It has been a long, hard year for the live entertainment industry. While some parts of the US have allowed live events, most theatres have been closed or open with very restrictive COVID-19 policies and no major tours have hit the road. However, things seem to be looking up. This week, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that Broadway will reopen on September 14, and theatres will be allowed to sell every seat. More than 100,000 New Yorkers make a living in the theatre so the news is a huge boost for the industry. In addition, several high-profile artists announced tours beginning this summer, including Garth Brooks whose stadium tour is set to begin in just two months on July 17.
Last August, five months into the pandemic, Live Design released the results of a survey to assess the impact of the pandemic on the industry. The results were dramatic: 76% of respondents indicated that they had lost more than 75% of their business since March 2020, and 72% reported losing more than 75% of revenue in the same period.
This spring, our second survey revisited the same topics to see how things stand after a full year without live entertainment. There was not much improvement, as 60% reported losing 75% of business and 56% have lost more than 75% of revenue, devastating figures for an industry that usually generates almost a trillion dollars in revenue each year.
The 71 respondents fall into the following categories:
The majority of the respondents had revenues of less than one million dollars and almost 55% of them received Paycheck Protection Program assistance in the first round and 32% received unemployment insurance but more than a quarter of businesses did not get any government assistance. That includes other forms of support such as small business administration loans, EIDL loans, or the venue or business was primarily government funded anyway. More than 50% of respondents said they would be applying for PPP support in the second round.
Seventy percent of you had to lay off or furlough staff, but 26% of those say they have already brought staff back. A third said that they would bring staff back in the third quarter of 2021 and around 20% suggested it would not be until 2022. More worrying was the number of professionals who have left the industry.
The industry has shown resilience as roughly 60% of companies have pivoted to new projects or products, those include branding events without face to face audiences, livestreams, virtual, and recorded video events rather than in-person, renovations and updates, and permanent installations. Some mentioned taking small jobs they would not have taken in the past.
Pivoting helped—up to a point. Only 52% of organizations said those projects helped pay the bills.
Overall though, respondents were optimistic about financially surviving the pandemic.
When asked when business will pick up again the majority of respondents replied July, August, or September of this year, but they believed that business and revenues won't return to pre-Covid levels before 2023. Interestingly, there were some bright spots during the last year. When asked about growth areas one survey respondent replied pithily, “Streaming, duh” Livestreaming and virtual events were obviously a big part of the landscape this year and hybrid events look set to stick around in the future.
A PDF of the complete survey results can be downloaded here.