In this interview episode, our summer podcast lead Michael Butler talks to AMT Lab contributor Whitney Jefferson about how venues and live music performances having been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. This episode was recorded in August, and while Covid-19 case numbers have since risen, the situation for live music venues remains largely the same. You can also read a three-part series of Whitney’s research here.
[Musical introduction, fades out]
Angela: Hello, AMT Lab listeners. Welcome to an interview episode of Tech in the Arts, the podcast for the Arts Management and Technology Lab. My name is Angela Johnson, the Podcast Producer. As part of our research, our summer podcasts lead, Michael Butler, interviewed Whitney Jefferson about the impact of Covid on venues. Her articles are posted on the AMT Lab website, at amt-lab.org. That's A M T dash L A B dot org.
Michael: Thank you for joining me today, Whitney. Could you please introduce yourself, your interests, and what you do to our listeners?
Whitney: Yeah. So, my name is Whitney Jefferson. I'm now a second year master's student at Heinz College. My interest really lies in the music industry. Coming into grad school, I was really focused on live entertainment, but since diving deep into this world, I've really found an interest in publishing and licensing. So hopefully that will be something that I can pursue post-grad. As for what I do, I just finished my research project, and come the fall, I will of course be starting classes, but I'll also be starting an internship in publicity.
Michael: Awesome. That sounds fun.
Whitney: Thanks.
Michael: So I understand that your research focuses on venues and their interactions with current Covid-influenced environments. What are some of the impacts that we've seen Covid have on the venues and their business?
Whitney: Yeah. So, since venues are heavily dependent on large crowds, of course they were the first to close and will be the last to reopen after this pandemic. Independent venues have actually been hit the hardest, rather than a larger company-owned venues. When I say larger company-owned venues, they tend to be like, the arenas. So, within my research, I looked at the Enterprise Center, and that's a 20,000 plus capacity venue. So that venue hasn't been hit as hard as, like, a smaller independent venue, like Mr. Smalls Theatre in Pittsburgh. The reason why I say this is because these local venues depend on a lot from the community, and they also tend to be overlooked by our government when it comes to, like, receiving aid due to the pandemic. And, they had to form a national association. It's called the National Independent Venue Association. And that organization lobbies on the rights of independent venues and promoters to pretty much be heard in this environment, which is really difficult given all the noise that's been happening with everything from the postal service, to schools, and everything in between. But to kind of just hit on specific things that are happening at venues. Yeah, that's kind of what you've been seeing, like, really not many venues have been opening up as of late. Some do have optimistic plans to reopen by the end of 2020, but it really depends on where that venue is located in the U.S. and what the virus—kind of like that impact that the virus—has had on that community and whether or not they would be able to bounce back to what would be a new normal sooner, rather than, let's say, a venue that's in Los Angeles. Los Angeles County is one of the counties in the U.S. that have been hit the hardest by the virus, so it's not likely for a venue in Los Angeles to have reopening plans within the next month or two. But, maybe somewhere in the Midwest that could possibly be an option.
Michael: Yeah and we have a little bit of unfortunate firsthand experience with the LA County hotspot issues.
Whitney: Yes, yes we do, unfortunately.
Michael: Now that we have heard about how the venues have been affected, what issues have we been seeing with the ones that have been trying to reopen and how are they trying to resolve them?
Whitney: Yeah. So, kind of like I said: not many venues have been able to reopen or at least attempt to reopen, but we have seen some, like, outdoor concerts happening with varying degrees of social distancing put in place. For example, there was kind of, like, an EDM group. They had a concert in the Hamptons and it was a very, very large crowd. And a lot of people were upset by the amounts of people that were in attendance, because it just didn't make sense. Like, well, there's this barricade here that's supposed to block off people from the pit and people who are not in the pit, but even just amongst everyone involved, you could see that social distancing wasn't really a top priority. And then government officials got upset about it. So it was a whole mess. Like, there are even other events that are happening, like drive-in concerts, and those are, they have varying degrees of success. It mainly depends on the amount of backlash that they receive based on, kind of like, what you can see in the pictures that come from those events. But it's just, it's really hard to host events right now, because it's not just once you're in there, what does the atmosphere look like? It's also the process of getting in and getting out and the facilities that are available to people while they are watching these shows. So like, restrooms or concessions and all of that. And then overall, what's the sanitation that's happening on site? So there's a lot of variables at play and not many venues are willing to take that next step into bringing people back and to host events. But an organization that I do know that is planning on having in-person events is Chamber Music Pittsburgh. The kind of logistics that they're going about with having these shows is starting from the moment that you purchase your tickets, their system has kind of, like, an algorithm with it, where it blocks off seats around the purchased seats so that it provides, like, a buffer around those seats so that people can't purchase tickets to close. Their shows happen at the Carnegie Music Hall and that venue is 2,000 capacity and they've limited it to, I believe it's 150. So they've already cut down a lot on the capacity of people who can be in person. And they've managed to set up a way for social distancing to just automatically happen from the moment that you purchase your tickets. When I first heard this, I also thought that it wouldn't be that smart of an idea because it costs a lot to rent the space and pay the performers, but aside from being in person, Chamber Music Pittsburgh is also giving people the opportunity to purchase a virtual ticket and they will receive either a DVD copy of that performance, or they will receive a link to the recorded performance. So not like a live stream, but, like, a fully-functioning recorded performance that will either be sent out via DVD or a link. Either the link or the DVD, it still costs the same amount of money as you would pay if you were to go in person. So it was another way to kind of, like, supplement the amount that they would lose from the people not being in person, but it's also, like, an additional revenue stream that would kind of come into play post pandemic, because they can still offer that as an option for people who aren't in the Pittsburgh area.
Michael: So, some places are, like we just heard, creatively using the resources to organize, entertain, and supplement the revenues. What are some of the other creative solutions that you've seen and think other institutions or venues could make use of?
Whitney: Like I said, Chamber Music Pittsburgh has their whole thing going on there. But other performing arts organizations, they are looking at kind of releasing older content that they already had recorded. So, Wolf Trap [Foundation for the Performing Arts] as well as the Hollywood Bowl, they are releasing previous content that has been recorded over, um, a couple of different seasons so that people can either view it for free or, like, offer a donation in order to view it sort of thing. Also Wolf Trap has a lot of space on their grounds, so they are offering drive-in movies, which is really interesting for Wolf Trap to do because in previous summers, they were able to show movies and have the National Symphony Orchestra one site playing the score. So, um, since that's not really a thing that can happen right now, they are still offering movies in the setting of Wolf Trap. So, it does kind of have that sense of, like, I'm here, it's summertime, things seem somewhat normal, without it actually being normal times. So, just kind of, like, maintaining that sense of normalcy I think is ideal in this time, since everyone knows how not normal everything feels. But, yeah, aside from the drive-in movies and online content, it's really just other drive-in concerts and stuff. So that's kind of what I've been seeing as a trend lately. It's like, these drive-up concerts, like, pop up here and there. There's been the resurgence of popularity in drive-in movies and then just, like, the spike in online content, whether that's coming from an organization or whether it's coming from an individual artist and they're utilizing their social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, or anything like that, even Twitch, to further engage their audience. But, it seemed like the market was just flooded with all sorts of online content, especially between the months of March and April. So, a lot of people at this time are kind of getting into that sort of fatigue with, whether it's performers who are just overwhelmed with the amount of content that they feel that they need to put out there in order to remain relevant since they can't tour, or whether it's just a person consuming that content and just being like, “well, everyone's streaming now” is it something that felt very personal at first in March and now it's just beginning to feel redundant? I don't know, but it's definitely, you're starting to see that sort of level of fatigue and not many people tuning in to these live streams now as they were back in like March and April.
Michael: What precautions and procedures do you think are most effective, or would you recommend most of these venues enact to, you know, successfully reopen their doors?
Whitney: Yeah, I think looking at Chamber Music Pittsburgh and seeing what they're doing is a great start. The use of algorithms I think 100% should be used, whether it's just to figure out what the ideal capacity would be of a venue or to actually use this software that Chamber Music Pittsburgh is using. That way, when someone purchases a ticket, it automatically creates a buffer around them. I think that's the smartest way to go, at least in regards to social distancing. And since we're on that topic of social distancing, ingress and egress procedures are something that really needs to be focused on. Ingress and egress, for those who don't know, is just the process of getting people into a venue and getting them out. You can have social distancing all you want the moment that you're inside of the venue, but if everyone is clustered together in order to get into the venue, it's not going to be a good time and the virus can easily spread. So, I think staggered ingress and egress procedures. A clear bag policy will also go a long way so that security guards don't actually have to, like, stick the stick into a bag and see what's in there, but they can just visibly see it from a reasonable distance to see if there's contraband or whatever that people are trying to sneak into the venues. And then overall, just following Covid guidelines. I think that it would be in the best interest for venues to follow the most strict Covid guidelines, whether that's local, state, or federal. The more strict that we can be as a society, the easier it will be to flatten the curve and not spread the virus. So, let's take California, for example: in Los Angeles County, the county actually has stricter rules on their Covid guidelines than does the entire state of California, mainly because the entire state is not as bad as Los Angeles is. So, there are two different sets of guidelines there, and it would be ideal for a venue in Los Angeles to abide by the Los Angeles County guidelines rather than to abide by California. But let's just say we were in San Francisco: I think San Francisco should also abide by what's happening in Los Angeles than what's happening in California, in general, because if something goes wrong, by following the more lax rules, people are going to point out the fact: “hey, this is what they're doing in Los Angeles—why didn't you do that?” So, to just avoid any complications, just abide by the most strict version of something that's happening in your region and follow that.
Michael: Yeah, you had mentioned it would be nice to feel a little bit more normal, but the caveat being as long as that normal is, you know, safe.
Whitney: Exactly. It's like, bring us back in a way that creates that sense of normalcy. So, with Wolf Trap, you're in your car and you're watching the movie, but at least you're at Wolf Trap watching a movie. And that's where that sense of normalcy comes in. But don't invite me to a random music venue and then be like, "okay, we don't have to wear our masks." No, thanks. I'll pass on that.
Michael: That's when you walk out.
Whitney: Exactly.
Michael: So, with the new technology being created and the old tech being repurposed, we heard a little bit about that with what you were talking about with the algorithms and getting that kind of infrastructure in place to be able to digitally record a performance and then distribute it. Is there anything that we're seeing right now that would really be good to improve on beyond the pandemic?
Whitney: Yeah, I think—and I've actually thought this for a while—we need to improve our ticketing. It was great for how it was pre-pandemic, but we need to do better post-pandemic. So, most millennials and Gen Zers who go to concerts, they prefer to just go ahead and buy their ticket from Ticketmaster and have it on their, like, Apple wallet, and then just scan it into the venue and boom, you're done. You don't have to worry about paper ticketing. But, of course, you can't get rid of that for people of the older generations who prefer to print out their tickets and go about the show that way. But, we still have this issue with third-party ticketing sites and we need to do better to reduce the amount of fake tickets that are out on the market. But we also need to do a better way of—it kind of also like blends into ingress—getting people into the venue. If we do really want to cut down on the amount of contact that we have with other people, then we need to make sure that we have automated ticket scanners available. You see them when you go to amusement parks and you literally just take your phone or your ticket and you scan it and you go in. So, the ticket taker isn't a necessary role for a lot of venues. When it comes to independent venues, this may not be something that they can feasibly afford. It really depends on the size of that independent venue, but, overall, ticketing does need to continue to be a priority when it comes to these live events. And it's something that needs to be kind of better than it is. It's good now. It just needs to be great.
Michael: All right. Well, it was great hearing what you've been researching over the summer and enlightening myself as well as hopefully the listeners on the situation that's currently going on and how we can hopefully improve on it. So, thank you for joining me today. Is there anything you would like to make the viewers or listeners aware of as we are wrapping up today?
Whitney: Yeah, I would like to bring to everyone's attention that there are live concerts that are happening right now, but they are happening in the sense of a drive-in. So, I would highly recommend going to check them out, but also being aware of the capacity that is being sold for these shows and also the type of drive-in concert that you're going to see. If it's a streamed concert that's just being broadcasted and readily available to a bunch of drive-ins at one time, be aware of that, and also be aware of how much money you're spending to attend a show like that. And if it's something that you're not necessarily interested in, don't buy that ticket. Research the shows before you go. That's all I have to say.
Michael: Great. Keep an eye on the AMT Lab website for her full research and thank you for listening today.
Whitney: Thank you for having me.
Angela: Thanks for listening to the AMT Lab podcast. Don't forget to subscribe and to leave a comment. If you would like to learn more, go to amt-lab.org. That is A M T dash L A B dot org. Or, you can email us at amtlabcmu@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter at @techinthearts, or on Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn at Arts Management and Technology Lab. Thanks for listening. See you next time.
Banner photo credit: Wolf Trap.