SBA: Aiming To Reopen SVOG Portal By End Of Next Week

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The U.S. Small Business Administration has told Pollstar it hopes to reopen the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant application portal by the end of next week, after its vendors have fixed “the root cause” of the shutdown that happened immediately after the portal opened April 8.

“Over the next few days, our tech team and vendors will remain focused on testing the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant application portal; it will not reopen this weekend,” the statement reads. “We are aiming to reopen the portal by the end of next week. We know this funding is urgently needed now and are doing all we can to reopen with the greatest amount of certainty as possible.

“As we’ve shared, after our vendors fixed the root cause of the initial tech issues, more in-depth risk analysis and stress tests identified other issues that impact application performance. The vendors are quickly addressing and mitigating them and working tirelessly with our team so the application portal can reopen ASAP and we can deliver this critical aid. We have and will continue to engage with stakeholders on the applicant experience and will continue to share updates regularly. Again, applicants will have advance notice so they can be best prepared.”

The much anticipated SVOG program was passed into law Dec. 27, providing $15 billion worth of relief to independent venues, talent agents, talent buyers and production companies whose businesses have been down to essentially zero since the COVID-19 shutdown from last March.

The portal that would accept applications for the SVOG crashed nearly immediately after going online and without accepting any applications, with users forced to wait and hope their documents would upload and that their applications would be accepted, with instructions that the process would be administered on a first-come, first-served basis, leading to additional anxiety and scramble.

Agents, promoters and venue operators have voiced frustration to being back to square one in the process, after waiting more than four months since the law was passed and already nine months with little to no support other than PPP loans.

The SVOG program is thanks largely in part to the efforts of the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) network of hundreds of venues across the country, and its accompanying National Independent Talent Organization of talent agents, artists, management companies and more.

The passage of the bill was a triumph for a fiercely independent business sector left in the unique position of being unable to operate or fend for itself. Lobbying efforts and grassroots organizing among hundreds of companies and individuals across the country led to what many said was unlikely at best, in securing $15 billion worth of grants to the industry, with qualifications that would include not only venues but talent agents, managers and production companies.

“The statistic used time and time again that 90% of country’s independent venues were in peril of immediate closure if they weren’t able to get this funding is completely true,” Rev. Moose, NIVA executive director and founder of and marketing consulting firm Marauder, told Pollstar shortly after the passage of Save Our Stages. “Now that we have actual funding, true funding from the government imminently coming, it gives people the ability to think about their businesses in a way where they exist in six months to a year, however long it takes to return to operational status.”