The application must be submitted as early as possible, as only those costs can be considered for the calculation of the funding which on the one hand meet the criteria and on the other hand are only due after the application has been submitted.
The funding amount
The maximum funding amount is a maximum of 90% of the eligible costs or a maximum of 1 million euros. Now a first increase to EUR 2 million per organiser has been implemented. This can already be applied for, and a changeover from existing applications to the higher funding amount is possible at a later date.
Find out more about Austria’s protective shield here.
