THE IMPACT OF PANDEMIC ON ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY
The outgoing pandemic of coronavirus has turned upside down everyone’s life.
A lot of people lost their job and were left on their own as the pandemic impacted a lot of different industries. One of the most touched is the entertainment industry. Once coronavirus took over the world, venus, arenas, etc. shut down immediately. Concerts, festivals and other planned events were instantly postponed or unfortunately canceled.
A lot of venues were forced to shut down. Sandra Johnsson who works in Eventim Apollo in London says her workplace was lucky enough to not be one of them. “My work closed down early March and has been closed since so the pandemic has made it impossible for our venue to get income. But once it opens back up it might take some time for everything to go back to normal.”
The government is trying to deal with the pandemic in the best way possible. Even though almost everything is closed people are getting furloughs and other support. Nevertheless, it doesn’t include all industries.
Sandra thinks the government is not doing enough for the entertainment industry. “Of what I have seen online they haven’t been doing as much for the entertainment industry as they have for other industries. Although I haven’t noticed or been affected by it much myself, it’s still sad to see as in the music industry especially, get most of their revenue from live music.”
A lot of people working in the industry had to take another work to be able to pay bills. Niall Horan in the interview for BBC stated that some people he’s been working on while touring are now working in other places to be able to support their families as the “furlough doesn’t touch them”.
Through the past year a few online concerts took place to raise money for people working in the industry to help them in these hard times.
The Prime Minister declared that concert venues and theaters will re-open from 17 May. A lot of artists already announced new dates for their upcoming tours and some of them are planning to go on the road even this year.
It looks like the entertainment industry is coming back to life and soon we will be able to enjoy live music again. “The venue I’m working at has the benefits of being able to have chairs out so it will be possible for them to sell tickets to events while still being able to do social distancing. The one problem can be when arriving as many people can show up at the same time. But with other venues that don’t have the same benefit of keeping social distancing it might be harder for them to open up” says Sandra.
WNOL 