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Covid19 mitigation measures and their impacts on the entertainment / hospitality sectors

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yorkie

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Any forum members work within, for or with the entertainment/hospitality sectors able to say how you are affected by the current measures?

Do you see light at the end of the tunnel?

Is it affecting you personally?

I do worry about the effects of these measures on the livelihoods and mental health of people who work in sectors that are severely impacted by the measures that are currently in place.

( @robbeech @Randomer anyone else? )
 
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Randomer

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I work in the theatre side of the industry rather than live events or trade shows etc. Effectively traditional theatre/musicals on a commercial basis is pretty much halted currently. The majority of shows work on the basis of needing somewhere around 70% or greater of theatre capacity in order to break even for both the venue and the show producer (most often separate companies.) Social distancing at either 1 or 2 metres just doesn't allow for the capacity for this to happen. For example the national theatre with less than 50% capacity in what is already a pretty spacious venue with decent row spacing. I'm not certain but I suspect that live events suffer from a similar capacity versus costs issue.

Personally my employer is already planning performances of various types going forward even if they aren't exactly our traditional ones but plans have to remain very fluid. However, we are heavily dependent on venues being open to actually house performances. I'm not convinced they are all going to survive especially with no current timeline allowing reopening being so unclear (there have already been redundancies locally). I've been furloughed pretty much continuously since it became available but am returning to work to do maintenance or our equipment next month.

Frankly I've come out okay out of the whole mess I work for a large arts council funded body with good financial reserves and a relatively secure future in the short term. The people who have been massively effected are those who are self employed, which is a large percentage of people in the industry. Likewise what are generally called "casuals", people employed by venues on zero hours contract to provide the majority of locally employed staffing for shows, often these people will work for multiple venues but if all of them are closed they are having very real difficulties. Alongside people who worked on things like touring musicals which cancelled in a lot of cases even before furlough began, such tours often work on margins where they would not pay the percentage required from the employer to allow staff to be furloughed.
 

Bletchleyite

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One thing I wonder is if people would just pay more for their ticket and resolve this situation that way? If each person pays twice as much as usual, you can leave every other seat empty. As most people don't go to the theatre on their own, that would probably be enough to ensure 1m+ with masks.

Nobody seems to even be trying that.
 

AM9

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One thing I wonder is if people would just pay more for their ticket and resolve this situation that way? If each person pays twice as much as usual, you can leave every other seat empty. As most people don't go to the theatre on their own, that would probably be enough to ensure 1m+ with masks.

Nobody seems to even be trying that.
Well judging by the cliff edge drop in restaurant business at the end of August when the subsidised meals finished, I doubt that many would demonstrate any kind of empathy through their pockets.
 

Randomer

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One thing I wonder is if people would just pay more for their ticket and resolve this situation that way? If each person pays twice as much as usual, you can leave every other seat empty. As most people don't go to the theatre on their own, that would probably be enough to ensure 1m+ with masks.

Nobody seems to even be trying that.

The problem on the musicals side is that the already expensive tickets already subsidised the cheaper ones to some degree. So for example if the most expensive ticket for the show was £60 previously and you doubled it to £120 a large percentage of people going to see the show were already not paying the previously most expensive price and even those that were would I suspect opt for one of the cheaper tiers that have doubled as in the £60 tickets that was previously £30. I'm not sure setting a higher flat rate would work, some seats in a theatre are naturally much better than others for view or acoustics.

Also depending on the venue you don't end up with 50% capacity to maintain social distancing. The national theatre example linked to above works by having a large relatively modern venue with generous row spacing to work off and doesn't achieve 50%. Most theatres are often Victorian or older. Have smaller rows even with new seating and end up having to leave the seats in front of a group clear as well. A couple of venues I am familiar with who have done substantial work on this are at around 35% and 45% respectively based on 2 person groups.

The other issue is that due to the substantial sunk cost of rehearsals and technical work (set building, costume or sound equipment hire etc.) the cost of putting on a single performance of a show is such that even a one off event to "try it and see if people will pay" risks financial failure for a lot of organisations at the moment. The National Theatre example I linked to above is getting round a lot of the sunk costs by being the size of organisation where a lot of costs are internalised with equipment already paid off and staff already employed. Also note that they are initially opening with a single performer, very limited staging show which will have substantially less sunk costs.

Well judging by the cliff edge drop in restaurant business at the end of August when the subsidised meals finished, I doubt that many would demonstrate any kind of empathy through their pockets.

I think some people probably would, arts organisations have had quite a number of people gift the money they had refunded on advance ticket sales back to the venue or organisation. However, I don't believe the numbers would be viable to run a long enough run of performances to get anywhere near break even.
 

adc82140

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Something like the eat out to help out could work. For every seat sold, the government buys the one next to it and it stays empty.
 

Bletchleyite

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Well judging by the cliff edge drop in restaurant business at the end of August when the subsidised meals finished, I doubt that many would demonstrate any kind of empathy through their pockets.

I think there's much more of an affinity with performing arts that restaurants, particularly musicians.

I do note that some venues are now doing "cabaret style" gigs, i.e. to tables of 4. That sort of thing is a good start.

Something like the eat out to help out could work. For every seat sold, the government buys the one next to it and it stays empty.

That's a good idea.

The other issue is that due to the substantial sunk cost of rehearsals and technical work (set building, costume or sound equipment hire etc.) the cost of putting on a single performance of a show is such that even a one off event to "try it and see if people will pay" risks financial failure for a lot of organisations at the moment.

The thing is, it'll be that or just die anyway.
 

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I work in hospitality (pubs and bars specifically). I’m relatively unaffected as it stands, I ‘benefited’ from a period of furlough and I work from home anyway so no change there. As it stands my job is safe but I’m under no illusion that that could change literally tomorrow. As a result I’m certainly experiencing increased stress levels. I’ve done the sums to see how long I can ‘survive’ without an income and decided what luxuries will need to be sacrificed, not pleasant and certainly not something I thought I would be doing at the beginning of the year. The biggest impact so far has been that my fiancé and I have postponed our wedding, although this has as much to do with the restrictions on social gatherings as it does immediate financial worries. Again, I appreciate that this isn’t life and death stuff but it is quite depressing to be honest.

The industry on the whole has been badly affected by the various restrictions as everybody is aware. Individual companies, my own included, have so far done ok due to a number of factors but predominantly it boils down to the nature of the licensed premises the company operates. At one end of the scale you have Wetherspoons, or without being brand-specific, the average community pub. They seem to be doing ok (relatively) as even without EOTHO they’re the kind of places people flock to in any case. Don’t get me wrong, they’re taking a hit but it’s survivable, for now at least. At the other end of the scale you have nightclubs which are basically non-viable and are on life support which can’t go on indefinitely. City centre pubs have generally been hit hard, take a walk down Fleet Street which is is home to numerous historic pubs to see what I mean.... So there are some (again, relatively) good news stories but on the whole it’s deeply concerning. The real problems will start when unemployment rises, as it surely will. The last recession was devastating for the industry and this one is likely to be far deeper and far longer lasting. Whitbread’s announcement earlier this week is a taste of things to come, sadly.

At least I don’t work in the airline industry which has been completely thrown to the wolves, and is presumably now ‘non-viable’, to quote the chancellor....
 

RuralRambler

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One thing I wonder is if people would just pay more for their ticket and resolve this situation that way? If each person pays twice as much as usual, you can leave every other seat empty. As most people don't go to the theatre on their own, that would probably be enough to ensure 1m+ with masks.

Nobody seems to even be trying that.

It's not just seat social distancing when seated though, is it? Many venues simply couldn't social distance their foyers, toilets, refreshment areas, bars, etc., even with just 50% capacity. They'd need a small army of staff/stewards to enforce one way systems, queue management, etc. The interval would have to be a lot longer to give time for even half a usual audience to go to the loo, get a drink, etc etc.
 

Bletchleyite

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It's not just seat social distancing when seated though, is it? Many venues simply couldn't social distance their foyers, toilets, refreshment areas, bars, etc., even with just 50% capacity. They'd need a small army of staff/stewards to enforce one way systems, queue management, etc. The interval would have to be a lot longer to give time for even half a usual audience to go to the loo, get a drink, etc etc.

As I said, find a way or die.
 

Scrotnig

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Well judging by the cliff edge drop in restaurant business at the end of August when the subsidised meals finished, I doubt that many would demonstrate any kind of empathy through their pockets.
w
Well anyhow the government have now severely told us off for going to restaurants, having spent a month encouraging us to do so with that subsidy, so if they try any other such subsidies they know what my answer will be!
 

RuralRambler

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Well anyhow the government have now severely told us off for going to restaurants, having spent a month encouraging us to do so with that subsidy, so if they try any other such subsidies they know what my answer will be!

To be fair, the guidance re bars and restaurants did include the requirement to continue to social distance with people outside your household/bubble. That's what seems to have been forgotten with people regarding it as a free for all to socialise with friends etc without social distancing.
 

Yew

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Surely this just shows that we have a choice; a functional society, or suppressing a virus.
 

Vespa

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Art and theatres are not a priority when you don't know if you're still going to be in a job or not, food, rent, mortgage is, if you're put on reduced hours and salary, I've not been to a museum since all this started.

Guess theatres and art venues will succumb to prevailing events.

Supermarkets, transports, housing market will survive the pandemic as they are essentials.

Hotels, pubs and restaurant will adapt somehow.
 

Yew

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It's not binary. Those are the two extremes, but we walk a tightrope somewhere in the middle.
It depends, I'd suggest that where we were a few weeks ago, wasn't quite a normal functional society*, and it seems that cases were increasing even then.


* rumours of an Object-Oriented society, written in Java can neither be confirmed nor denied.
 

DB

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Surely this just shows that we have a choice; a functional society, or suppressing a virus.

I'd say it's worse that that - the choice is a functioning society, or trying to suppress a virus using tactics which are highly unlikely to do anything other than prolong the situation.
 

greyman42

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Art and theatres are not a priority when you don't know if you're still going to be in a job or not, food, rent, mortgage is, if you're put on reduced hours and salary, I've not been to a museum since all this started.
They are a priority if you work in this sector as it provides for all the things that you have mentioned.
 

MikeWM

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It depends, I'd suggest that where we were a few weeks ago, wasn't quite a normal functional society*, and it seems that cases were increasing even then.


* rumours of an Object-Oriented society, written in Java can neither be confirmed nor denied.

Someone has to give this a thumbs-up. May as well be me :) (though personally I'd prefer it to be written in C++...)


I do very much fear we're losing sight of what is important to live a 'good life', in a desperate attempt to preserve life at all costs. Actually we've been doing that for quite some time, but the past few months has shown the logical conclusion of that movement (and it isn't pretty).
 

Yew

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Someone has to give this a thumbs-up. May as well be me :) (though personally I'd prefer it to be written in C++...)


I do very much fear we're losing sight of what is important to live a 'good life', in a desperate attempt to preserve life at all costs. Actually we've been doing that for quite some time, but the past few months has shown the logical conclusion of that movement (and it isn't pretty).
Indeed, there does seem to be an obsession with keeping people not-technically-dead as long as possible, regardless of their actual quality of life. I fear senescence more than death.
 

yorkie

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I'd say it's worse that that - the choice is a functioning society, or trying to suppress a virus using tactics which are highly unlikely to do anything other than prolong the situation.
Yes, I agree.

Indeed, there does seem to be an obsession with keeping people not-technically-dead as long as possible, regardless of their actual quality of life...
That's right; I know from experience with my family that is absolutely true and is indeed the priority.

Though we should try to avoid straying too much from discussing the effects on the entertainment / hospitality industry; it is all linked though but any detailed discussion on that subject is probably best made in a new thread (if there isn't one already)
 

robbeech

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Any forum members work within, for or with the entertainment/hospitality sectors able to say how you are affected by the current measures?

Do you see light at the end of the tunnel?

Is it affecting you personally?

I do worry about the effects of these measures on the livelihoods and mental health of people who work in sectors that are severely impacted by the measures that are currently in place.

( @robbeech @Randomer anyone else? )
Things are quite bleak for the whole industry at the moment, but I acknowledge and appreciate that this industry isn't alone. I has been essentially closed since February and will be for months to come. the £1.57billion that is thrown about for the general public to hear about hasn't gone further than a few carefully selected organisations and buildings. The figure includes things like galleries and museums, most of which are open and earning revenue again now. The touring events, the festivals, the theatre shows, the fireworks displays coming up in November, the Christmas lights switch on events, are almost all cancelled and the hundreds of thousands of people (the vast majority self employed) that would be working on them won't be getting paid. Meanwhile, other industries are encouraged back to work as they're able to do so.
The cold hard facts are, people don't NEED live entertainment as there's more than enough other stuff to go around. There's decades of TV shows and films for people to watch, there's decades of recorded live performances from bands and orchestras to watch / listen to. There's little pub gigs happening locally to keep people occupied, providing they start at 5 instead of 6 so they can finish at 10 instead of 11. With most people back at work (in some form or another) they are back to a regular schedule so don't have to keep themselves occupied all day everyday like many had to do from March to July.

So why are the government so actively reluctant to do anything? Well, of course it comes down to money, but also attitude. The entertainment industry has a huge left leaning attitude and has for years. There are multimillion selling bands who's music is based on politics with a bias towards the left. Live Events provide an opportunity to spread information and get people on board with different ways of thinking that MAY persuade people to change their opinions. The actions and events over the last 6 months (and beyond) have increased this possibility considerably more. And with more an more people fed up with the actions from Number 10 the risk increases again. The main focus is the finance. The people in the industry that have made the money will continue to do so in the sale of records and such, and there may even have been a slight increase in this over the last few months. TV and on demand services have made notable increases in profits when people were at home. The people doing the "shop floor" jobs in the industry don't contribute such high amounts in tax as their earnings are not that high.
Why bother helping someone who doesn't make you any money, who also calls you a bunch of four letter words?

People are estimating that there are 600,000 people in the entertainment industry who are affected by it, i don't THINK there are 600,000 other jobs available, and that would only cover this industry where many others are affected in their own way, with similar results.

On a personal level, I'm lucky enough to be in a position where i won't starve, for the time being at least. I can't envisage me doing any "real" events until next Spring, and i think that even next festival season over the summer will be affected, though hopefully not significantly. I've no rent to pay, no Mortgages, no vehicle finance, no loans, no overdraft, no credit cards with a balance that i don't pay off each month etc. But, i've no income from any work, no income from student properties that lay empty, I have to pay council tax on the empty properties now as they aren't full of students, I have received precisely £0.00 from the various schemes setup to help everyone. There's still vehicles to pay maintenance and tax / insurance for despite them not turning a wheel, there's equipment sat doing nothing that still needs to be insured, and maintained, and there's various PLI/ELI policies that you can't really cancel incase you get a gig. i'm around £130,000 down since March and this will likely double by the time we're done.

Sadly lots of people are in a position where they can no longer pay the rent, many have already taken jobs elsewhere, many will be in the next few weeks, sadly, (and this goes back to the attitude comment) many will refuse to budge and will destroy their own livelihoods expecting the government to pay them.
 

Dave91131

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I am aware of a pub / restaurant (part of a large chain) local to me that refused entry to a couple in their mid 50's earlier this week, because neither possessed a smart phone capable of scanning the QR code for test and trace.

They offered to provide all required contact details on paper (as had been the policy of said restaurant until recently) but this offer was declined on the basis that they "might contaminate the paper with Covid whilst writing on it".

This hospitality venue clearly cares very little about upsetting some of the few customers it still has and the effect on its business, it seems.
 

DustyBin

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I am aware of a pub / restaurant (part of a large chain) local to me that refused entry to a couple in their mid 50's earlier this week, because neither possessed a smart phone capable of scanning the QR code for test and trace.

They offered to provide all required contact details on paper (as had been the policy of said restaurant until recently) but this offer was declined on the basis that they "might contaminate the paper with Covid whilst writing on it".

This hospitality venue clearly cares very little about upsetting some of the few customers it still has and the effect on its business, it seems.

I've seen this myself, and the same thing where you can strictly only order through an app. It does begger belief I agree!
 

Scrotnig

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Guess theatres and art venues will succumb to prevailing events.
Indeed. As a society it's time we faced up to the reality - the government will not allow theatres, art galleries and a multitude of other things, to operate viably. They are for the most part finished. They won't exist in any form we recognise for a decade or more now, at least. Many will be gone for good.

There are plenty of other businesses for whom this is also true, for example night clubs.

There is of course also the masses of jobs that are created in the various supporting industries for these businesses, not to mention the restaurants etc that gain business out of their existence. All finished, basically.
 

Bletchleyite

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There are plenty of other businesses for whom this is also true, for example night clubs.

Clubs were very much on the way out anyway - people these days prefer more characterful bars with a dancefloor, which can at present operate as bars without a dancefloor. Hardly anyone wants to dance the night away in a place that niffs of stale beer, sweat and disinfectant (the smell of fags used to at least mask that a bit), and people meet people via online dating more than clubbing these days.

I reckon clubs only really lasted as long as they did because for years they could open until 2am whereas pubs could only open until 11:20pm.
 

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I've seen videos circulating on Twitter of the consequences of the 10pm curfew from London, where everyone exited pubs, etc. and filled the streets, buses, Underground all at once, rather than more spread without the curfew, so it's possible this measure is counterproductive.
 

Bletchleyite

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I've seen videos circulating on Twitter of the consequences of the 10pm curfew from London, where everyone exited pubs, etc. and filled the streets, buses, Underground all at once, rather than more spread without the curfew, so it's possible this measure is counterproductive.

I suspect it's probably uniquely counterproductive in London, and much less so in other, mostly smaller places where most people don't use public transport.

There have been enough "masses on the streets" situations that we can pretty much know that doesn't really spread it.

I did wonder if something slightly different would work better - no alcohol sales from any venue between 2130 and 0500, and a limit on the number of alcoholic drinks served for consumption on the premises at once to one per person at the table at any one time, or maybe two to take account of the one they haven't yet finished. That way people would drift away as they finished up. After all, the basis behind it is to stop people getting as drunk (as then they don't distance), and that would achieve it just as well, because if they have a coffee that's not going to get them drunk.

Thinking back, I recall in the days of clubs only having 2am licences at least one place in Manchester that stayed open until 5am but only served soft drinks and coffees after 2.
 

takno

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Clubs were very much on the way out anyway - people these days prefer more characterful bars with a dancefloor, which can at present operate as bars without a dancefloor. Hardly anyone wants to dance the night away in a place that niffs of stale beer, sweat and disinfectant (the smell of fags used to at least mask that a bit), and people meet people via online dating more than clubbing these days.

I reckon clubs only really lasted as long as they did because for years they could open until 2am whereas pubs could only open until 11:20pm.
Most of the massive naff dumps like we had in the 90s have disappeared, but clubbing as such is very much not gone. With the 10pm curfew the entire night-time economy including all the smaller clubs and bars with dancefloors are effectively done-for, possibly even more so because a lot of them round here had just invested a lot in getting furniture and reopening as purely seated venues.
 

WelshBluebird

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Clubs were very much on the way out anyway - people these days prefer more characterful bars with a dancefloor, which can at present operate as bars without a dancefloor. Hardly anyone wants to dance the night away in a place that niffs of stale beer, sweat and disinfectant (the smell of fags used to at least mask that a bit), and people meet people via online dating more than clubbing these days.

I reckon clubs only really lasted as long as they did because for years they could open until 2am whereas pubs could only open until 11:20pm.

I am little bit old for clubbing anyway these days, and even when I was the right age I wasn't that into it unless they were playing metal with the volume up to 11 :D.
So maybe I am not the best person to judge, but from the few places I do know, it does look like those that can be part bar / part club are the ones that until COVID were still thriving. Even places that had been more like just regular clubs have started to try to change how they work to appeal to a larger market.
Certainly there is at least one club night locally I am still happy to go to - partly because it plays the previously mentioned music, but also because whilst the downstairs is mostly a dancefloor, the upstairs is tables and chairs and much more like a nice bar - and it being on a different floor means it actually works pretty well!

Personally, and this maybe a little selfish, I am more worried about gig venues. Sure, we may have socially distanced / outdoors gigs happening in some parts of the country, but it will be a long time until I can be crammed liked a sardine with a few hundred other people in a small sweaty room and enjoy a mosh pit. And by that point many of those places may well have gone under.
 
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