I’ve been preparing and reviewing speaker contracts for close to two decades. On Friday, for the first time ever, I signed a legal document where specific COVID-19 verbiage was included. Booked for a big event by a company you’ve certainly heard of that begins with a “Z,” we received our first ever COVID addendum.
Sure, we’ve always had force majeure clauses that cover unforeseeable circumstances — like terrorist attacks, war, and such — and even COVID since it falls under why an event might need to reschedule. But the new COVID addendum is a smart and necessary move to legally protect the company having the event.
Terms and Conditions
You agree to notify the company of your vaccination status and agree to adhere to all the COVID rules they have in place (masks, social distancing, hand washing and more). You also sign that you understand you might get sick anyway and you assume any and all risks. It even covers how they plan to do contact tracing just for this event.
With an addendum for their contracts (all the people they contract to provide event services) and waivers for attendees, if anyone is exposed to COVID and dies post event (Heaven forbid!), ‘Z Company’ is legally protected because (a) they did everything they could to prevent virus spread — and (b) ya knew ya might get sick and die before ya went.
Good thing the ‘Z company’ event is not in Indiana. It’s so cold here people would need something warmer than a cloth mask to cover their faces, and you can’t wash your hands if you’re already wearing gloves. 😉
TIL (Today I Learned): Earmuffs were invented in 1873 by a 15 year-old farmer’s son with an elementary-level education who was tired of his ears getting cold while ice skating. It led to his hometown of Farmington, Maine, being known as the “earmuff capital of the world.”