(Credit: Teatro Real official website)

U.K. artists touring Spain will no longer need visas for short-term engagements, which was imposed as a consequence of Brexit.

The European Union imposed visas for U.K. tourists touring the member states as part of a Brexit deal. However, many artists were greatly affected by the laborious and costly process which hindered their long term planning. Well-known British tenor Peter Hoare was one of the many UK artists that experienced the brutality of the process with ton of paperwork in order to be able to perform in the run of “Lessons in Love and Violence” at the Gran Teatre del Liceu.

“Until now, artists and their promoters have had to make applications for short-term visas entirely in Spanish, provide a host of itinerary details before having even been given the green light for the tour to go ahead – including accommodation and flight allocations – and give proof of applicant earnings of up to nearly £1,000 before ever having left the country. Costs were also prohibitive, amounting to over £10,000 for an orchestra to visit Spain for up to five days,” said the Association for British Orchestras in an official statement. “Touring artists and their production teams were also required to wait for over a month for a decision, making long term scheduling – vital for successful international touring – impossible,” added ABO.

“We are delighted that our hard work has paid off and the Spanish Government has agreed to lift the restrictive visa process for touring artists, ending the complicated and painful process of expensive visa applications. A whole host of people came together both here and in Spain to fix this situation and this shows what we can achieve as an industry when we work together,” said Chair of the LIVE Touring Group Craig Stanley. “However, that is still only one small part of a very large problem affecting our ability to tour in the round. We are calling on the Government to follow our lead and urgently work to fix the rules with the remaining member states so that we can continue to tour across the entirety of the European Union,” concluded Stanley.

While the move by the Spanish Government has facilitated the process touring UK artists, some problems with the other EU countries are still waiting to be solved. One of the remaining important issues is the cabotage (the transport of goods or passengers between two places in the same country by a foreign operator), which makes many tours impossible.