Arts fares far better in Covid than forecast
Engagement with the arts is set to ramp up, despite initial concern of plummeting interest at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
And jobs for the sector are also set to be boosted, according to a new employment forecast.
This will be welcome news to the sector, which has largely struggled to adapt to digital formats and has had to shut down entire sub-sectors for periods of time due to government restrictions on physical gatherings. When lockdown started there were fears as many as 11,000 people in the industry could lose jobs.
‘‘What we can take from this is that Covid-19 has not dampened New Zealanders’ appetite for cultural pursuits and activities,’’ Arts Minister Carmel Sepuloni said.
The employment forecast, undertaken by economic consultancy Infometrics, revealed that the sector could employ more than 2000 more people by 2026. However, this follows an initial forecasted drop of 1100 people employed by the sector this year. Currently, 94,286 people work in the arts and cultural sectors in New Zealand.
That data was released in conjunction with a new report commissioned by the Ministry for Culture and Heritage to understand the current and anticipated future levels of participation in cultural activities, as well as to understand new audience behaviours following on from the pandemic.
Undertaken by Colmar Brunton, the research found engagement in the performing arts was set to increase ‘‘markedly’’ by as much as four times versus 2020 levels.
Kiwis were looking forward to attending arts events in person after so many months of being engaged in online cultural experiences. Women, Ma¯ori and Pacific peoples particularly prefer in-person engagement.
There was greatest resistance to participate in online versions of performing arts, gallery visits, attending a Ma¯ori cultural festival, or visiting a place of cultural/ historical significance, the research found.
Reassurance that tickets would be refunded if an event was cancelled due to Covid-19, meant 71 per cent of people would be more willing to attend the event.
Meanwhile, measures to protect attendees from the spread of Covid-19 were important to only about half of New Zealanders. Communicating protective measures in place at events was more important to Aucklanders (and especially those in South Auckland), Pacific people
and Asian people.
New Zealanders also intend to increase their engagement with locally-made screen content, and maintain a high level of engagement with homegrown commercial radio and music, it found.
More Kiwis also intend to visit sites of heritage or cultural significance, libraries, literary events, and visual arts, crafts and object art galleries in the next year, it found.
Sepuloni said the findings showed the cultural sector had benefited from the Government’s management of the pandemic, including funding it had given to the sector for it to recover.