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Abstract
This article examines the impact of COVID on festivals and the future of the industry. Analysing more than 50 items of online news, scholarly reviews and reports, and governmental guidance, this article examines the immediate effects of COVID in the industry as a whole, and particularly on its precarious artists and workforce. It also explores the changing behavioural attitudes towards festivals. Importantly, the article looks at the long-term institutional changes that might emerge in the festival industry including the future of collaborative working, artistic support, precarious working, and diversity.
Roaa Ali is a Lecturer in Cultural Sociology at Birmingham City University and Honorary Research Associate at the University of Manchester. She has a growing research profile in race, inequality, and institutional change in the Creative and Cultural Industries (CCIs).
Christopher Balme is a Visiting Professor at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and a Professor of Theatre Studies at LMU. Some of his major publications include Decolonizing the Stage (1999), The Cambridge Introduction to Theatre Studies (2008), The Theatrical Public Sphere (2014), and the co-edited Theatre Institutions in Crisis (2020).
Notes
1. DCMS Committee, ‘Major Cultural and Sporting Events – Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee’, March 8, 2022, https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5802/cmselect/cmcumeds/259/report.html (accessed April 21, 2022).
2. Karen Davies, ‘Festivals Post Covid-19’, Leisure Sciences 43, no. 1–2 (2021): 184–189, doi:10.1080/01490400.2020.1774000, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01490400.2020.1774000 (accessed April 11, 2022).
3. Donald Getz and Stephen J. Page, Event Studies: Theory, Research and Policy for Planned Events, 4th edn (New York: Routledge, 2020), 57.
4. Gabriel Szatan, ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go: How Coronavirus is Jeopardising Music Festivals’, Guardian, April 15, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/apr/15/abort-retry-fail-how-coronavirus-is-jeopardising-music-festivals (accessed April 11, 2022).
5. Adele Redmond, ‘Half of 2021 Festivals Have Been Cancelled’, Arts Professional, July 2, 2021, https://www.artsprofessional.co.uk/news/half-2021-festivals-have-been-cancelled (accessed April 11, 2022).
6. Dave O’Brien, ‘Presentations’, The Stage, June 24, 2021; and Roaa Ali, et al., The Impact of Covid-19 and BLM on Black, Asian and Ethnically Diverse Creatives and Cultural Workers (Manchester: Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity and Creative Access, 2022), https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/files/212029276/Impact_of_covid_and_blm_on_ethnically_diverse_creatives_and_cultural_workers_report.pdf (accessed April 11, 2022).
7. Masso Giverny, ‘Fifty Cancelled Vault Festival Shows Find New Homes’, The Stage, January 17, 2022, https://www.thestage.co.uk/news/50-cancelled-vault-festival-shows-find-new-homes (accessed April 11, 2022).
8. Natasha Tripney, ‘Belgrade International Festival Boss: “Crisis management is our normal”’, The Stage, September 27, 2021, https://www.thestage.co.uk/features/belgrade-international-festival-boss-crisis-management-is-our-normal (accessed April 11, 2022).
9. AFO, ‘Government Re-Insurance Update’, December 13, 2021, https://www.festivalorganisers.org/news/567/government+reinsurance+update (accessed April 11, 2022).
10. Ibid.; and Matthew Hemley, ‘Theatre Leaders Pan “Unworkable” Insurance Scheme’, The Stage, August 12, 2021.
11. Szatan, ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go’.
12. BBC News, ‘Newcastle Festival Postponed due to “Oversaturated Market”’, BBC, April 8, 2022, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-tyne-61031770 (accessed April 11, 2022).
13. Jaspreet Singh, ‘COVID-19 and Its Impact on Society’, Electronic Research Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities 2, no. 1, (2020), https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=3567837 (accessed April 11, 2022).
14. Adrian Horton, ‘“This is a public health issue”: Can Covid-era Music Festivals Ever be Safe?’, Guardian, August 14, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/14/outdoor-music-festivals-covid-coronavirus (accessed April 11, 2022).
15. BBC News, ‘Boardmasters: 4,700 Covid Cases “may be linked” to Newquay Festival’, BBC, August 23, 2023, 2021, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cornwall-58309660 (accessed April 11, 2022).
16. Manish Pandey, ‘Festivals and Covid: A Risk Worth Taking?’, BBC News, August 27, 2021, https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-58315746 (accessed April 11, 2022).
17. Mark Savage, ‘Latitude Festival: Magical, Emotional … and a Little Bit Frightening’, BBC News, July 24, 2021, https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-57946872 (accessed April 11, 2022).
18. Oli Constable, ‘Tramlines 2021: Fans “making up” for Missed Years’, BBC News, July 23, 2021, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-57948667(accessed April 11, 2022).
19. Christopher Balme, ‘Covid, Crisis and Prognosis: Prospecting the Future of Theatre’, Forum Modernes Theater 32, no. 2 (2021): 178–191, doi:10.1353/fmt.2021.0016.
20. Ibid., 180.
21. Shona McCarthy, quoted in Lyn Gardner, ‘Shona McCarthy: “Edinburgh Fringe’s philosophy has to be artist-centred”’, The Stage, June 16, 2021, https://www.thestage.co.uk/features/shona-mccarthy-edinburgh-fringes-philosophy-has-to-be-artist-centred (accessed April 11, 2022).
22. Ruth Rentschler and Boram Lee, ‘COVID-19 and Arts Festivals: Whither Transformation?’, Journal of Arts and Cultural Management 14, no. 1 (2021): 35–54, https://doi.org/10.15333/ACM.2021.7.30.35.
23. Giverny, ‘Fifty Cancelled Vault Festival Shows Find New Homes’.
24. Gardner, Lyn, ‘UK Theatre Festivals are Flooding Back in 2021 – But What Will They Look Like Now?’, The Stage, April 29, 2021, https://www.thestage.co.uk/long-reads/uk-theatre-festivals-are-flooding-back-in-2021–but-what-will-they-look-like-now (accessed April 12, 2022).
25. Giverny, ‘Fifty Cancelled Vault Festival Shows Find New Homes’.
26. Theaterkompass, ‘Performing Arts Festival Berlin – Conquering New Spaces Together with the Independent Scene’, theaterkompass.de, May 6, 2021, https://www.theaterkompass.de/beitraege/performing-arts-festival-berlin-gemeinsam-mit-der-freien-szene-neue-raeume-erobern-55313 (accessed April 11, 2022).
27. A. J. Goldmann, ‘Great Stage Acting Shines Through, Even From a Laptop Screen; Theater Review’, The New York Times, January 28, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/28/theater/lessingtage-digital-thalia-theater-hamburg.html (accessed April 11, 2022).
28. Ali et al., The Impact of Covid-19 and BLM on Black, Asian and Ethnically Diverse Creatives and Cultural Workers.
29. Will Chalk and Abbie McCarthy, ‘Wolf Alice: “Festival Line-Ups Are Still Playing it Safe”’, BBC News, August 27, 2021, https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-58329657 (accessed April 11, 2022).