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From live music venues and theaters, to Hollywood and Broadway, many say the recovery has been slower than expected.
MINNEAPOLIS — The entertainment industry has been hit hard during the pandemic.
Many people lost their jobs and many establishments closed.
Fast forward to today and live music, movies and theatre are back. But for many venues, ticket sales haven’t quite recovered to previous levels.
“The recovery we hoped to see at this point in time has not really materialized,” said Ashley Ryan, vice president of marketing for First Avenue.
Compared to a year ago, Ryan said it was fine, but before COVID, ticket sales were still about 80% of what they used to be.
“We’re seeing this here, in all of our venues. We’re seeing the same thing across the state, and honestly, across the country, sales aren’t coming back,” Ryan explained.
And their sales are different than they used to be.
Ryan said that before the pandemic, people would buy tickets weeks or months before shows. Now, she says most of their tickets are sold a few days before the show or the night of the show, and more and more people are buying tickets and not showing up.
“It’s tricky because it’s hard for us to know what to do with staffing, which makes it difficult to have the product we’re supposed to have,” Ryan said.
Concert promoter Patricia McLean of Sue McLean and Associates sees this too.
“Everyone is trying, you know, to sell tickets to their shows, but it’s a little bit different,” McClain said.
The biggest difference? more bands.
With live music essentially on hiatus for two years, McLean said nearly all of the artists are on tour this year.
So there are more gigs than ever, but fewer people per gig and less money to spend.
“There’s definitely a lot of options on the market,” McLean said.
Movie theaters have also been slow to recover. But things quickly turned around this summer with hits like “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Jurassic World: Reign” and “Doctor Strange in the Mad Multiverse.”
While Hollywood is starting to get things back to normal, Broadway and live shows are still struggling.
Weekly ticket sales figures remain low compared to 2019 and 2018 sales, according to data collected by Broadway World.
James Haskins of the Guthrie Theatre is optimistic that things are starting to improve.
“We were very encouraged by the reaction we saw from the audience,” Haskins said.
Haskins said their final show “Raisins in the Sun” exceeded their predictions,
The Guthrie Theatre has also resumed running two shows at the same time, something they haven’t been able to do since the pandemic began.
“We’re still working on adding people. It’s been a long journey. When the pandemic hit, we did have to lay off nearly 80 percent of our workforce,” Haskins said.
Staffing remains an issue for live music venues.
Problems that will take some time to resolve.
“These smaller independent venues are really just up in the air,” Ryan said.
“It may take more time, and for some smaller venues, time is definitely not on their side.”
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