When Will Arts Attendance Return? How Vaccination Rates May Impact Performing Arts Ticket Sales Through March 2022

In this update, we reexamine the impact of COVID-19 on performing arts ticket sales for 51 organizations, using actual purchase data for January 1, 2018 – September 30, 2021. The analysis updates the results we reported last month, which examined ticket sales data through June 30, 2021. At that time, we estimated the total losses in the nonprofit performing arts industry attributable to the pandemic through December 2021 to likely exceed $3.2B, which dwarfs the $400M allocated as part of the Paycheck Protection Program. That estimate is unchanged by the current results. We also estimated that lagging vaccination rates cost this industry around $10M per month for every unrealized percentage point in vaccination rates. This negative effect for lagging vaccination rates is also largely unchanged in our analyses, even though the results clearly point to diminishing effects as vaccination rates increase towards 100%