Industry Pro

While the UK has delayed their full reopening date by nearly a month, other regions across the globe continue to roll back many of the restrictions they had in place. However, the patchwork of rollbacks and differing approaches to live theatre has many arts administrators feeling stretched beyond reason.

While audiences may still be waiting a bit for the rest of their family to get vaccinated (particularly families with children), they are starting to make plans to see shows later this year - making now a great time to start marketing your productions.

With the UK only a few weeks away from their most recently proposed date of full capacity in theatres, a new variant has put those plans into limbo - and producers aren't happy about it. Stateside, more theatres continue to announce their season plans, and things are beginning to look a lot more solid than they did even two months ago.

As the calendar turns to June, we’re one step closer to Broadway reopening, fewer audience restrictions in the UK, and more theatre companies taking steps toward performing in the great outdoors. All of these are great signs for the industry, and increased arts funding are yet another sign that the days are starting to get a bit brighter.

In a week filled with another flurry of announcements, the CDC’s announcement loosening mask wearing guidelines for fully vaccinated individuals solidified the reopening timeline for many theatres. While this is causing adjustments to seating plans (towards higher capacity), planning for bringing back company members, and more - the news was more than welcome by most in the entertainment industry.

In a week filled with another flurry of announcements, the CDC’s announcement loosening mask wearing guidelines for fully vaccinated individuals solidified the reopening timeline for many theatres. While this is causing adjustments to seating plans (towards higher capacity), planning for bringing back company members, and more - the news was more than welcome by most in the entertainment industry.

On Wednesday, May 12th at 2pm Eastern, BroadwayWorld is teaming up with Axiom Medical to present a free webinar called Safely Taking the Stage - Best Proactive Strategies for Success. You can register for free here, but we also wanted to give you a quick preview of some of the topics that we’ll be focusing on during the discussion:

Solid plans are finally forming for the return of Broadway, and we are now within a week of West End theatres returning to performance. For the past few months, every time a new major production has opened, it has felt like a baby step towards normalcy.

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Reopening announcements continue to pour in from around the world, and even in New York last week a timeline has started to be narrowed in on the return of shows both on Broadway and off. More and more municipalities have given clearer guidance on the easing of their restrictions - and the weather is even starting to turn to temperatures that support outdoor events.

One thing is certain: the performing arts will be a changed industry as we come out of the other side of the pandemic. From changes in business model, to new budget priorities to deal with potential shortfalls, to a deeper understanding of the ways the industry has failed in DEI efforts in the past, there will be few, if any, institutions that come back as the same institution they were before. That isn't a guarantee that this change is going to be all for the positive, and no matter what, there will continue to be growing pains as groups across the industry grapple with the way things were, the way they want things to be, and the way things are. This week, we have stories of the new generation of leaders coming to the fore in the midst of this upheaval, stories of cities starting to get their performing arts industries open again, and a look at how the industry has shifted over the past year, and where it can go from here.

The pandemic has not only had a deep impact on the entertainment industry from a financial perspective, it has also brought into stark relief the inequalities that have existed just below the surface - and as more regions move toward reopening, more questions continue within the industry of how companies should function when they do reopen.

As vaccines continue to roll out across the country, the puzzle of how to safely reopen gains some clarity - but with that clarity come new questions. This week, we have coverage of new production guidelines from AEA as well as concerns over the feasibility of vaccine or negative test requirements of audiences.

With off-Broadway performances resuming at some venues in New York, mid-May openings in the UK, and performances already underway in Australia and some parts of Asia, things are steadily returning to a sense of normal in the performing arts industry.

With off-Broadway performances resuming at some venues in New York, mid-May openings in the UK, and performances already underway in Australia and some parts of Asia, things are steadily returning to a sense of normal in the performing arts industry.

The shift to digital tools brought on by the pandemic, and the continuation of trends that had begun before the pandemic make this an ideal time to also shift your show program into the digital realm. With Stage Mag available from BroadwayWorld, the tools are now also available to make this a simple, cost-effective switch for you and your team.

Across the globe, vaccine rollouts continue - at a more efficient pace in some places than others - and with that, plans for a return to normalcy continue to be put out by governments, unions, and institutions.

Launched in mid-November last year, in the last 4 months we have already seen over 800 Stage Mags created. Not sure what Stage Mag is? It is a new, fully-customizable digital show program available from BroadwayWorld. Not only does this offer your audiences the comfort of a digital program built to be viewed on their phones, this offers you the opportunity to collect additional data points on your audience as a whole, not just on the primary ticket buyers.

Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen announcements that indicate much of the same, and plans are being made, tickets are being sold, and soon artists will be getting hired to get much of the creative economy back to work. While this is not a happy anniversary, it is a hopeful one.

As we approach the one year anniversary of Broadway shutting down due to the pandemic, the questions of reopening are finally moving from the theoretical to the real. What are the procedures going to look like? In places where venues are allowed to operate at some (or full) capacity, how to do it safely, and will audiences actually return?

A hopeful tone is starting to settle into the industry, even as some of the news and reports about the impact of the past year on local economies - and the creative economy as a whole - are bringing statistical information to what many of us have been feeling and experiencing the whole time.

This week, we have a lot of stories about the path to reopening from the around the globe - from Australia where reopening has already occurred and they’ve got Broadway productions playing to big houses to a story from The New York Times about what it took to get a new musical up and running in Tokyo with a global creative team.

Social media is an important part of cultivating your current audience, but when it comes to building new audience members, the tools provided by the social platforms aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

Now more than ever, the students might be the future. The education department of a theatre company has long been an important piece of the business model - but that might be more true now than it has ever been before. While audiences still can’t come into most of our performance spaces, students are still able to be reached in digital ways. These digital programs not only increase access, they are increasing the number of students (of all ages) who are able to engage with theatre in an all new way. In a time of continued social distancing, what we are learning about bridging that distance will be important for us to remember when we no longer have to stay apart out of necessity for public health. This week, we’ve got stories about connecting with audiences, with students, and continually questioning what our performance spaces should look like, along with stories about the ongoing economic impact of the shutdowns.

Over the last year, we’ve experienced a powerful evolution in how theatre companies interact with their audiences - and that evolution will only continue as we welcome audiences back into our venues after a long period of separation. For a lot of theatres, that has meant taking a look at their ticketing systems, and how they can continue to gain new data about their audience for all sorts of uses - grant applications, marketing, and even programming choices. For others, that has meant a strong push into social media as a touchpoint between producer and audience.