Inside Arts

Culture vultures’ Covid fears are a big concern for venues, writes Brian Ferguson

On first inspection, the findings of research into how Scotland’s self-confessed culture vultures are feeling about a return to their favourite haunts must make for grim reading for those charged with bringing those establishments back to life. Scotinform, the market research company behind the survey, deliberately sought out friends, members and patrons of museums, galleries, theatres and other visitor attractions to test the temperature as lockdown restrictions began to be lifted across Scotland in recent weeks.

Bearing in mind that these would have been expected to be among the most enthusiastic customers to be reunited with the very pleasures that have been denied to them since the middle of March, it must have been somewhat crushing that only a fifth of them will be rushing back at the earliest opportunity. Worse still, one in four of those surveyed by Scotinform said it would not be a “priority” for them to return any time soon.

Perhaps more crucially, three quarters of regular visitors to cultural attractions and venues have admitted to harbouring post-lockdown concerns about going back to public spaces many will have been in on countless occasions. More than half said they thought their concerns might or definitely would affect how often they returned in future.

While none of the above will be a huge surprise given the number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the UK, it is still a fascinating, if concerning, insight into the attitudes of some of the most loyal customers in the cultural sector.

The prospect of a large proportion of them staying away will be another cause for concern for organisations and institutions grappling with the prospect of international visitor numbers plummeting, the impact of reduced capacities on their operations, the decline in bar and restaurant income and the cost of rolling out new health and hygiene measures.

But are there are rays of sunshine to be detected piercing the gathering storm clouds?

There are certainly reasons to be optimistic in the fact that around three quarters of regular visitors to cultural venues and attractions say they have missed attending them over the last three months, a figure which rises up to 81 per cent in the case of museums. The support for the Scottish theatre sector shines through in the fact that its most loyal supporters have kept making donations, despite the obvious impact of the pandemic on household finances. The precarious state that theatres have found themselves in, with no realistic prospect of being able to open anytime soon, seems to have rallied its core audiences into action. Two thirds of theatre-goers who have watched online content created by venues during lockdown also said it had made them look forward to the day they can return to the venues in person.

But I was most drawn to the priorities for health and hygiene measures which emerged from the Scotinform Culture Survey. While the idea of social distancing was an alien concept in Scotland less than four months ago, ensuring that can happen in venues and attractions was one of the top priorities to emerge from the research. Signs encouraging visitors to wash their hands and use sanitiser, regular cleaning and imposing crowd limits were also near the top of the shopping lists. But with all of these measures likely to be standard in almost every building that opens to the public in the next few months, perhaps they really will feel like the new normal by the time they are deployed in visitor attractions and cultural venues.