On Wednesday, the Metropolitan Opera - the nation's largest performing arts company - announced that it was canceling its entire season and won't reopen until September 2021 at the earliest.īut the pain has been felt all over. The Brookings study found, unsurprisingly, that job losses in the arts have been most severe in New York and Los Angeles. “For those jobs that have been downsized, perhaps permanently, those are taxes that are not going to go to the city.” “We employ thousands of people in this district who pay a 1 percent earnings tax,” said Rich Simmons, Grand Center’s executive director. Over the past six months, however, the number of visitors has dwindled down to almost nothing.

The 60 arts organizations located on or around Grand Boulevard normally bring in 2 million people a year, not only helping restaurants draw customers, but prompting renewed investment in hotels and apartments. was started 40 years ago to help revitalize the city’s long-neglected midtown. In normal times, the average patron spends more than $30 on top of any admission price when attending a cultural event, according to Americans for the Arts, an advocacy and research group. That may entertain audiences and donors, but they aren’t doing anything to bring people out of their homes to spend money. Presenting organizations around the country are hosting countless online events. “If theaters can’t come back on a fully functional basis, then that’s actually going to hurt businesses quite a bit,” said Deb Clapp, executive director of the League of Chicago Theatres.

However, people won’t keep buying tickets to non-existent shows forever.

Some are still buying subscriptions for seasons that may or may not ever happen. Theater and concert sales took less of a nosedive than employment in large part because many patrons were willing to donate the value of their tickets to canceled performances.

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