For wondering if people GAF that the UK's arts industries are about to be lost?

[Babamamananarama]

I work in the arts so I've got a significant amount of skin in the game.

Venturing out of my bubble, I'm wondering if people who don't work in the arts know and/or care that there is real, significant risk that the UK's arts industries - arguably some of the best in the the world - is at risk of total collapse?

• major theatres are going under
• 450,000 jobs at stake
• hundreds of grassroots music venues across the country are about to close forever
• every level of the industry affected, from local community and participatory arts right, regional venues and companies through to the National Theatre and west end.

• the music industry has asked for £50m to save venues. For context, Wetherspoons got a £48m bailout.

If it goes, we won't get it back.

So: AIBU to wonder if most people are concerned about it? Or do people feel like the arts are a luxury/not for them/unimportant at this time?

TV writers, directors, actors develop their craft in theatre. Enjoy your diet of Reality TV and Piers Morgan interviews*

Couldn't agree more. Watched 'Game of Thrones?' Watched any drama on telly recently? Watch soaps? Ever been to a music festival? Go to the cinema? Binge-watched anything on Netflix? Watched 'Hamilton?'

All of the professionals who worked on those things from the performers to the camera operators, the make-up artists to the scriptwriters will probably at some point have worked in theatre or a grassroots music venue. Often they started there as a kid / young person.

If these venues and companies are left to wither and die, the entire industry will be hugely and negatively impacted forever. You don't just rock up one day and become a costume designer or director. You learn, you train and the smaller venues and touring companies are often where you start.

It's absolutely shameful that this crisis is seen as elitist luvvies whinging about their lot.

It really isn't just the big West End theatres at risk here. It's the entire bloody arts industry about to go down the toilet and I for one would be devastated if that happens.

TV writers, directors, actors develop their craft in theatre. Enjoy your diet of Reality TV and Piers Morgan interviews*

Couldn't agree more. Watched 'Game of Thrones?' Watched any drama on telly recently? Watch soaps? Ever been to a music festival? Go to the cinema? Binge-watched anything on Netflix? Watched 'Hamilton?'

All of the professionals who worked on those things from the performers to the camera operators, the make-up artists to the scriptwriters will probably at some point have worked in theatre or a grassroots music venue. Often they started there as a kid / young person.

If these venues and companies are left to wither and die, the entire industry will be hugely and negatively impacted forever. You don't just rock up one day and become a costume designer or director. You learn, you train and the smaller venues and touring companies are often where you start.

It's absolutely shameful that this crisis is seen as elitist luvvies whinging about their lot.

It really isn't just the big West End theatres at risk here. It's the entire bloody arts industry about to go down the toilet and I for one would be devastated if that happens.

Oh, and this...

Spandang

This but spread over theatres, tv, film, video games etc
Drama schools up and down the country, dance schools. Singing teachers, lessons in schools.

The arts spreads further than people think and for every £100+ ticket bought for theatres, concerts and events where people dress up to attend there are 100+ people who are struggling in there bedroom trying to create music, art, drama and dance to perform on a tiny stage in a local venue hoping to get themselves noticed and expand their profile.

Take away the tiny stage and the bigger stages and where are these people supposed to perform live

And for every £100+ ticket there are many many people in different industries who rely on those tiny and bigger stages to keep going.

If anything I would say the arts are as important as our air travel industry. No good in the future being able to bring people into the country if there isn’t anywhere where they can spend their money.

I bet there will be some money for the arts announced this week by sunak.
Why don't you wait and see.
I have supported theatres by not cancelling and demanding refunds on shows i had booked which has probably cost me about £150 personally. I am happy to lose this as my own personal donation and hopefully the shows will happen in 2021.
I also did not cancel my monthly cineworld dd. Although they suspended it but i was happy to let it continue.
At the beginning of this i was shocked at a left wing political columnist in the guardian writing a column about canceling all his royal opera house tickets with some glee. Obviously didn't occur to him not to do this or only cancel half.
Seems hypocritical to me.

And i think the arts have been supported. They have used the furlough scheme and maybe could access bounce back loans etc/ business rate loans.
But i do agree that the uk is brilliant at theatre tv music and the gov should provide some extra support. Maybe take stakes in buildings like the royal opera house so it can be partly publi owned. It is certainly true that lots of the boxes are privately owned and are basically an asset to make money from for lots of wealthy people so maybe they should contribute too as they should not really benefit from a gov handout.
A box went on sale maybe 2 years ago. Iirc it cost about 3 million to buy!
Tv etc get lots of tax rebates too currently so they are already a very supported industry. Not saying that is wrong, far from it but it is annoying to hear all the whinging when the arts are quite priviledged already.

I was referring to the boxes in the royal albert hall not the royal opera house although they may have a similar private ownership of seats system. I would hate to see any gov bailout going to these people in any way.

To an extent, but then again a lot of venues/artists are absolutely rubbish anyway so I suppose in context I’m only worried about a minority of the sector if I’m going to be very honest.

I've read this thread really wanting to find something that would change my mindset - which is fundamentally that I dislike live performances of any kind, and think it may be three years since I went to a cinema as I equally dislike sitting in the dark with hundreds of strangers.

However, I entirely agree that no industry should be favoured over another, and if there is support for other closed sectors such as travel, then it makes sense to treat the arts fairly. What makes it more difficult (and I suspect this is a large part of the delay in setting out support arrangements) is the vast number of self-employed gig workers in the arts. I think such workers, without employment protections, have been under-supported across all industries. There is not one clear-cut easy way to help them, but it would be nice to think this sparked the beginning of new employment legislation for flexible workers...unlikely though!

One of the brighter spots of lockdown has been comedians broadcasting from their homes on a pay to watch basis. More of that would be great, and would mean widened access for people who don't live in the south-east and/or don't have the luxury of childcare. If a performing space doesn't need an audience, it could be much smaller (and cheaper).

A great percentage of Britain’s money comes from the arts in all its different forms. It’s short sighted to say but I don’t even like the theatre. Economically we’d be in the shit if we lost this. Never mind the industries which benefit through theatre goers etc. To go to a show, you’ll possibly spend money in restaurants, bars, transport, hotels. So there would be a knock on effect there too.

www.heraldscotland.com/news/18561399.tim-martins-wetherspoons-prepares-re-open-pubs-england-help-48m-state-loan/
Suggests Wetherspoons is a loan. Couple of other articles suggest grant. Looking for any other more robust links.

madwoman, it looks like most reputable sources say it's a loan. Some of the ones saying grant seem to be less likely to know the significance of the difference. How about - www.lse.co.uk/news/JDW/wetherspoon-confirms-163-48m-covid-loan-ahead-of-july-4-reopening-tlfvwewiuib7fap.html

I think that’s likely, Zilla. It makes me feel slightly better... but only slightly. I do find it interesting to compare the industries that are robustly financially supported to those that are not.
It may well end up with a larger grassroots and more egalitarian arts scene, but my heart hurts for everyone. It’s going to take years for any semblance of recovery.

I am very concerned as my DS is about to start a btec in production art with a view to going into lighting design.

On the one hand I wonder whether he could be part of the generation to rebuild the sector, but on the other hand it scares me that he might about to enter into a course with no prospects.

For anyone who believes that “the arts” is all about theatre and museum, I challenge you to spend one day without any music, tv, radio, books, because all of those are “the arts.”

Go on, do it, and see how empty your life really is without any of those things in it. We take e.g. music and television for granted, we don’t envisage a day when those things no longer exist.

Madwoman, I've not looked in detail at which sectors, if any, get sector-specific support. I suppose most sectors get general access to some indirect support through the furlough support to keep employees, some local authority grants for smaller organisations and business support bounce-back loans. To be fair, I don't even know if these are equally available for profit and not-for-profit enterprises in the UK. I think the English Local Authority grants of between £10k and £25k were for business rates' paying bodies so some not-for-profits were eligible. I'm equally unfamiliar with the international arts support comparisons in the table above to know whether the countries that have given arts-specific support have or don't have the other general support that the UK has provided.

I can see where you are coming from about Wetherspoons - many people don't have a lot of time for Wetherspoons and that was before Tim was reported as saying his employees could get jobs stacking shelves to tide them over. Even if it is a loan rather than a grant, I expect £48m would be a red rag to a bull.

I feel particularly sorry for the self-employed staff who've been screwed over for years with short-term contracts and whose eligibility for UK government support might not go beyond UC depending on their circumstances. I know disguised employment and using self-employed on short-term contracts would be a reaction by organisations to uncertain funding though the arts sector seem to disproportionately exploit the junior and weak. Internships seem to just bake in privilege though again that might to some extent reflect arts organisations' funding.

I absolutely care. I’ve been sharing the petition like a mad woman.

I work in a related industry (TV) and we too are forgotten. Our industry closed down overnight in March and the vast majority of us aren’t eligible for any government support bar UC. We’re self employed on short contracts and I know many people are absolutely fucked. A guestimate from Broadcast newspaper suggests 90% of the industry are currently unemployed with no furlough. I wish people could remember that when they sit down the watch the telly.

We stand with you OP. Arts and creativity are part of what makes us humans interesting.

I can’t say I’ve given it much thought. It’s not something I’ve ever had much interest in - I’m not interested in theatre or venue performances. And given how bad everything is right now, I don’t think money should go to something that is essentially useless, albeit pleasant uselessness. The arts are something that can build back up slowly.

The arts and art are not ‘essentially useless’. Apart from the billions of revenue they generate, they are also societies way of telling stories, relating our individual and collective experiences back to ourselves and documenting our history.

That they can be seen as ‘essentially useless’ depresses me.

For anyone who believes that “the arts” is all about theatre and museum, I challenge you to spend one day without any music, tv, radio, books, because all of those are “the arts.”

Go on, do it, and see how empty your life really is without any of those things in it. We take e.g. music and television for granted, we don’t envisage a day when those things no longer exist

This is a bit of a dramatic statement. I personally could easily go for a week without TV, radio and music. But I'm amongst a minority that would choose to do this. And because I'm in the minority the arts aren't going to disappear. The next couple of years will be hard due to the recession. However, history has shown us that the talented people within our creative industry always find a way to continue producing their art.

During the pandemic Erykah Badu created her own platform to stream live interactive concerts at a ridiculously low price . All the proceeds from her quarantine concerts were given to the artists supporting her.

variety.com/2020/music/news/erykah-badu-quarantine-concert-livestreams-business-1234582892/

Lianne la Havas is performing her new album via live stream on YouTube from The Roundhouse in London on 15th July. It's £12 for just the performance or £22 for performance plus the CD.

People are accessing the arts/artists in different ways and when the venue's reopen the people that can afford it, will buy tickets and go and see the artists/ performances that is of interest to them.

The Arts will not die - but how we access them will definitely change.

MotherMorph
I went to the theatre (west end) in January. There were no big names (not that that was what I was going for) and a cast of 4, no special effects and mid price tickets were £75-80 each

That’s because the West Rnd is entirely commmercial and not subsidised.

If you look at prices at Contact or Royal Exchange in Manchester, Everyman in Liverpool, New Wolesley in Ipswich, for example, you will see top class theatre for far less. These are the theatres that need protecting.

Along with the smaller grassroots venues that DreamingBohemian talks about. These often play a key role with local youth, and also encouraging diversity. I live in S London and small theatres such as The Albany, Battersea Arts Centre Oval House , Peckham New Varieties have been launched careers from amongst young people who wouldn’t get a look in elsewhere. Similar small venues all over the country. They bring the community together, too.

I hope they will survive.

But I see that theatres can only sell about a half or a third of their tickets to establish distancing. And as pp have rightly said, however people love to go out, they will find spending money very tight. So I can see it is hard.

The good news is that it's looking like they're going to announce a biggish support package tomorrow for cultural industries. About bloody time!

@ComeBy - the theatres can't sell any tickets at all at the moment, and there's no idea when they can reopen. They're talking about next year at the earliest (god knows why, when pubs can reopen and flights can operate.)

Yes, Shiny, sorry, I meant when they can open. I have seen mock up pictures of auditoria with sears taken out or people sitting seats and rows apart.

It will hit venues bar and other income too, having less people.

@theluckiest

Oh, and this...

1.57 billion announced for the arts in uk. Pretty generous and higher than everyone on your list with the exception of France! hope you add it on.

@ComeBy - oh yes, I see what you mean! Yes, I've seen the sort of thing. It will feel so odd being in an audience with people all spaced out, and how odd for the performs I would imagine. Still, it's better than nothing, and I can't wait to get back to theatres.

I'm feeling cautiously hopeful about the announcement. We'll have to see the details, but at least they're finally taking it seriously.