Pandemic Preparedness in the Live Performing Arts: Lessons to Learn from COVID-19 in the G7 Countries: Project Report

Abstract

This report publishes the findings of the British Academy-funded Pandemic Preparedness: Lessons to Learn from Covid-19 across the G7 project. Between April 2023 - January 2024, a UK-led research team with Co-Investigators in the USA, Canada and Germany and Research Associates in France, Italy and Japan examined the lessons learned from the responses of the live performing arts sector and governments to COVID-19 in the G7 countries. We focused our attention on policy interventions by governments and funders alongside the individual responses by workers in the live performing arts as well as organisations and their audiences. We further considered the impact of the pandemic on digital modes of working and disseminating creative content; how the pandemic affected communities, places and how ‘cultural value’ is understood; and what the pandemic revealed about systems and structures in the sector. The aim was to support sector preparedness for future crises, whether caused by new pandemics, climate-related disasters, demographic changes, economic pressures or the impacts on the live performing arts of national and international politics. This full report consists of detailed literature reviews of how the pandemic affected the performing arts sector in the United Kingdom, the USA, Canada and Germany; it also contains shorter literature reviews which focus on France, Italy and Japan. This research underpins the policy recommendations which are published in separate reports.