As the Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (PUC) (or as it was better known-that extra six hundred dollars of unemployment) expired at the end of July, many live event coalitions, companies, and professionals began organizing empty events consisting of a typical gala set up with tables and tables of empty chairs. Knowing that only basic unemployment was an insufficient livelihood for many of their employees and that the events industry was not coming back anytime soon as COVID-19 case numbers continued to rise in many states, production companies created these events to lobby Congress to provide a financial bailout for the events industry and to extend Pandemic Unemployment Compensation.
