A California Events Company Pivots From Festivals to Coronavirus Triage Tents

Keeping jobs and fulfilling a need.

Spring is typically a busy time for Torrance-based Choura Events … Coachella, South by Southwest and the BPN Paribas Open tennis tournament, to name a few clients. In a matter of weeks, all those events were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Rather than put his 200 employees out of work, owner Ryan Choura shifted his business to a place of immediate need: temporary facilities to treat the disease.

“We pivoted so fast to being a rapid-response disaster relief team. If I didn’t know how to do Coachella, I couldn’t do this hospital,” Choura said. “I saw patients coming in here and saw what they looked like. This is real, and we’ve got to move.”

One of those projects is happening right now at the Fountain Valley Regional Medical Center. According to the Los Angeles Times, “The facility — not too dissimilar from the mega-tents housing tens of thousands of ravers at Coachella — is one of four medical villages the company has helped to build so far in LA. Unfortunately, demand for such expertise will likely be spiking soon. But given that so many now-idle event firms have the capacity to build mini-cities at music festivals and beyond, this may be a chance to pitch in on some very urgent work and stay viable as businesses.”