Big Events: Are Americans Willing to Take the Risk?

While most of the US has reopened, mixed messaging from national and local governments about COVID-19 safety protocols has left many people worried about safety when gathering in large public groups. Is a mask required? Will vaccination cards be checked? Should we even be gathering at all? We polled Americans to see what their current comfort levels are around attending large indoor and outdoor events.

We asked people if they had recently been to an indoor movie, attended an indoor or outdoor concert, theater, outdoor fair, or festival. While responses varied, 38% of respondents had not gone to a large event in the last 3 months.

Curious to see if people’s comfort levels are dictated by indoor or outdoor locations, we then asked respondents to rate their comfort levels on a sliding scale. Looking at the data, it seems that overall people are currently either comfortable or uncomfortable gathering in large groups. Whether the event is in or outdoors doesn’t seem to matter too much. Only 8% of respondents reported feeling more uncomfortable attending indoor vs outdoor. However, when we filtered our respondents by sex using the Insights Platform, men are significantly more likely to feel “extremely”  comfortable attending both types of large gatherings than women (32% vs. 12%).

Source: PureSpectrum Insights Platform

Of the respondents polled for this survey, 55% reported being vaccinated against COVID-19 and vaccination does not seem to affect how comfortable people are attending large events. Only 4% more of unvaccinated respondents report feeling at least some discomfort attending large indoor events. 

Masks mandates are now common across most of the US, and Americans seem to be coming to terms with wearing them at large events. 57% of respondents think they should be mandatory at such events and 78% of respondents report they are “neutral” or “likely” to attend large events where masks are mandated. Vaccination status does not change this sentiment. Only 5% fewer unvaccinated respondents said they are unlikely to attend a large event if a mask is required than the group of mixed respondents. And 41% of those who reported being unvaccinated think that masks should be mandated at large events. 

Almost 50% of Americans polled think that vaccination should be required at large events. However, if they are required for entry to large events, it probably won’t deter most attendees. Only 16% of respondents say they are “extremely unlikely” to attend events with mandatory vaccines. That number is significantly smaller than the group reporting to be unvaccinated. Could this mean that more Americans are planning to get vaccinated? Or could vaccine mandates for public gatherings also help jump-start a new wave of vaccinations? With the FDA’s recent approval of the first Covid-19 vaccine, only time will tell.

Want to learn more about running your own survey? See how easy it is on our Insights Platform.

Interested in getting access to this data?  Email us at marketing@purespectrum.com

Methodology

PureSpectrum interviewed 150 online respondents on August 19th, 2021 using the PureSpectrum Insights Platform. The platform is integrated with the PureSpectrum Marketplace which combines proprietary measurement tools and third-party data validation to quickly collect high-quality insights. The study fielded in less than a day and targeted respondents within the United States and consisted of a general population audience of 18+ years old. This study uses a 95% confidence level to examine the data.