Australia’s live performance industry will need an immediate and targeted package of assistance to support the hundreds of performing arts and production companies and tens of thousands of people who will be impacted by the shutdown of events due to coronavirus.
Live Performance Australia Chief Executive, Evelyn Richardson, will participate in an industry roundtable tomorrow with the Federal Minister for Communications, Cyber Safety and the Arts, Paul Fletcher.
Ms Richardson said the live performance industry was already counting a rapidly rising toll in cancelled shows, festivals and events, job losses, venue closures and lost revenue.
The ‘I Lost My Gig’ campaign has recorded, in less than 48-hours, over $47 million worth of lost income by small-to-medium businesses and independent contractors who have had jobs cancelled across the creative industries, and this number is only set to grow. An estimated 20,000 work opportunities have been cancelled, impacting over 190,000 people.
“The economic and cultural cost of the coronavirus shutdown for the live performance industry is likely to exceed more than half a billion dollars and thousands of jobs over coming months.
“The live performance industry is on the frontline of the public health war on coronavirus and needs the full support of government if it is to have any chance of coming through the other side of this unprecedented crisis period.
“Many of our smaller to medium sized companies simply do not have the financial reserves to survive an extended shutdown period. They may be lost to the industry forever.
“If there are no shows and no ticket sales, there is no income to support arts companies, their performers, artists and crew or their huge army of casual employees who support their production, technical, ticketing, hospitality and venue operations.
“Governments need to focus on supporting our companies to keep people employed and in jobs. They also need to provide immediate income support for our creative workers who are now facing a very uncertain future.
“We need a comprehensive support package to ensure our companies survive and our industry is in the best position it can be when it is possible to resume operations.”
Ms Richardson noted the economic stimulus package announced by the Federal Government last week, but said events had significantly changed since that time and the live performance industry had unique needs that needed to be considered, including the vulnerability of its companies to withstand this crisis and its very significant casual workforce.
