The Festival Organizer Rolling With the Coronavirus Punches

Odeliyah Razabi is a self-described adrenaline junkie. As the executive producer of some of Israel’s largest festivals, events and shows, she said, “As the producer, you are the head of something so it’s a lot of responsibility. So many people [and] situations. It’s together, but it’s quite alone. I can do 70 calls a day, 100 emails a day. But when I have to make a decision it’s all on me. There’s so many phone calls. Sometimes I want to kill my phone.”

Razabi is the producer of the annual Tamar Festival, which takes place over four days each year at Masada in the south of the country and attracts roughly 10,000 people each day. She’s produced a 4,000 participant marathon at the Dead Sea, corporate events, dance festivals and rock concerts.

The 38-year-old calls herself an “architect of a new reality. Someone comes to me with his or her ideas and then I have to construct their reality. I put players within this game. It has a starting point, an end point, a soundtrack. I have really good connections with everyone I meet.”

Today, though, Razabi finds herself in a new reality in the midst of the global coronavirus pandemic. As of last week, the Israeli government limited gatherings to 100 people. “Social distancing” has become the new buzz term. The live entertainment industry in Israel has been decimated. All of Razabi’s productions have been canceled until mid-May.

“We’re all unemployed at the moment,” Razabi said, adding that as an independent contractor, she is not eligible for most of the compensation salaried employees are receiving in Israel at this time.

“It means I have no income in the foreseeable future. I have to find another way to earn my living. On the one hand, it is very frustrating,” she said, “because this is what I do and this is what my energy wants to do. But on the other hand, it’s an opportunity to be creative.”

Razabi has been on the phone all week, calling myriads of professionals who make large-scale events happen to deliver the bad news. “I can’t say that it doesn’t make me sad,” she said. “When you’re a producer, you work on getting things ‘known,’ so the unknown is the territory you don’t want to be in.”

Nonetheless, Razabi is an optimist and said, “This too shall pass. I’m not willing to give in. I struggle but I can still be creative and be in the ‘doing’ process. It’s an opportunity to leave the comfort zone and meet ourselves in another state of being. When [this is] over, and it will be over, we will have this experience … and it will make us better professionals.”