Wednesday, December 08, 2021
Pittsburgh arts groups have returned to indoor shows, but not all patrons have followed
90.5 WESA: Three months after indoor performing arts returned to Pittsburgh, most groups are finding attendance significantly down from pre-pandemic levels. But they expected the drop, and hope to continue luring back audiences.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I am not surprised to read that audiences are not back to the levels they were before, but it’s also good to hear that these groups were not expecting full volume. A lot of what you read recently is that there was this expectation that everything would go almost back to how it was before the pandemic, but those are unrealistic expectations. It’s also interesting that they specify that it was “nonprofit groups” that reported high patron cooperation in COVID protocols. We are not out of this yet, and it’s important that it’s taken into account that people aren’t ready to sit in an enclosed theater or space. What I am curious about is if the percentages that were reported regarding audience count were based on a full house or a limited capacity house. I see that the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra reported about a full seated house, but there are venues that aren’t at full capacity and I am curious to know how that came into their planning
Getting people comfortable with attending indoor shows has proven to be very difficult. It has definitely not been helped by the fact that every time it seems we may be nearing the end and seeing the way out of the woods, there seems to be a new variant with unknown risks. Hopefully, the nonprofit arts groups are able to recalibrate their business models to accommodate for the approximately 25 percent drop in attendance so that they can keep their doors open as people start to trickle back in. I think a major aversion to live indoor performances has been that no one wants to be the test dummy. Everyone would rather someone else go to an indoor show and see what happens to them before they go to one. If we can all keep getting vaccinated, and now getting booster shots, then hopefully cases will eventually stabilize and drop low enough where people feel safe being part of an audience again.
It is interesting to read about the way Pittsburgh companies are dealing the the pandemic this season. I was able to take an arts management class this semester and we talked about how of the people who came to see in-person events since summer, most of them felt comfortable being in person for live events as long as safety precautions were taken. Now when you read the same survey but including all the respondents, the number dropped from around 90% to closer to 50%. Obviously those who are in person are more likely to be comfortable with in-person events. Even today I read an article stating that if two people are both correctly masked (using FFP2 masks), the transmission rate from one to the other remains below 1% even after an hour. I think we are moving to an endemic with Covid and we are still adjusting to the new normal. Either way, government assistance is running out and donors are not an endless supply of money. Pittsburgh companies need to continue innovating and growing, whatever that may lead to.
Post a Comment