The Globe and Mail assembled a newspaper-wide list of ways COVID-19 and its aftereffects will transform society.
“Air travel will get costlier, and more time-consuming. Movie theatres will have blockbusters again, and little else. It will be a boom time for esports, but not for major leagues or the Olympics. These are just some of the ways observers, artists and critics predict our lives will change”
By Barry Hertz: “Before COVID-19, the concert industry was a delicate balance between artists, fans, venues and promoters. In the months to follow, we will see chaos, innovation and experimentation as the industry seeks to reinvent itself. The monetization possibilities of live streaming will be tested. Physical distancing and sanitation protocols at venues will be put in place. Drive-in concerts will be a thing (why weren’t they before?).
The general direction will be this: Small venues, crowd-capacity severely capped, with sky-high tickets to see the shows. Michael Dorf, founder of City Winery, a U.S. chain of high-end, intimate venues, considered the possibilities in a guest column for Pollstar: “Can we set up a room with a legal capacity of 1,000 in order to safely bring in 300 people with some social distancing, hospital-grade sanitation, safety protections and protocols for staff and audience, and put on a show that can provide even limited income for everyone and a great time for the audience?”
By Marsha Lederman: “Consider what theatre patrons have come to expect: the line-up to enter, the pre-show crush in the lobby, the uncomfortable – now potentially harmful – shimmy past the people already seated in your row. Then rise and repeat at intermission, with an added lineup at the bar and, heaven forbid, the bathroom. (Thought the washroom line was long before? Imagine that physically distanced queue now, snaking through the lobby.) COVID-era intermissions will need to be longer to accommodate all of this, with proper sanitizing measures in place. Then there’s the crush to exit after the final bows.
“A theatre lobby is a minefield of prospective contagion,” says Steven Adelman, vice president of the Event Safety Alliance. The group, which is based in the U.S. but also works with Canadian companies, released its Event Safety Alliance Reopening Guide this week.
The document recommends designating an “Infection Mitigation Coordinator” with medical and risk management knowledge, who will deal with both front- and back-of-house concerns.”
Source: The Globe and Mail
