Meet the latest pandemic job: the COVID bouncer

But beyond specific municipal mandates, many venues and even individual hosts are requiring vaccines from guests. As of August, nearly one in four couples are now requiring attendees to be fully vaccinated at weddings, up from just 3% in spring, according to the Knot. And these COVID policies have, in turn, created a new task, or even a full-time job in some cases, that individuals and outside companies are jumping into the fray to perform.

Although Prince George Ballroom employs security, Jimenez says she’s called into handle situations at the entry when guests don’t have the proper COVID documentation. “Now I wear the bouncer hat,” she says. “I like to pride myself to be likable, but it kind of forces me to have to be very serious. You can’t be friendly in that role, especially when you’re just having to say no.”

Although most events have run smoothly, Jimenez says she ran into some “interesting cases” during this year’s Fashion Week. The Ballroom played host to several days of events where the client required everyone entering be vaccinated. “It was to the point where the designer for one of the shows was not allowed inside,” Jimenez says. “Luckily, he was graceful and he understood.” But she’s also had to deal with attendees who protest the policies, saying it’s against their rights. Her response: that’s great, but unless you can show proof of your vaccine, I can’t let you in. 

And it’s not always event directors who are shouldering the latest COVID protocols for events, which usually involve checking vaccination status on an app, looking through vaccine cards, verifying negative COVID tests or even reminding guests to wear their masks. 

Edward Troiano, owner of New York City-based Knight Security, and his team are now at the door checking that not only people are on the guest list, but also that they’ve complied with the necessary COVID protocols to enter. 

“It’s a little time consuming, but it’s not something we haven’t done previously,” Troiano tells Fortune, noting that security personnel routinely checked IDs before the pandemic. In most cases, the process is fairly simple: check the app, or check the COVID vaccine card, check their ID and then guests can go into the event. 

“At some events, people are really organized and I’m shocked, but they have the complete list already done, they already got the vaccines cards prior to the event,” Troiano says. 

But it’s a bit more involved when the event requires guests to show a negative PCR test or get a rapid test onsite. “Rapid tests on site take a little longer to come back, and then there’s backflow and all that,” Troiano says. 

And despite less restrictive mandates, outdoor events are no less rigorous than indoor events these days. That’s because many times event insurance, or general liability and property insurance policies, will require vaccinations, masks, and even negative COVID test results, Troiano says. 

Surprisingly, however, Troiano says the new mandates and testing haven’t been a major issue among event guests, at least in New York City. “It hasn’t been a big issue with people being unvaccinated or people coming to the event and giving us a hard time,” he says. “It’s not like a restaurant where people can walk in off the street,” Troiano says. Some New York City restaurants have already experienced altercations with guests who have refused, violently at times, to show proof of their vaccinations. Events, on the other hand, are a bit easier. “Events you have to be invited to and you know prior that, ‘Hey you’re not vaccinated, you’re not getting in.’”

Whether or not they’re really vaccinated, however, is not always clear. “I can’t guarantee there hasn’t been a fake vaccination card going past us. With the vaccination card, they’re very easy to duplicate, it’s not a driver’s license that’s got a special bar on it,” Troiano says. “It’s an index card.” 

Who are COVID bouncers?

While some event companies have opted to hire outside help, others are simply adding the extra steps to their internal workloads. Heidi Hughett, co-owner of events company Coastside Couture, tells Fortune that she works to get the vaccination verification step out of the way before the guests even arrive at the event—and she wrangles this all herself. 

“We figured out in mid-August that we needed to do this ourselves. We had looked at purchasing an app to handle all of the vaccine coordination, but either companies were out of our price range and the clients definitely weren’t interested in spending the money or the ones that were affordable had too many bugs,” Hughett tells Fortune. 

And while the process has become smoother over time, there are still challenges. Hughett had a wedding a few weeks ago where many guests were coming from the Southeast and she didn’t recognize their vaccine cards. “It turned out they were at the Kroger pharmacy, but they were totally different cards than we had, so we do have to check them,” she says. “ We’re being really thorough. I will tell you it was a huge learning curve in the beginning.” 

But there’s only so much she can do to make it work for guests. Hughett says she lost her biggest production of next year because the venue the hosts picked is vaccine-only, and they have a family member who will not get vaccinated. “I just lost probably about $50,000 worth of revenue for next year because of that one person,” Hughett says, adding the hosts ended up moving the event to a different state.

“Producing a wedding sometimes seems like you’re in a war zone. This is a really hard time to be in the industry,” Hughett says.  

New policies bring new costs to manage

For many event planners and producers, having someone handle COVID verifications means extra costs. “You need to have people in place,” says New York City-based event producer Michael Cerbelli. “If the event planner is guarding the door, you’re not watching the event.” 

Although some like Hughett have their own verification process, many planners have opted to tag team with security and outside vendors.  West Coast event planner Alicia Falango, who sits on the executive board of the California Events Coalition, says she recommends hiring a security guard to be with the person checking attendees in. “We didn’t feel like we could ask one of our event assistants, who are checking people in at the door, to have to police people who could be bigger than them—people that could get aggressive,” she said.  

But who’s on the hook for these new costs can vary. “No one knows whose job it is—everyone assumes it’s the planner,” Falango says. Most city mandates stipulate that it’s the venue that’s ultimately responsible for complying with COVID protocols, but Falango says some venues interpret rental agreements to mean that the event host is the “owner” of the space, so they need to handle all COVID policies. 

When it comes to hiring security for events, the COVID protocols typically only spur a “slight increase” in security numbers, Troiano says, because generally security staff already checked IDs and are pretty fast at it. But that does add up. Troiano estimates that prices have increased about 10% across the board for security services. Those services typically ran between $10 and $100 per hour per gruard prior to the pandemic. 

At the Prince George Ballroom, Jimenez says she usually has a 1 to 100 ratio—one security guard to every 100 guests, but these days, she’s apt to add an extra guard to ensure everything goes off smoothly. The extra costs, the extra time, the extra work—it’s all for everyone’s safety, she adds. 

But she wishes that guests would do their part too. “I would really love for people to like read their emails,” Jimenez says. “Everyone’s spending extra time, carving out time to make sure everyone has the correct information. Yet somehow people are like, ‘oh, you are checking?’ And I’m like, that was in the emails,” she says wearily. 

“It comes down to concern of public safety,” Jimenez says. “I don’t care who you are. You literally could be the President and if the President is not vaccinated, I’m sorry…but I need to make sure everyone in here is safe.”

Dive into stories from Fortune’s print edition:

• How one TikTok star went from living in his car to building a comedy career
• Oatly learns that it’s not easy being “green”
• Are women on a collision course with the COVID ceiling?
• Is the “unicorn” boom turning into a bubble?
• Daimler tackles the dirty secret behind clean cars