Four Years After Broadway Shutdown, Have Audiences Returned to Theaters?

Four years ago, the pandemic brought live performance to a halt when then New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced a ban on gatherings of 500 or more people across the state “for the foreseeable future” as public officials tried to contain the damage from the fast-moving novel coronavirus. The virus had already spread across 44 U.S. states and infected over 127,000 people across the globe.
The rules went into effect on March 13, 2020 except for Broadway theaters, which had to adhere to them on March 12, the day they were announced, at 5 p.m.
The announcement came on the heels of the news of a Broadway usher who tested positive for Covid after working in the prior days at the shows “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and “Six..” The news prompted a scramble to inform the theatergoing public and sanitize and clean the theaters.
The employee worked in recent days at “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and “Six,” prompting a scramble to inform the public and clean the theaters. The musical “Six” had been scheduled to hold its opening-night performance on March 12, an event that was put off until October 3, 2021, roughly 18 months later.
Now, the latest data indicates that the audience for pop concerts and sporting events has returned to pre-pandemic levels, while attendance on Broadway and at some major museums is still down.
On the Great White Way, overall attendance is still down about 17%: 9.3 million seats have been filled in the current season as of March 3, down from 11.1 million at the same point in 2020, at which point the shops, businesses, and theaters were closed
In addition, box office grosses are also down: Broadway shows have grossed $1.2 billion thus far this season, a figure that is 14% lower than the level in early March of 2020.
Not only has Broadway not recovered but, in a parallel universe, the number of new movies being released is down and the number of screens in cinemas has also declined.
Some independent theater chains like Pacific Theaters and ArcLight Cinemas went out of business, while d the leading three U.S. chains, AMC, Regal, and Cinemark, shuttered about 1,000 screens collectively,
(Photo: Accura Media Group)