Will the entertainment industry survive COVID-19

As anyone who knows my bio, then you know I work in the entertainment industry as a technician. With the wave of this pandemic and now current strife in our country, my colleagues and I wonder what the future holds for our industry. We’re living on unemployment with held breath for knowledge on any sign that we might be going back to work soon. I think people have a tendency to forget about us, since we work in the back and no one wonders what happens to writers, designers, etc. We exist and we’re very real and we are struggling like so many are struggling. We remain quiet because there are bigger problems at hand, too many people dying, people working on the front line working under stress and now with new problems arising I think we feel lost. It’s overwhelming for anyone and everyone during this time, we’re consumed by the media and the concerns of what will happen tomorrow let alone today. I felt this need to let my fellow colleagues know, I still question the future of our industry in private thoughts and know many do too.

The concern is that it will be a long time before any of us see work again and we will now have to start branching into new industries and putting our careers on hold. I was making some big moves in my own personal career and was reaching a more stable financial life before all this happened. We’re starting to see a whole new world of entertainment as a result of our current situation. Jobs are going to be lost and more and more it seems as if we’re gearing towards a more virtual service. This in my mind will cause some future rifts in the way we will see concerts, shows, and movies. I work as a stage technician and for the foreseeable future it has been made apparent to me that work for the rest of the year is pretty much forfeit.

While union work is slowly starting to pick up again, freelancers and in house technicians are finding themselves at a loss of what to do. A big event for the summer that I most likely would have worked was cancelled and as any of us in this industry know, summer is our slow season. I personally find myself applying for jobs that I never thought I would have to work again, but will need to in order to have some sort of income as the end of my unemployment arrives and it is arriving quickly.

What does the future hold for the entertainment industry? More and more live streams? Less tickets being sold in order to maintain social distancing? No more meet and greets? And then of course there’s the question of how long will we have to live like this before we can begin to see more of a “normal”. A year? Until a vaccine is established? Or will things never be the same after this? It scares me to think of the latter because I love what I do and even though I’m continuing my higher education in a different field, my love and passion always remain theatre and film. So what now? I don’t have the answers and I don’t think anyone will have them for quite some time. All we can do is stay positive, find new jobs and hope that one day we can return to our chosen careers. Until then, I miss working with artists and clients and I certainly miss my coworkers and I can’t wait to go back to my true work.

I want to write aside, that my thoughts go out to all families struggling and families who have lost someone in these tumultuous times.