I write a weekly column for the website AudienceOutlookMonitor.com which collects audience surveys taken by arts groups from around the world and analyzes the results and tracks the data over time since this spring. Here are some columns over the last few months.

June 5, 2020

By Frank Rizzo for AudienceOutlookMonitor.com

The pandemic’s devastating effect on arts groups created the need to accumulate and analyze data to help answer the question: When will artists and audiences return to their cultural organizations?

A deeper question in light of the nationwide protests following George Floyd's death in police custody and the subsequent calls for change — both systemic and personal — is: What will they be returning to?

Life as it existed before Covid-19? A new ‘normal’? Or something much more responsive to what we are now learning, not only through surveys, but on the streets. It’s a fertile time to research to these complex questions,

Over the past three months we saw the pandemic not only derailing business models but exposing  inadequacies in programming, deficiencies in equality and the limitations of mission statements. A different kind of social distancing has been going on long before the co-vid crisis.

On Tuesday, many cultural organizations participated in “The Show Must Be Paused” initiative to reflect on the larger issues of racism and the need for institutional change in the arts, cultural and entertainment sectors.

While many were initially silent, this week members of the non-for-profit arts community issued many declarations of support and commitment. There have been a substantial conversations on race among cultural groups —  and even a spike in sales of anti-racism books.  

But will this moment go beyond words, black theater leaders wonder?  

The for-profit entertainment industry…

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