SupportAs one of the most typical places for large gatherings, the entertainment industry has been heavily affected by the COVID-19 pandemic as the first aspect of social life to close was the entertainment industry and it will likely be the last aspect of our world to fully return to normal. This obviously has caused distress in those who have worked in, around, and with those in the industry as they wonder whether or not they will ever be normal again. If so, will they ever be considered “relevant” or “safe” in the new normal that we will inevitably see in the world even post-pandemic? Through research we can get a better understanding of what needs to happen, the current state of the industry in 2021, how has the entertainment industry really been affected, and finally when will anything be normal again if ever?
One article has an idea of what companies should do and the steps that they should follow in order to be considered safe and be able to reenter the new world and not skip any more beats than they already have. This article mentions the “key strategies for a bold recovery” (Westcott, 2021), Westcott is a businessman who is currently working with industries that have been especially affected by the pandemic and helping them learn how to fix their economic situations and fully integrate into our new situation in America. His strategies come in a set of three, saying:
- Renewing the focus on customers’ needs by taking a more nuanced approach to customer engagement.
- Converging and remixing entertainment experiences through new service offerings and entertainment bundles—and by adopting new strategies that can enable business agility.
- Repositioning to monetize advanced wireless networks through new products, services, and business models.
He believes that this is how the state of the entertainment industry today can integrate in order to continue making profit in this new world. He recognizes that the state of the entertainment industry is at an all-time low as this new world does not prioritize entertainment over the safety and economic issues that have come with the pandemic. Westcott (2021) also believes that the pandemic simply accelerated changes in the entertainment industry that were possibly well on their way, such as limited people in movie theaters and more private showings for popular movies and events. Therefore, maybe the state of the industry was simply just pushed further forward into the future than the rest of us were currently ready for through adjusting to the pandemic.
When it comes to discussing the entertainment industry, concerts have possibly been the area that have been the most affected by social distancing and the pandemic. Rolling Stone says that, “It [concerts] w[ere] one of the earliest industries forced to shut down, and it will likely be one of the last to reopen. In the meantime, promoters and booking agents have lost jobs, venues have shuttered, artists have been cut off from one of their most reliable streams of income, and thousands of tour crew members have faced a financial and existential reckoning” (Blistein & Millman). The venue closures mainly affected indoor concerts, but we see the same fate for outdoor concerts as well as people who are too fearful or simply too cautious to take the risk of being around too many people. However, small outdoor concerts, movie theaters, restaurants, etc. have given people an opportunity to still be social while staying safe and the CDC says small gatherings outdoors where people are 6 feet apart and socially distanced except for their household are considered to be relatively safe even in the worst of the pandemic.
However, here is positive news for concerts and those that work in the concert industry both for entertainment and for business: there is a good chance that concerts will begin to return later this year! However, these concerts will not be the kind of concerts that involve the piled-on top of each other mosh pits that a lot of us are used to, rather they will be distanced, most likely masked, and finally most likely outdoors. Depending on your job and place in the entertainment industry this could be good news, and if you are in the business of working behind the scenes you could find yourself working with concerts in the very near future.
Trade shows have an even better outlook than concerts, trade shows are set to make a MASSIVE comeback in 2021. As people have been trapped inside for so long, articles say that people are starved for entertainment and are going to be very excited to go back into trade shows (Wright). Psychological studies show that positivity often comes from human relationships, something that we have seen to be true in the recent rise of suicides and depression rates during the pandemic and quarantine. One article gives two reasons why trade shows will be booming in this next year:
- People need people.
- We are a communal species.
These reasons may be linked more to human positive psychology; however, we can see connections to this and the rise in attendance to allowed entertainment events such as trade shows.
Essentially, optimistically 2021 and 2022 (hopefully sooner rather than later) could be our years to return to a life that is as normal as it was before (or as normal as possible). Hopefully, we see that those in the entertainment industry are not too permanently affected by the pandemic and we can see a full return of the events that we look forward to the most in the near future.
Works Cited
Westcott, Kevin. (2021). 2021 Outlook for the U.S. Telecommunications, Media, and Entertainment Industry.
https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/technology-media-telecommunic ations/us-tmt-2021-outlook-for-the-us-tme-industry.pdf Wright, Macala. (2021). Post-Pandemic, Events, and Conferences Will Matter more than Ever. https://asdonline.com/blog/retail-news/post-pandemic-trade-shows-will-return/ Bilstein, John & Millman, Ethan. (2020). When Will Live Music Return? https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/features/when-live-music-return-2021-covid-1106719/