Philly arts groups struggle to bring back audiences after COVID

At the Walnut Street Theatre — often billed as America’s oldest playhouse — subscriptions sank from 34,764 in the last full season before the COVID pandemic, to 18,858 in 2022-23.

BalletX, accustomed to being Philadelphia’s box office darling, has only just added back a second week of performances to each run.

The African American Museum in Philadelphia this year exceeded its pre-pandemic attendance numbers, but in doing so illustrates a post-COVID phenomenon that many arts groups have discovered: Something must be perceived as special for audiences to show up in big numbers, such as the much-publicized “Rising Sun” show it is presenting jointly with the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

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Philadelphia’s arts community is looking for hope amid the wreckage wrought by the pandemic, and signs of hope are surely there. But as groups assess the just-finished 2022-23 season, it’s clear the damage is severe. Only a third of arts and culture groups in Philadelphia and nearby counties say attendance has reached or exceeded pre-COVID levels, according to preliminary findings from a forthcoming Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance/PA Humanities survey of groups of all sizes.

The news is even more grim for the performing arts sector alone: only 15% of performing arts groups surveyed in Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Philadelphia Counties said attendance was back to or exceeded that of 2019.

“The impact was deep, and the recovery is going to take some time,” GPCA president and CEO Patricia Wilson Aden said.

“I feel the city has a long way to go,” said Christine Cox, BalletX’s cofounder and artistic and executive director. “The energy is missing in places, the vibrancy, and when you have a performance happening and restaurants are bustling, it reminds you of the Philadelphia of four or five years ago that took 25 years to get to.”

As arts groups navigate the attendance question, they are doing so without the millions of dollars in federal emergency aid that kept them afloat at the height of the pandemic.

“Everyone thought 2020 and 2021 were the hardest times to lead a theater, but the most challenging times I think are around the corner,” said Emily Zeck, Philadelphia Theatre Company’s managing director.

The pandemic was undoubtedly the precipitating factor for the decline in arts attendance in Philadelphia and across the country, but there are other factors at play.

Some arts patrons “might have gotten used to the remote experience. There might be apprehension about coming into the city because of perceptions of crime,” Aden said (one recent study found a significant gap between perception and reality about crime in Center City). “It might be because there are lingering fears of large gatherings. Although I think that has diminished significantly, it’s still a factor, particularly for that older audience that has comprised the subscribers of some of our performing arts groups.

“So all of those factors together really mean that our performing arts, in particular, are finding the recovery stressful and that this is a journey. This is not going to be a sprint.”

Some believe that they are working to regain ground they took years ago.

“We are starting to get a sense of who our audience is again,” BalletX’s Cox said.

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Aden says that it’s important for the arts community to have a better understanding of all of the factors contributing to changes in audience behavior, but that “this is not the singular responsibility of the cultural community. The liveliness, the vibrancy of Philadelphia impacts the suburban experience, as well. And there has to be a collective response. It is in the interest of our larger business community, it is in the interest of the city at large, to understand this and find solutions.”

One big unknown is whether the current size of arts crowds is the new normal. When respondents to GPCA’s survey were asked when they expect attendance to return to pre-pandemic levels, 26% checked off “2024 or later,” and 29% said “other or unsure.”

“My personal opinion is that we should not expect to return to the way that things were,” Aden said. “Audience habits have changed drastically, and this compels our organizations to come up with new business models.”

Change is an imperative for just about every arts group.

At the African American Museum in Philadelphia, attendance for the year ending June 30, 2023, reached 75,000 — slightly exceeding pre-pandemic numbers. This has encouraged the museum to “make sure we have a robust calendar” of programs and exhibitions in the future, its chief says.

“This exhibition with PAFA has given AAMP this level of increased visibility that we have not seen with other exhibitions,” said the museum’s president and CEO, Ashley Jordan. “We want to maintain this momentum,” she said, also citing a Juneteenth block party with free museum admission that drew 10,000 visitors.

Philadelphia Theatre Company emerged from the pandemic without a significant portion of its audience. It performed for about 6,800 patrons in 2022-23, down from 12,500 the last full season before COVID.

“I think there is some potential for recapturing a portion of the audience,” PTC’s Zeck said, “but a lot of them aren’t going to come back and we’re facing that. I think the key is finding new audiences. Theater audiences are traditionally older and white. And so it’s also fitting with a lot of our missions right now to seek out a different kind of audience who want to hear different kinds of stories, and maybe those things will work hand in hand to kind of boost the future.”

Next season is the first one that reflects the choices of new co-artistic directors Taibi Magar and Tyler Dobrowsky, who “really want to prioritize reflecting Philadelphia on the stage,” Zeck said.

As ticket revenue has dropped, expenses have gone up sharply for PTC, she said.

For the Walnut Street Theatre, long a major driver of business for restaurants and other businesses in Center City, “last season was a little tough,” said marketing and public relations director Ed Gilchrist. In the last full season before the pandemic, the theater offered 328 main stage performances with houses at 73% filled. In 2022-23, the theater put on 196 performances at 68% of seats sold.

When it comes to programming, the theater is staying the course for its main stage. Some of the more experimental works previously presented in its smaller studio are on hold.

“We’re definitely looking to start the season with shows that have appeal,” Gilchrist said. “So, for instance, last year, of course, we did Rocky, which had been postponed for a couple of seasons. And that did extremely well for us and would have done even better if not for the Phillies hitting the World Series. This coming season, we’re opening with a new show, Elvis — A Musical Revolution, that should have more of a mass appeal.”

The theater is seeing “some really encouraging signs,” he said, such as a strong renewal rate and an increasing new-subscriber rate.

Many groups, including the Walnut, have seen a growing preference for single tickets in recent years. But the incentive for keeping the subscription model going is strong. It cost the theater 10 times more to lure a single ticket buyer than to renew a subscriber.

Relying on single-ticket sales also brings a risk.

“A number of things can affect that. Last season, the World Series and the Super Bowl affected it for us. All across the industry, we’re seeing that people are buying later,” Gilchrist said.

If there’s a silver lining to the slump in arts attendance, it’s that arts groups are paying more attention to what audiences and communities want.

“They’re not just presenting someone’s music, they’re researching, they’re educating, and making available different interpretations,” Teresa Araco Rodgers, executive director of the local music philanthropy Presser Foundation, said of how programming is evolving at some groups. “I just think there is a level of depth that maybe wasn’t there before because they didn’t have to fight so hard for audiences.”

What’s painfully clear now:

“If we’re not serving the community we shouldn’t be surprised that they’re not coming.”