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As social distancing measures and the statewide stay-home order stretch on in Vermont, arts organizations across the state have been forced to shut their doors.
Many of these organizations, which are experiencing plummeting revenues in the face of widespread cancellations, have laid off staff and worry about how long their businesses will be held in limbo.
The Flynn Center for the Performing Arts in Burlington has canceled or postponed all performances through June 14, including the Burlington Discover Jazz Festival. Director of Marketing and Communications Kevin Titterton said the Flynn has furloughed 90% of its staff and seen a nearly complete drop in revenue.
“In the short term it’s been a pretty big hit,” he said. “We have no revenue coming in for the near future.”
A short distance across town, Higher Ground has moved or canceled well over 100 shows it had planned between mid-March and mid-May founder and co-owner Alex Crothers said. While they have not had to lay off any of their 13 full-time staff, Higher Ground let go the 87 part-time staff that worked to put on shows.
“In the course of three days, we watched all of our revenue absolutely evaporate,” Crothers said.
ArtsRiot co-owner PJ McHenry said his organization is in a particularly rough spot financially given a recent costly expansion and the fact that a possible sale of the organization fell through after the pandemic reached Vermont. McHenry said that during a one-week period in March, roughly a quarter of ArtsRiot’s business for 2020 “disappeared.”
“We just have experienced an overwhelming amount of cancellations,” he said. “We are standing behind the health of our staff and the public and totally understand that and are totally in support of the measures that have been taken. We’re also just greatly impacted by them.”
Leaders at many arts venues worry that even when restrictions start to lift that their industry will be one of the last to get back on its feet due to lingering concerns about crowded spaces and persisting cancellations in an environment of uncertainty.
“Even when the government restrictions on our operations are lifted it won’t be like the flipping of a switch,” McHenry said. “We’re going to be in an uncertain state for at least the next 12 months, even if we’re allowed to open. I would say overall it’s probably a two-year arc to get back to where we were because the other thing right now is we can’t plan.”
The inability to plan causes problems for live events and concert venues that require months of foresight to prepare shows and experiences for an audience.
“We’re in the business of gathering people for art, music and culture so when mass gatherings are something to be avoided it puts our entire industry and our business in a tricky spot,” Crothers said. “With what we do, there are really long lead times. For us it’s four to eight months of promoting, planning, selling tickets, organizing logistics to put on an event.”
For bands and groups touring beyond Vermont, Crothers said that there will likely be additional delays due to conditions out of state as well.
“A band isn’t going to come play Burlington if they can’t also play Montreal and Boston and New York and D.C.,” he said. “We have to have the whole country open and safe.”
Summer theater festivals have also started to cancel or postpone their 2020 seasons to avoid investing time and money into shows that may have to be canceled at a later date. The Dorset Theater Festival and the Weston Playhouse both announced several weeks ago that they would postpone their summer lineups until 2021.
Dina Janis, the artistic director for the Dorset festival, said the shows they put on rely on nearly 100 people — from the actors to the designers to the crew — coming to Dorset for the summer months. The festival also counts on ticket sales from thousands of people, many of whom come from other parts of the state or from out of state, she said. Given these factors and the trajectory of the virus, Janis said the festival decided it was safest to postpone, though it is continuing some of its year-round workshops online.
Janis said that beyond her own organization she worries about the impact the festival’s cancellation will have on businesses in and around Dorset.
“The arts organizations, theaters, dance, music, they bring in so much of the revenue base for the area for the summer. Inns, hotels, restaurants, businesses, are definitely in quite a panic because without those destination events, you don’t get those people coming in,” she said. “It’s devastating, economically.”
As the economic toll that the pandemic will take on arts organizations becomes clear, other groups are working to soften the impact. The Burlington City Arts Foundation is offering small grants to artists who are struggling financially, and the Vermont Arts Council has put together a series of online resources related to Covid-19, including a list of changes and additions to its grant programs.
Arts organizations are also asking for support directly from their local communities. Many organizations that already sold tickets to now-canceled events are asking customers to turn their ticket into a donation, and some have a place for the public to donate on their websites. Organizations that offer gift cards and merchandise are also asking the public to consider purchasing one or the other to produce some small amount of revenue.
In the meantime, in place of live events and classes many institutions are doing their best to offer online alternatives to engage the community.
“We’re just trying to get to the other side of this,” Crothers said. “This won’t last forever. Although the pain of this is going to be felt for a long time, we’re going to get through it. This community has incredible resilience.”
While many expressed sadness and frustration that live performance art has been put on hold, there was also a strain of optimism about what the future might hold to help people make sense of the next few months.
“I hope that it has a positive impact on the arts. The arts community can be so powerful,” McHenry said. “There’s endless benefit in a time like this for art to help heal wounds.”
