Recommendations for Reopening the Arts INSIDE - Covid Article 2

We previously published an article that discussed ways you would reopen the arts outside, and promised we would follow up with a way to reopen the arts INSIDE:

The first thing is, as we stated in our other article, DO NOT STOP PERFORMING. Continue to offer some form of a performance schedule - whether it be remote, at home, or in the halls. Performances do not End and are not Cancelled because of a virus. Your work, your music, your opera, your dance, are all essential for us to have health, well-being, balance, and joy during this time and after. Continue to offer some form of performances, remote or live.

In Concert Halls and in other spaces, please make sure you are offering good ventilation before you begin to perform, especially if you are wearing masks while performing and while creating. As written in our previous articles, offer smaller performances to continue to raise funds – through the summer if there is a worry or concern about funding. By offering smaller performances you are offering your orchestras a place to perform as a smaller group. You are also giving them a way to continue to get their music out there, as well as use their gifts and talents together is a collective for others to enjoy -- by offering a live performance. Additionally, you can highlight different members of your orchestra, opera, or ballet group etc. and their gifts and talents, giving the audience a better idea of who they are, and what their unique qualities are that they bring to the collective whole. You can also continue to keep some of your same schedule you put in place for the current and upcoming season, if you offered smaller performances with the same repetoire. You would rotate different players in an out of the performance, one smaller group performing, until areas approve larger group performances. With smaller or larger group performances you would want to ensure the performers can appropriately socially distance and possibly wear masks while performing. Remember to continue to offer things to your community because your community needs it. Additionally, these are perfect opportunities to continue fundraising and bring the joy of music to others. This also gives funders the opportunity to see how you are continuing to strive to create, are devoted to your field, and continue to overcome the challenges COVID has placed before us.

When you go to reopen the actual concert halls or large events, until full reopening is allowed, you could opt, as we have done in the church and other worship spaces, to have only a certain number of seats open in your hall, making sure that in your seating charts, seats that are open are socially distanced from each other. For example, leave one seat open, make sure the next two seats are closed, and then have the fourth one in the row be open …. depending on how far apart your seats are — you would make sure whatever seats are open have the appropriate socially distanced space between them. In addition, in the case of halls, The other seats would not be available for purchasing tickets —- just the ones that are spaced accordingly. Example if you have 12 seats in a row you would only open the 1st, 4th, 8th, and 12th seat for sale leaving the others closed and not available for purchase for the performance. Since you already have ushers, the ushers would be able to ensure the people are in their correct seat as well as that socially distancing is actually occurring in the hall. For balcony’s with chairs that are removable, you could always remove some of the chairs (slowly add them back in as you increase your numbers), if you think people will not respect the socially distancing rules in those areas. Otherwise leave them in place, and just follow a method similar to the above - the point is- make sure the seats you have open for sale for the performance as socially distanced from each other, leaving other seats closed.…You would also want to provide free hand sanitizer and have people wear masks if there is a mask mandate in place - - or you would provide masks for them if a mass mandate is in place…. the model above allows you to slowly bring people back into the hall, and customers to be able to experience live performances in person, while also engaging in social distancing. Again, this is when halls are given the clearance etc. to reopen. Eventually, you would be able to slowly increase the numbers of seats available and capacity.

Eventually you would slowly increase the number of performers you can have on the stage: 25%, 50%, 75%, and then 100%, being back to a full performance - with the normal number of people you have for your orchestras, operas, etc.

Eventually you would slowly reopen the other seats in the halls, so that all the seats in the hall would be available for purchasing a ticket for the concert or performance and you would return to full capacity, but again, this relates to the numbers of people allowed in large groups as well as on the stage…. while the church and other worship spaces have not charged for seating - Thanks be to God - the church and other worship spaces have started to reopen at 25% capacity - in the halls, you would do something similar and slowly increase your percentages… 25%, 50%, 75%, and then 100% capacity. Many people will be very happy to join you for these performances once they are able to attend live performances again, inside concert halls. Until then, we look forward to remote performances, performances outside, as well as smaller performances inside of different spaces, like home performances, until the halls can be opened.

We hope you are staying safe throughout this time. We will do one more article after this one on reopening performances and ways to support the arts at this time, fundraising etc… in relation to COVID etc… over the next couple weeks. Stay Safe!

(photography of halls and concerts taken by Mega)