Covid-19 Audience Outlook Monitor
25.05.2020Restrictions on public gatherings and travel have forced many in the arts community to shut their doors and cancel programs and activities. Australia Council for The Arts is working with Patternmakers and WolfBrown to undertake studies that are designed to support important decision-making in the coming months about when to open again and resume programming in spaces where people physically gather.
Results from the first phase of the study are now available, with the key findings including:
Key findings from the first phase include:
- Overwhelmingly, audiences plan to return to arts and culture events in future, with 85% planning to attend just as they did in the past (78%), or even more often (7%).
- On average, 22% of audiences are comfortable attending as soon as restrictions are lifted. 67% will attend when they deem the risk of transmissions to be minimal, while 11% won’t be back until there is no risk at all.
- However right now, there are mixed views about attending large venues, as there are with all kinds of public places. Most audiences are not comfortable attending performance venues seating large groups of 100 people (56%).
- Three quarters of audiences (75%) are also participating in online arts and culture activities, like watching arts video content (52%), watching live-streamed events (42%), or doing online classes or tutorials (36%).
- Online participation is also allowing audiences to discover new works. Confirming the audience development potential of this time, a sizeable proportion (29%) have discovered a new artist, artwork or performance online, or they know someone who has (13%).
All data is available in the Audience Outlook Monitor dashboard, with results from over 23,000 respondents.