Albert Camus, Distance Learning, and Arts Visitation Trends
To start things off today, I wanted to share a quote from “The Plague,” the 1947 post-war novel by Albert Camus, which has particular relevance for me now that Denver issued its own “shelter-in-place” order starting yesterday at 5pm, accompanied by the startling blast of citywide emergency sirens and simultaneous text message alerts:
“…They had been sentenced, for an unknown crime, to an indeterminate period of punishment. And while a good many people adapted themselves to confinement and carried on their humdrum lives as before, there were others who rebelled and whose one idea now was to break loose from the prison-house.”
“THE PLAGUE” BY ALBERT CAMUS
Hopefully, you’re adapting to our new shared reality and not trying to break loose from your own prison-house just yet. Hashtag Flatten-the-Curve.
Our 7-year-old spent hours in various online chats today (separate Zoom conferences with her French and English teachers… and a Google Hangout with a classmate), before watching her video lessons, doing her reading and writing assignments, creating a poster we scanned and submitted as homework, and completing web-form quizzes.
Why do I mention this? It’s been absolutely fascinating to watch how quickly our little digital native has adapted to this new style of learning. Now that schools and kids are acclimating to this, I think teachers should keep pushing boundaries when things “return to normal” and try to maintain some level of online learning opportunities in their regular lessons. You know… just in case.
AN UH-OH ARTICLE An article landed in my inbox with a thud this morning: Post-Pandemic, Which Cultural Entity Types Are People More Likely to Revisit.
A lot of people in the film industry are saying they expect audiences to flock to movie theaters once this crisis ends. We’re all antsy to leave our homes, after all. But there’s not much data out there to either support or refute that notion. A few people have referenced attendance figures following 9/11 and how things rebounded then, but that’s obviously a wildly imperfect comparison compared to our current situation.
In a nutshell, we’ve all suffered from a lack of hard data and insights, and so we’ve been operating purely on instinct here. Finally, though, we’ve got some initial data.
And… it’s not pretty.
This article is the latest post from Colleen Dilenschneider, who focuses on market research and the behavioral economics surrounding cultural organizations. It provides survey results of 2,299 people who regularly visit cultural events and attractions and their intent to resume visitation of those entities once things “return to normal.” They’ve been surveying cultural organizations and attendees for the past couple weeks, and have published some fascinating data that arts organizations can use when establishing strategies to survive this crisis.
Today’s post, though? Holy shitballs!
Basically this: “While intentions to visit cultural entities show an expected return to essentially normal behaviors within three to six months, research shows that these intentions are not divided equally among organization types.”
In other words, the people who support cultural arts organizations have already signaled that they intend to change their behavior and visitation patters once the pandemic recedes.
And want to know the organization type that ranked at the absolute bottom? The one that respondents said they were the LEAST LIKELY to attend following a return to normal? You guessed it… movie theaters!
When asked how likely they’d be to resume attending movies at a theater, people responded that they were 30 percent less likely to do so than before the crisis. (Versus, for instance, zoos, aquariums, public parks and beaches, and museums, which people said they were more likely to visit post-pandemic.)
Her group asked people to rank their likelihood to visit a wide array of organization types in the months ahead, when things “return to normal.” Here are the key findings (all directly quoted):
Cultural experiences that allow for relative freedom of movement – and particularly those that feature outdoor spaces – may benefit most from increased demand.
Experiences involving enclosed spaces with minimal visitor movement – such as performing arts enterprise – indicate lessened demand.
Entities perceived to offer tactile experiences – such as science centers – are also at risk.
Audience susceptibility to the virus may play an important role in attendance decisions.
Now, this is all coming at the depths of the pandemic, before its peak while there’s still a good bit of panic and uncertainty, and the article admits that things may very well change in the weeks ahead. They’ll continue to survey people, and will publish an update in two weeks (April 8th).
But if this stays true, a lot of organizations are in for a rude awakening in the weeks or months ahead when they expect audiences to come rushing back.
In the meantime, the article advises that we should try to focus on the upside:
“There’s time to devise a strategy to help your organization mitigate and/or alleviate concerns upon reopening… This moment of pause provides organizations with the grace of perspective and the ability to diligently consider the data.”
Additionally… “These findings do not necessarily represent a ‘forever’ condition; instead, they provide valuable insight into the perceptual barriers that entities may face when they reopen. In turn, this knowledge allows them to strategically develop messaging and operational responses to nip negative perceptions in the bud before the restrictions have been lifted.”
Finally… “[The] goal is to take this information – and a deep breath – and consider how we might leverage it to inform our strategy upon reopening.”
Deep breaths, everyone.
SOME QUICK LINKS Here are a few articles about our little corner of the economic sandbox… from the past couple days that you may have missed:
Select Film Festivals and Indie Movies Figure Out Online Access (New York Times – March 25) – This provides a good roundup of what many film organizations are doing with online screenings here.
AMC Theatres Furloughs 600 Employees in Kansas HQ Amid Coronavirus Crisis; Chain Must ‘Preserve Cash’ To ‘Reopen Our Doors’ (Deadline – March 25) – Today’s big news! What I find most interesting about this article is AMC’s insistence that “At this time, AMC is not terminating any of its corporate employees, however, we were forced under the circumstances to implement a furlough plan.” And then a paragraph later… “The furlough plan calls for reduced working hours at reduced pay, or no working hours at no pay.” So… they’re keeping all their HQ employees on as active employees with health insurance (good) but potentially not paying them anything, and essentially preventing them from getting unemployment (not good).
With Theaters Closed, Some Cinema Companies Are Burning Through Their Cash (Barron’s – March 24) – Some additional info about AMC’s financial position, the day before the most recent layoffs were announced. Apparently IMAX is sitting pretty, though.
Will movie theaters – and moviegoing – survive coronavirus closures? (LA Times – March 25) – While this has a “sky is falling” headline, it does a good job stitching together the current state of things.
The Pandemic is Hitting One Part of Hollywood Especially Hard (The Atlantic – March 23) – Great perspective on what filmmakers with festival cancellations are doing … and an update on some promising initiatives, such as Emily Best’s Seed & Spark effort.
Billionaire Charles Cohen furloughs third of staff, cuts pay to others (Page Six – March 24) – Apparently Cohen “furloughed” six of the 18 staff at Cohen Media Group. Just… ugh.
And on that note… that’s it for now. Thanks again for making it this far! As a reward for reading to this point, here’s a joke:
Why should you never play poker in the jungle?
Too many cheetahs.