(CelebrityAccess) — The Small Business Administration finally rolled out the long-awaited application portal for the Shuttered Venue Operator Grants, disbursing more than $16 billion in federal aid to live entertainment business affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The portal, which originally launched on April 8th, was taken offline in a matter of hours after users reported connection issues, unclear instructions, and glitches with the application system.
Since then, the SBA has been hard at work to improve the system and finally relaunched the platform on Monday after a 17-day wait with upgraded features and apart from long lines, the re-launch appeared to be largely successful.
However, users are still reporting some issues with the platform.
One applicant told CelebrityAccess that they ran afoul of a requirement to add a second bank account to the system in order to obtain a code for the second bank account and proposed several workarounds for business with just one account.
Another talent representative reported that they were unable to add negative income to the account, which was accrued by returning deposits for shows but was able to move forward with their application by making a memo regarding the discrepancy.
Other users reported authentication and database errors that made it impossible to proceed with their application.
An email to the SBA for comment was not returned at press time.
