Sound & Communications: The emergence of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has forced organizations to rethink the massive industry events that formerly served as seemingly irreplaceable opportunities for networking and promotion. Instead of those location-specific, time-bound events with built-in mechanisms for audience attention and networking, we've transitioned to multimedia, multi-environment events that conglomerate presenters, slides and audiences across multiple platforms and locations.
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I don’t know if change is just hard but I really hope virtual is not the future of theater. That being said, I do recognize all the benefits. I love the fact that it isn’t location bound so thousands of people could view a single performance if it’s online instead of a 300 capacity theater. The Accessibility of digital theater is amazing and the impact that stories can have could be international. I also think that the possibilities of interdisciplinary effects and Audience interaction is vast. I do think the future of theater is more interactive. But I just don’t like the energy of digital performance. My gut reaction is resistance and I think it’s because the energy exchange between the audience and actors is magical and that is extremely difficult to achieve on a screen. On a more selfish note, as a stage designer I Don’t want to have to learn how to do virtual art. Computers are my nemesis and I love working with physical things. Everything from art, reading, writing and even scheduling I have to do on paper. I just love the physically of it.
This article ignores too many of the issues that virtual performances have, and it ignores how so many people crave in-person live performance, so much so that a virtual interaction will never be the same amount of fulfillment. It ends on an optimistic note, one that left me feeling like I was still missing something about "how great" virtual performances are and also scared for the future of theatre - how could anyone think a virtual performance could replace in-person ones forever? The article addresses a lot of ways that virtual art has been a new avenue for design and creativity, allowing for greater audience interaction through live chats/Q&A sessions and options like picture-in-picture video editing. And I see how it's now turning into a "cool new opportunity" with attractive features like free viewing/attendance - for example, Scotch'n'Soda's comedy sketch troupe and improv troupe just put on a collaborative virtual show that had both live and pre-recorded parts, where audience members could tune in from anywhere and throw in suggestions on the live Twitch chat. It was a super great experience, but... I'm not convinced anything can replace the tangible experience an in-person event can have.
Going into this article and reading the analysis presented, it's important to realize ahead of time that the discussion is about larger scale conference events and not your local downtown Shakespeare theatre. I think that the type of event outlined here is much more suited to be delivered in an online format. Whereas typical theatre relies on lots of emotion and synchronicity that only an in-person venue can perform, pre-recording summit speakers and having breakout rooms for specific virtual booths can work wonders. When one really considers the cost of using a huge venue and setting up, paying workers, setting up, dismantling, etc., the amount of money saved can really add up. That, and there's an extra level of convenience on the attendees now that they don't have to travel, don't have to book hotels, etc. Despite all of this, there is of course the personality of an in-person event that is lost in the transition. It remains to be seen how much interactivity can truly make up for this and event organizers become more and more creative with their designs, but I believe that in the near future we could see some large events go completely online with good enough design.
This was certainly a provocative headline that might be true for the next couple of years. I was good seeing a breakdown of how different virtual productions work from live streaming to pre-recorded content – just showing the breath of what virtual productions could be as well as talking about the environmental spaces that can be created digitally. Something I love about this blog is getting to read other people’s comments and see where people are thinking, especially as someone who is okay with virtual theatre surrounded by a lot of people who are still mourning the loss of in-person theatre (not that live theatre is going away forever). One quote from the comments that stuck out is that people want to come back to live, which is true and what the data shows but also there are several studies done by SMU Data Arts and other smaller research institutions such as the Pittsburgh Arts Council that are saying people won’t come back till there is a vaccine and this is something to keep in mind as I don’t think that people will come back in the same numbers as people after this economic recession will have less money and also still could be fearful about being in an enclosed space with strangers. Looking at people talking in the comments another thing that stuck out was people talking about free arts access. This is created with digital productions but also going to lead to the death of theatre. Arts organizations need to start charging for their events as I’ve commented in many comments before that arts organization could be making a lot of money through virtual events to help keep them afloat.
Like others have mentioned, I really hope that virtual is not the sole future for live events. At that point, there would be little difference between live streaming and broadcast television, in my opinion. However, I do appreciate the increased level of interactivity that has been developed as a way to engage audiences as performance moved to the internet. Additionally, I appreciate that virtual performance has also increased accessibility across the board, allowing for real time captioning, reduced prices, and location agnosticism. I would not be surprised if, when life begins to return to normal, virtual performance begins to take a life of its own instead of as a half baked substitute for live performance. The virtual conferences I have attended since the beginning of the pandemic have adapted well, all things considered. I have had the opportunity to attend a number of conferences and events that I would otherwise not have been able to go to in a normal year, and I am looking forward to USITT 2021 with its planned full-virtual schedule.
I think one of the few nice things that have happened as a result of the pandemic is that because events have gone online, they become more accessible to people across a much wider range of locations and schedules. I’m not sure, however, that this will (or should) become the new norm. While attending conferences and viewing lectures and performances from your home is convenient, it removes a great deal of what makes the experience actually worthwhile. I think the same goes for trying to transition live performances to online - we already had the movie and tv industry producing content that is designed to be viewed remotely, and the reason theatre and live music hasn’t merged already is because it is fundamentally a different art form with different audience draws and priorities. This means that most virtual performances end up paling in comparison to what they could, and should, have been, and make them frustrating to watch. Increased accessibility doesn’t mean much when the product being shown isn’t what we want to be producing.
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