The Small Business Administration announced in a tweet on April 16 that the portal to the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant application will be back online by the end of next week. The portal crashed immediately after it was launched last week.

We know this funding is urgently needed now and are doing all we can to reopen with the greatest amount of certainty as possible.

— SBA (@SBAgov) April 16, 2021

The SBA understands how important funding is for the grant and is using all of its resources to ensure the portal comes back online fully prepared.

The Shuttered Venue Operators Grant is the federal government’s broad relief fund worth 16 billion dollars looking to help the arts and cultural spaces impacted by COVID-19. The SVOG was created due to the #SaveOurStages campaign led by NIVA, a 501(c)6 whose mission is to preserve and nurture the ecosystem of independent live venues, promoters, and festivals throughout the United States. The campaign included a virtual festival and a conference in New York. Other companies have been created to help venues during the pandemic as well.

164 members of Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, signed a letter to the SBA in response to the outage, urging they get the problem fixed as soon as possible. It’s not the first time they’ve sent a letter to the SBA with concerns about the program. NIVA believes members of Congress understand that independent venues will be part of the economic renewal of communities across America when this emergency relief arrives.