Pandemic culture: The impacts of COVID- 19 on the UK cultural sector and implications for the future

Gilmore, Abigail (Ed.); O'Brien, Dave (Ed.); Walmsley, Ben (Ed.) Book Pandemic culture: The impacts of COVID19 on the UK cultural sector and implications for the future Provided in Cooperation with: Manchester University Press Suggested Citation: Gilmore, Abigail (Ed.); O'Brien, Dave (Ed.); Walmsley, Ben (Ed.) (2024) : Pandemic culture: The impacts of COVID19 on the UK cultural sector and implications for the future, ISBN 9781526168375, Manchester University Press, Manchester, https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526168375 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/312698 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. 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If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Pandemic culture Manchester University Press Pandemic culture The impacts of COVID19 on the UK cultural sector and implications for the future Edited by Abigail Gilmore, Dave O’Brien and Ben Walmsley Copyright © Manchester University Press 2024 While copyright in the volume as a whole is vested in Manchester University Press, copyright in individual chapters belongs to their respective authors, and no chapter may be reproduced wholly or in part without the express permission in writing of both author and publisher. An electronic version of this book has been made freely available under a Creative Commons (CC BYNCND) licence, thanks to the support of the University of Leeds, which permits noncommercial use, distribution and reproduction provided the author(s) and Manchester University Press are fully cited and no modifications or adaptations are made. Details of the licence can be viewed at https:// crea tive comm ons.org/ licen ses/ byncnd/ 4.0/ Published by Manchester University Press Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL www.manche ster univ ersi typr ess.co.uk British Library CataloguinginPublication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 5261 6834 4 hardback ISBN 978 1 5261 6835 1 paperback First published 2024 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or thirdparty internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Cover design: Abbey Akanbi, Manchester University Press Typeset by Newgen Publishing UK List of figures vii List of tables ix List of abbreviations x List of contributors xii Preface xvii Acknowledgements xix Introduction: framing mixedmethods analyses of the impact of COVID19 on the cultural sector – Ben Walmsley, Abigail Gilmore and Dave O’Brien 1 1 Cultural policy and the pandemic: response and recovery in the United Kingdom – Abigail Gilmore, Sue Hayton, Trevor MacFarlane, John Wright, Ben Dunn and Rachel Johnson 20 2 What happened to the workers? Understanding the impact of the pandemic on jobs and working hours in the cultural sector – Tal Feder, Orian Brook, Rebecca Florisson, Siobhan McAndrew, Dave O’Brien, Gwilym Owen and Mark Taylor 54 3 The same people seeing more: audiences’ engagement with culture during the COVID19 pandemic – Oliver Mantell, Anne Torreggiani, Ben Walmsley, Jenny Kidd and Eva Nieto McAvoy 95 4 Pandemic drama: how England’s theatre organisations responded to the COVID19 pandemic – Karen Gray and Ben Walmsley 118 Contents vi Contents 5 Beyond the digital: notions of belonging and the impacts of COVID19 on festivals in Scotland – John Wright 144 6 Collaborative cultural leadership: Northern Ireland’s response to the COVID19 crisis – John Wright and Ali FitzGibbon 163 7 A question of sustainability: the impact of COVID19 on the screen sector in Wales – Eva Nieto McAvoy and Ania Ostrowska 185 8 Civic responsibility in times of crisis: museums and galleries in northern England during the COVID19 pandemic – Danielle Child, Karen Gray and Harry Weeks 212 9 Epistemic governance and partnerships in place: an ecosystem analysis of Greater Manchester – Ben Dunn and Abigail Gilmore 230 Conclusion: disruption and continuity in the cultural industries: from pandemic culture to an endemic crisis? – Dave O’Brien, Abigail Gilmore and Ben Walmsley 258 Index 274 1.1 Distribution of emergency cultural recovery funding per head across Scottish local authority areas, analysis by Mark Taylor. Source: Creative Scotland 34 2.1 Percentage of workers leaving creative occupations, per quarter 56 2.2 Overall size of the workforce in creative industries and occupations in all four quarters of 2020 58 2.3 Workers in music and performing arts, 2017– 2021 59 2.4 Distribution of hours worked, by occupational group 60 2.5 Size of the workforce in creative industries and occupations 2019– 2022, by nations 62 2.6 Percentage of workers leaving creative occupations per quarter since lockdown 65 2.7 Number of freelancers in creative occupations, 2018– 2020 68 2.8 Numbers of freelancers in creative occupations by age, 2019 Q4– 2020 69 2.9 Number of freelancers in creative occupations by ethnic group, 2019 Q4– 2020 71 2.10 Number of freelancers in creative occupations by gender, 2019 Q4– 2020 72 2.11 Percentage of staff furloughed by creative sector 75 2.12 Percentage of staff furloughed by creative sector and Covid restrictions 76 2.13 Workers enrolled in education courses 78 2.14 Proportion of art education enrolments 79 2.15 Overall numbers of art education enrolments 80 Figures xiv List of contributors of Policy Engagement at the Centre for Cultural Value, at which she is now a consultant. Her interests include creative knowledge exchange, exploring the role of artists as researchers and as catalysts for innovation. Rachel Johnson is Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Leeds. She researches cultural institutions and transnational flows of culture, specialising in film festivals and policymaking. Rachel is also cofounder of the DIY film club Leeds Cineforum. Jenny Kidd is Reader in the School of Journalism, Media and Culture at Cardiff University. She has published widely on new media, cultural institutions and digital heritage. She is a Managing Editor of Museum and Society, and a Series Editor for Bloomsbury Studies in Digital Cultures. Trevor MacFarlane is Founding Director of Culture Commons, a policy design and advocacy organisation supporting the UK’s creative and cultural ecosystem, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Trevor is a former policy and political advisor to senior parliamentarians, including the Vice President of the Culture and Education Committee in the European Parliament, the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party (UK) and the Shadow Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Oliver Mantell is Director of Evidence and Insight at The Audience Agency, where he has worked in a variety of audience research and consultancy roles since 2012. His areas of focus include audience analysis and segmentation, collaborative benchmarking and the national cultural behaviour and attitudes survey, the Cultural Participation Monitor. Siobhan McAndrew is Senior Lecturer in Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Sheffield Methods Institute, University of Sheffield. Her research interests are in the quantitative study of culture, perceptions, moral values and pluralism. She is currently examining cultural and moral responses to crises, both historically and during the COVID19 pandemic. xvList of contributors xv Eva Nieto McAvoy teaches and researches digital cultures and media at the School of Journalism, Media and Culture, Cardiff University. Recent work includes the ‘pivot to digital’ in museums and galleries during COVID19 and algorithmic memory. Dave O’Brien is Professor of Cultural and Creative Industries at the University of Manchester. He is the coauthor of Culture is Bad for You and the Creative Majority report, as well as numerous papers on the creative sector. He is currently coinvestigator on the AHRCfunded Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre, as well as working on projects about class in the television industry, diversifying creative higher education and taste in contemporary Britain. Ania Ostrowska is a Research Manager at the British Film Institute, supporting its activities as an Independent Research Organisation, including building and maintaining partnerships with UKbased academics and universities and managing Collaborative Doctoral Awards. Building on her experience of researching British filmmakers (culminating in her doctoral thesis defended at the University of Southampton) and UK film and TV industries (working with Cardiff University and the Centre for Cultural Value at the University of Leeds, among others), she also helps commission and supervises external research projects into all aspects of British film, TV and gaming industries. Gwilym Owen is a researcher who uses statistics and data to better understand the causes and consequences of social inequalities. He has particular interests in health, culture, environment and housing and has worked at the Universities of Liverpool, Sheffield and Bristol. He worked in the first few months of the COVID19 project tracking trends in the numbers of workers in cultural and creative occupations with the UK Labour Force Survey. Mark Taylor is Senior Lecturer in Quantitative Methods (Sociology) at the Sheffield Methods Institute, University of Sheffield. His research interests are in the sociology of culture: in consumption, production and education and its relationship to inequality, as well as in quantitative methods, particularly data visualisation. He leads xvi List of contributors research on the Arts, Culture and Heritage sectors for the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre. Anne Torreggiani is founding CEO of The Audience Agency – a UK charity for research and development in cultural participation – and CoDirector of the Centre for Cultural Value at the University of Leeds. She is a specialist in audience research, data and trends with particular interest in humancentred design and organisational change. She works as a facilitator and adviser. Ben Walmsley is Dean of Cultural Engagement at the University of Leeds (UK) and Director of the national Centre for Cultural Value. He is an Expert Advisor for the UK Government’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). Prior to his academic career, Ben worked as an arts manager for ten years, most recently as Producer at the National Theatre of Scotland. Ben has published widely on arts marketing, arts management, cultural policy and cultural value. Harry Weeks is Lecturer and Head of Art History at Newcastle University. His research focuses on socially engaged art practices and labour and contemporary art. His work has been published in the Third Text journal, and he coedited a special issue of this journal on art and antifascism in 2019. John Wright is a research associate with the Centre for Cultural Value, University of Leeds. He has previously worked as a visiting lecturer at Leeds Arts University on the BA Fine Art programme and as a module leader on the MA Critical Studies programme at Bradford College. In his professional life before academia, he cofounded the artistled collective The Retro Bar at the End of the Universe and developed a curatorial background in museums, galleries and in artistled activity. This book is part documentary, part analysis, part catharsis and part provocation. Back in 2020, when we began the research project that the book draws from, we were already aware of the likelihood that the UK’s, and the world’s, cultural and creative sectors would never be the same. This idea stayed with us, even when we observed their ongoing resilience and the agility of their responses to the pandemic’s impact. As we describe in the Introduction that follows, the motivation to assemble a team, devise a project methodology and undertake the research was instinctual and undertaken with sympathy. It was also done with empathy: as academic researchers who are also lecturers, tutors and supervisors, we were also physically divorced from our audiences and partners, our students and work colleagues. We were quickly learning to adapt to remote delivery and digital content creation to keep the business of higher education afloat. This gave the reflections of our research participants the quality of shared experiences and frustrations in common, as we met on our home office screens. Our Introduction also reflects on the lack of time available for theorisation and critical reflection during the research. This was caused by the sheer pace and intensity of the pandemic; the nature of indepth, mixedmethod research undertaken with engaged partners and participants; and the desire for almostrealtime analysis. This jarred with the sense emerging from the sector that COVID19 had unwittingly opened up a space for reflection, a potential strategic pause that might address issues and inequalities in creative and cultural production, participation and values. Preface xviii Preface This desire to regroup and reset was noted across the sector, even when the space to do so was limited. It was also an aim of our research project. We were able, through workshops, conferences and reference groups, to consider the broader implications of our findings for policy and investment models, sector strategy and operations. Yet it is through the process of writing that the analysis and synthesis of theory and empirical findings have been possible. We are grateful for the opportunity to undertake some of this critical thinking here in this volume. Our research happened in a maelstrom during which we had to rely heavily on new and existing partnerships and collaborations. This largescale consortium approach to research was new to many of us; but it was perhaps typical of much of the academic research and cultural activity that took place during the pandemic in its generous and highly collaborative nature. Just as we all hoped to see a better and more equitable cultural sector emerge from the pandemic, so do we hope that projects such as ours might herald a new era of more collaborative and engaged research, between academics themselves and between scholars and cultural organisations and practitioners. There are so many people to thank for making this book possible that it is difficult to know where to begin. But without the agility and confidence of our funders, this research would simply not have taken place, so we would like to thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) for their generous funding of this research. We extend these thanks to the core funders of the Centre for Cultural Value (AHRC, Arts Council England and Paul Hamlyn Foundation) and our colleagues at the University of Leeds for their ongoing support for the Centre. We would also like to thank our Policy Reference Group and all those who participated in our Covid research conference in November 2021. Heartfelt thanks go to our dedicated Advisory Group, who provided expert support and guidance over the course of the project: Geoffrey Crossick, Alastair Evans, Sharon Heal, Sarie MairsSlee, Harman Sagger, Jose Seisdedos, Liz Thompson and Michelle Wright. We are very grateful to those organisations who generously agreed to host one of our policy placements: Creative Scotland, Department for Communities (Northern Ireland), Department for Culture, Media and Sport (UK), Greater Manchester Combined Authority, Leeds City Council and the Welsh Government’s Department for Culture, Heritage, Sport & Tourism. We benefitted hugely from the generosity and time of research partners Salford Culture and Place Partnership and Manchester City Council. Most importantly, we would like to thank all of our research participants who generously gave their time in what for many were very challenging personal and professional circumstances. Over the course Acknowledgements xx Acknowledgements of the project we interviewed over 238 cultural sector professionals, ranging from freelancers and general managers of microorganisations to representatives of large regional and national cultural organisations, funders and policymakers. Along the journey we interviewed employees from a wide range of cultural organisations, and we’d like to thank them for providing us with such a privileged insight into their worlds as they shifted over the course of the pandemic in 2020– 2021. We would personally like to thank our project partners – The Audience Agency, the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre, and Culture Commons, as well as the core team at the Centre for Cultural Value (Tamsin Curror, Liz Harrop and Alex Lancastle) and all of our colleagues in the wider project team (Maria Barrett, Bruce Davenport, John Davies, Rachel Johnson, Fanny Martin, Tammi Murphy, Alice Nightingale, Ceri Pitches, Bethany Rowley and Richard Turpin), many of whom worked above and beyond their allocated hours to produce what we believe to be one of the most meticulous and comprehensive studies of the impact of COVID19 on the cultural sector that has been undertaken anywhere in the world. This book is testament to their diligent and sensitive work and also to the dedication of everyone who has kept the cultural sector alive during its darkest hours. newgenprepdf Reflections on the impact of the COVID19 pandemic on the arts, cultural and creative sectors have been ongoing since the implications of public health and safety restrictions and impositions of lockdowns emerged globally in the first quarter of 2020. Arts audiences, creative producers and culture scholars alike have observed the particular shifts and ‘pivots’ required to sustain the mixed economies and often precarious business models of activities that rely on physical copresence, state intervention and freedom of movement to survive. As the months, and now years, have passed, the shock and scale of these impacts and the calls from the cultural sector advocating for a ‘new normal’ have subsided, despite the fact that the memories of this extraordinary period, the sectorspecific stresses and the wider societal trauma it caused, continue. In the UK, the mobilisation of government funds targeted at the arts and cultural industries, many of which were already in receipt of grant funding, prevented a far more significant erosion of artists, creative workers and cultural managers’ livelihoods than would have been the case without intervention. Organisational strategies were put on pause, however, as audiences and performers were locked out bar digital participation, with many taking the time to reflect on social missions and visions, while constantly rescoping programming and budget lines as conditions frequently changed. The motivation to document these turbulent times through empirical research, and to consider through analysis potential pathways to resilience and recovery for cultural organisations and those who work in and with them, was therefore obvious. This book is an Introduction: framing mixedmethods analyses of the impact of COVID19 on the cultural sector Ben Walmsley, Abigail Gilmore and Dave O’Brien 2Pandemic culture outcome of such a motivation, one of a number of outputs from the eighteenmonth UKRI-funded research that took place in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales between September 2020 and November 2021.1 This introductory chapter sets out the rationale and context for this wideranging research. It outlines its aims and objectives, describing and justifying the mixedmethods methodology and the sampling mechanisms deployed by the research and outlining the areas of synergy between the different strands of the study so as to draw out common objectives and themes between the chapters that follow. Its core aim, therefore, is to set the scene for the rest of the book. It does this by providing a brief analysis of the structural challenges and issues facing the UK’s cultural industries prior to the pandemic that hampered the cultural sector and became exacerbated as the COVID19 pandemic hit and progressed. The chapter goes on to contextualise and introduce the forthcoming chapters and offer readers a narrative arc to guide them through the book. Study context and aims This book presents findings from one of the most comprehensive studies of the impacts of COVID19 on the cultural sector undertaken anywhere in the world. This national research project was led by the Centre for Cultural Value and conducted by twentyfour researchers from twelve research institutions and four national partners: the Centre for Cultural Value, The Audience Agency, the AHRC Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre, and Culture Commons. This consortium approach meant that the study benefitted from policy and artform experts embedded in different nations and regions of the UK. Those experts represented universities, research centres, cultural agencies and consultants. The study brought together statisticians, quantitative sociologists, art historians and audience researchers with interdisciplinary scholars from the fields of media studies, performance studies, arts management and cultural policy studies. 3Introduction 3 Based on the findings of this extensive research project, this book offers a comprehensive overview of the impacts of COVID19 on the UK’s cultural sector and highlights the implications for the sector’s future direction. Over the course of eleven chapters, the book provides a summary of the local, regional and national policy responses to the crisis; a statistical analysis of the impacts of these policy responses and of the pandemic itself on the UK’s cultural workforce; and a mixedmethods analysis of audiences’ responses to the pandemic. These insights are nuanced and illustrated via detailed case studies of a number of key subsectors of the cultural industries (theatre, museums and galleries, screen industries, libraries and festivals), via interviews with emerging cultural leaders and via taking an ecosystem approach to the case study of the Greater Manchester city region. The book identifies the core, recurrent themes that have emerged from the research. It offers a robust analysis of the short, medium and longerterm impacts of COVID19 on the cultural sector and its audiences, and highlights the implications for cultural practitioners, organisations, funders and policymakers as we continue to move into the endemic stage of the pandemic. The unique contribution of the book lies in its presentation of research findings coordinated to highlight the challenges faced by cultural practitioners, organisations and audiences from different backgrounds, regions and art forms. Using lenses which focus on both macro and micro levels, the book provides fresh insights into the implications for policy and research on, with and around the cultural sector, highlighting possible future directions for arts management, audience research and cultural policy studies. The pandemic has impacted the creative and cultural industries more globally and traumatically than any other crisis in living memory (Sargent, 2021). It has wrought a seismic shock across the arts and cultural sector in particular. But as Sargent also argues, ‘as always, amongst the loss and damage there has been invaluable learning of new kinds of thinking, new ways of doing things. We need to identify all those new learnings around the world, then build on those new foundations rather than just reassembling the broken pieces from the past’ (Sargent, 2021). It is in this spirit of fostering positive change that we have researched and written this book. 10 Pandemic culture One particular aspect of organisational activity that we were particularly keen to explore was how organisations engaged and interacted with their audiences and communities on social media. Social media generates an abundance of what Zappavigna (2011) refers to as the ‘searchable talk’ of social networks. Analysis of such public discourse can enable more dynamic and meaningful forms of cultural participation and foster a more productive relational and ethical trajectory for the institutions which engage with it (Kidd, Nieto McAvoy and Ostrowska, 2022). Our study involved analysing data collected from Twitter from the hashtags #CultureInQuarantine and #MuseumAtHome during the first six weeks of the UK lockdown (March– April 2020). These two hashtags were used by museums and galleries during this timeframe as key connective devices and produced 9,000 tweets which were analysed quantitatively by the team using Twitter’s metadata to draw out recurrent themes, before a random 5 per cent sample of 450 tweets was qualitatively analysed using NVivo. The emerging sentiments and themes shed light on how audiences were using culture to navigate the pandemic, as is presented alongside the population study in Chapter 3. In addition to the imperative to engage with sector policymakers and the potential to inform their critical interventions through empirical data and analysis, the study offered a unique view of how the activities of the cultural sector are valued, protected, promoted and regulated by cultural policy. The pandemic presented an opportunity to understand the sector’s perceived value to policy in the unprecedented context of its survival, acting almost like a contingent valuation exercise, where a proxy of the value of public good can be derived from the costs of saving and sustaining it. We therefore knew we needed channels with which to consult with policymakers as well as to undertake research with and on them, and to this end we formed a policy reference group and worked closely with local and national policy bodies, including the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), Creative Scotland, culture officers from the Welsh Government and Northern Ireland’s Department for Communities, and representatives from local councils including Leeds and Salford. The group met three times and further engagement opportunities were also provided by regular workshops with DCMS, providing the chance for dialogue and reflective practice, and a series of policy placements at regional and national level 11Introduction 11 towards the end of the study, which embedded researchers within various policy contexts. A narrative account of the timeline and evolution of policy responses over 2020 and 2021 comparing the devolved nations of the UK is presented in Chapter 1. The research was augmented by the inclusion of a case study of Greater Manchester’s cultural ecosystem, which began in November 2020, working in consultation with Greater Manchester Combined Authority, Manchester City Council and Salford Culture and Place Partnership to develop a programme of interviews and action research with policy actors, cultural leaders, and practitioners across the city region in the northwest of England. The resulting two waves of qualitative interviews (fifty in total) provided unique insights from a creative and cultural ecosystems perspective, which offered a lens on the intersection of local networks, initiatives and strategic priorities with the efficacy (or otherwise) of national policy responses. Creative and cultural ecosystems analysis recognises the complex and interconnected matrix of actors involved within creative and cultural ecologies to consider relationships between different nodes of networks, made up of individual actors and institutions (Barker, 2019). The term’s appearance in UK policy discourse is concurrent with John Holden’s promotion of ‘cultural ecology’ as a model for the ‘intensively interlinked’ (Arts and Humanities Research Council, 2015, p.2), cyclical, generative characteristics of cultural and creative production. It aims to avoid a linear production chain model that focuses solely on connections between inputs and outputs, distinguishing between valuesdriven policy approaches and those that seek to generate values as an outcome. In this way, it encompasses a spectrum of interdependent qualities across and between public and private spheres, formal and informal strategy, and amateur and professional practice. Although not bound to geography, ecosystems approaches provide useful frameworks for local cultural policy analysis. They make visible the processes through which capitals are mobilised, taken up and generated across networks and relationships. By doing so, they show that places are not simply sites that policies affect, but rather that places have their own effects on policies as situated practices (Durrer, Gilmore and Stevenson, 2019), which require the negotiation of boundaries and capabilities that are attached to place (Gross and Wilson, 2020). We discuss key findings from the cultural ecosystem case study in Chapter 9. 12 Pandemic culture The ethical context Planning this significant body of engaged research in the context of a global health pandemic inevitably raised significant ethical issues that the research team had to address and navigate. The most obvious of these, perhaps, was the risk of causing further psychological harm to cultural practitioners by asking them to reflect in online, depersonalised interviews on what had clearly been traumatic lived experiences. Although informed consent was always secured well in advance and interviews were conducted with the utmost sensitivity by sector specialists, our approach at times felt extractive and some participants understandably broke down in the course of their interviews. The experience of conducting interviews was deeply humbling, and although mitigation of ethical issues also extended to the researchers themselves, who occasionally found themselves in the role of the quasi therapist, overall the interviewers felt a heightened sense of privilege to bear witness firsthand to participants’ personal journeys through the pandemic. As a research team we shared a sense of responsibility to tell our interviewees’ stories accurately and authentically, and to capture the reality of their lived experiences in a way that might eventually effect positive change. We can only hope that we have achieved this; but ultimately, the only valid judges of this will be them as participants in our research and you as readers of this book. Structure and overview of the book The structure of the book is intended to let the research findings breathe a little and to offer a tailored route for individual reader interests through the different chapters, which are organised by work strand or art form/ subsector.3 The exceptions to this are this introductory chapter, and the final chapter, where we summarise the core findings and highlight the implications for future research, policy development and cultural sector practice as we emerge from the pandemic. Chapter 1 traces the key developments in cultural policy across the four UK nations since the start of the COVID19 pandemic. It provides an overview of policy responses and interventions at 13Introduction 13 regional and national levels, charting the national policy landscape over the timescale of the pandemic and highlighting the implications for cultural sector recovery. The chapter draws on deskbased policy analysis at a national and regional level, consultation with key policy stakeholders, and interviews with policymakers, cultural workers and freelancers representing perspectives from music, museums, festivals and theatre across the four UK nations. It finds that while there are commonalities between their national government responses, even as the turmoil and changing conditions of the pandemic disrupted the ordinary process of policy decisionmaking, there were also differences guided by the distinctive organising logics or ‘policy assemblages’ (Prince, 2010). Chapter 2 explores the cultural sector through the lens of longerterm trends in the workforce, primarily focused on the longstanding and structural inequalities characteristic of culture in the UK. The chapter shows the impact of lockdown, and the subsequent attempts to arrest the spread of the virus, on differing parts of the cultural industries, noting the distinct patterns in publishing, film and television and the performing arts. The analysis reveals how each subsector experienced different consequences, for example increased demand for working from home in publishing compared to significant losses of employment in the performing arts, with different dilemmas for the organisations, businesses and workers who constitute these sectors. Chapter 3 investigates how audiences and the wider UK population have engaged with cultural content during the pandemic, in both live and digital spaces. It presents, contextualises and discusses the findings of the Cultural Participation Monitor, a bespoke longitudinal tracking survey of the UK population that analyses changing digital engagement habits and attitudes towards reengagement in live events. The chapter also offers an analysis of Twitter data shared across two hashtags, #CultureInQuarantine and #MuseumAtHome, in order to explore the parameters of engagement between cultural institutions and members of the public over the pandemic. It explores the popularity of content through a thematic lens, as well as by tone, before exploring how the sample connects with other debates at the time. This research is significant because it reveals what seemed to work, and what worked less well, as strategies for engagement during the pandemic. It tells a story 14 Pandemic culture about the kinds of content and interaction users found valuable and unpacks how we can understand and articulate that value during a time of crisis. It also suggests how cultural interaction may have shifted during the pandemic in ways that could be meaningful in the longer term if institutions have the capacity to build on those developments. The chapter concludes by assessing longerterm trends in audience behaviour and engagement and by exploring the implications of these trends for artists, cultural organisations, funders and policymakers. Chapter 4 investigates how England’s theatre sector fared over the course of the pandemic. During the COVID19 crisis, the sector was forced into making and accelerating changes to the strategies and modes it uses to make work and to engage with its audiences. This unsurprisingly involved a strong focus on digital distribution and adaptation, which, alongside the enforced and repeated closure of buildings, challenged organisations of all scales to make radical decisions about their business models and to tackle issues of productivity, quality, capacity and skills that will have significant implications for policy, management and training. Lockdown experiences of making and consuming theatre have raised important questions around the role of physical spaces, of shared or synchronous experience and definitions of authenticity, and regarding audience perceptions of the relative value of digital and live performance. They have drawn closer attention to inequalities of access of all kinds. Some organisations have ‘leant into’ their learning and participation functions with the aim of maintaining and sometimes deepening audience relationships that otherwise may have been fractured during the crisis. This activity reflects the intensified attention that has been paid towards the social and civic role of theatre. Chapter 4 examines this evolution, highlighting some of the convergences and divergences within the theatre sector and between it and other cultural sectors. In so doing, it builds on research engaging with the concept of cultural value and the public role of arts and culture, and with the ‘relational turn’ in audience engagement (Walmsley, 2019). Chapter 5 traces the impact of COVID19 on cultural festivals in Scotland. It is based primarily on a series of interviews and conversations carried out in 2020 and 2021 with festival producers, 15Introduction 15 directors and organisers. The chapter presents findings that illuminate the different responses that festivals implemented during the pandemic from moving to hybrid models of live and digital content to fundraising for local foodbanks. These shifts in working practices have fundamentally brought into question the role of festivals within their communities and this chapter considers how digital and hybridised programming, performing and gathering have changed festivals’ approaches to future planning, strategy and audience engagement. Chapter 6 traces the impact of COVID19 on arts and cultural activity in Northern Ireland through the lens of emerging and collaborative approaches to leadership. It draws principally from a series of practitioner interviews and discussions carried out in 2020 and 2021, combining the knowledge of a range of organisational leaders with that of creative freelancers and policymakers. The authors examine the role and nature of what constitutes leadership within the Northern Irish cultural economy. Although exacerbated by the crisis, the tensions of how cultural leadership is recognised and defined predate the pandemic and are intrinsically linked to concerns of representation and consideration in regional, national and subnational policy structures and within the systems of arts and cultural practices. By pointing to where leadership has emerged in new or more strident forms, the chapter equally points to where it has been absent, excluded or ignored. Through analysing these emergent forms of collaborative leadership, the authors suggest ways in which these practices could shape the future direction of cultural policymaking in Northern Ireland. Chapter 7 investigates the effect that the pandemic, lockdown and the subsequent support measures had on the screen sector in Wales. It does so by focusing on the challenges facing the workforce, including the impact of COVID19 on people’s working practices, financial situations and mental health. The chapter also analyses different organisational approaches to lockdown, the emergency funding made available to film and TV professionals in Wales, and the emerging signs of polarisation in the sector. Chapter 8 builds on and contributes fresh empirical research to the existing discourse on cultural value by examining the heightened civic responsibility identified in arts institutions in the northeast 16 Pandemic culture and northwest of England in response to the pandemic. The north of England was hit particularly hard by the pandemic, experiencing extended lockdowns and hightier restrictions. From interviews with over thirty gallery, museum and arts workers in these regions, including freelancers and artistled organisations, the authors identify an increase in community engagement and outreach from galleries and museums in the north of England during periods of lockdown. The chapter examines the community engagement and outreach activities provided by these institutions and asks: How do galleries and museums provide support during unprecedented times? Whom do galleries and museums serve? Who benefits from this provision, and can it be sustained in the long term? What are the implications for the workforce, management and business models of galleries and museums? How do these practices inform new narratives of ‘levelling up’ and postpandemic recovery within areas already highlighted for investment? In responding to these fundamental questions about the civic responsibility of arts institutions in times of crisis, the chapter undertakes a close analysis of three case studies. These include a large gallery, a group of museums and a small interdisciplinary arts organisation, all based in the north of England. Chapter 9 considers the impact of COVID19 on the arts and cultural industries from a placebased perspective, focusing on a specific geography, the city region of Greater Manchester, and the social and political relationships that comprise its cultural ecology and policy infrastructure. Following a cultural ecosystems approach, which recognises the complex and interconnected matrix of actors involved within creative and cultural ecologies, the authors explore how the pandemic has affected the delivery of local cultural strategies within the first devolved English city region, and how national policy responses, such as Culture Recovery Funds, have been received and operationalised locally. The chapter focuses on three intersections of policy, culture and place to interrogate further the political, socioeconomic, spatial and locational dimensions that underpin the response and recovery plans of local governance. These ‘mini case studies’ concern: (a) models of cultural leadership and coordination within the local sector to support freelancers; (b) policyled responses 17Introduction 17 to support creativity within social care and voluntary settings, through creative care kits; and (c) sitespecific cultural recovery planning and cultural programming, including the development of Creative Improvement Districts in Greater Manchester district towns. The concluding chapter draws together the core themes emerging from the analyses presented in the previous chapters. It offers a critical overview of emerging findings; highlights notable areas of synergy and divergence between different sectors, art forms, sizes, scales and locations of cultural organisation; and identifies the implications for cultural management and policy. Reflecting on the broader sociopolitical context, the chapter reviews the global context of the pandemic and discusses the extent to which the UK context and experience might be said to be exceptional. It investigates aspects of divergence and convergence between different art forms and how these relate to instances of continuity and change, for example by highlighting the continuity of inequality in the sector and noting that the pandemic has not changed the seemingly entrenched economic rationalism of cultural policy. The final chapter also reflects back on the key findings of the research, including the sector’s pivot to civic engagement and digital distribution, and draws out the implications of such phenomena for policy, management and future research – not least for cultural data and leadership. Finally, it discusses how the sector might become more relevant, representative, equitable and ‘regenerative’ (Walmsley et al., 2022). Notes 1 COVID19: Impacts on the cultural industries and implications for policy (Reference AH/ V00994X/ 1). 2 The Audience Agency received additional funding to enable it to continue the survey beyond the lifetime of our funded research. 3 Readers who would also like a chronological summary overview of the research might like to read the Culture in Crisis report (Walmsley et al., 2022), available at: www.cult ureh ive.co.uk/ CVIre sour ces/ cult ureincri sisimpa ctsofcovid19/ 18 Pandemic culture References Arts and Humanities Research Council. 2015. The ecology of culture. Swindon: Arts and Humanities Research Council. Barker, V. 2019. The democratic development potential of a cultural ecosystem approach. Journal of Law, Social Justice and Global Development (Special Issue: Democracy, Development and Culture, eds. John Clammer and Jonathan Vickery). 24, pp.86– 99. https:// doi. org/ 10.31273/ LGD.2019.2405 Brook, O., O’Brien, D. and Taylor, M. 2018. Panic! Social class, taste and inequalities in the creative industries. London: Create London. Brook, O., O’Brien, D. and Taylor, M. 2020. Culture is bad for you: inequality in the cultural and creative industries. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Durrer, V., Gilmore, A. and Stevenson, D. 2019. Arts councils, policymaking and ‘the local’. Cultural Trends. 28(4), pp.317– 331. Geertz, C. 1973. The interpretation of cultures: selected essays. New York: Basic Books. Gross, J. and Wilson, N. 2020. Cultural democracy: an ecological and capabilities approach. International Journal of Cultural Policy. 26(3), pp.328– 343. Hadley, S. 2021. Audience development and cultural policy. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Kidd, J., Nieto McAvoy, E. and Ostrowska, A. 2022. Negotiating hybridity, inequality, and hypervisibility: museums and galleries’ social media response to the COVID19 pandemic. Cultural Trends. https:// doi.org/ 10.1080/ 09548 963.2022.2122 701 Miles, A. and Gibson, L. 2016. Everyday participation and cultural value. Cultural Trends. 25(3), pp.151– 157. Neelands, J., Belfiore, E., Firth, C. and Hart, N. 2015. Enriching Britain: culture, creativity and growth (report of the Warwick Commission on the Future of Cultural Value). Coventry: University of Warwick. O’Connor, J. 2020. Art and culture after Covid19. 9 April. Wake in Fright. [Online]. [Accessed 27 January 2023]. Available from: https:// wake inal arm.blog/ 2020/ 04/ 09/ artandcult ureaftercovid19/ Prince, R. 2010. Policy transfer as policy assemblage: making policy for the creative industries in New Zealand. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space. 42(1), pp.169– 186. Rubin, H.J. and Rubin, I. 2005. Qualitative interviewing: the art of hearing data. London: Sage. Sargent, A. 2021. COVID19 and the global cultural and creative sector: what have we learned so far? Leeds: Centre for Cultural Value. Stevenson, D. 2019. The cultural nonparticipant: critical logics and discursive subject identities. Arts and the Market. 9(1), pp.50– 64. 19Introduction 19 Taylor, M. 2016. Nonparticipation or different styles of participation? Alternative interpretations from Taking Part. Cultural Trends. 25(3), pp.169– 181. Wallendorf, M. and Brucks, M. 1993. Introspection in consumer research: implementation and implications. Journal of Consumer Research. 20(3), pp.339– 359. Walmsley, B. 2019. Audience engagement in the performing arts: a critical analysis. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Walmsley, B., Gilmore, A., O’Brien, D. and Torreggiani, A. (eds.). 2022. Culture in crisis: impacts of Covid19 on the UK cultural sector and where we go from here. Leeds: Centre for Cultural Value. Yin, R. 2018. Case study research: design and methods. 6th ed. London: Sage. Zappavigna, M. 2011. Ambient affiliation: a linguistic perspective on Twitter. New Media & Society. 13, pp.788– 806. England Northern Ireland Scotland Wales January 2021 6 January: Lockdown introduced 6 January: CRF Round 2 opens for applications 4 January: Lockdown announced 17 January: SG announces emergency support of £3m for three major arts organisations 22 January: National Partnership for Culture announced February 23 February: ACE publishes roadmap for easing of restrictions for arts and culture 24 February: NI Executive introduces £6.9m to support individual artists as part of Individual Emergency Resilience Programme 17 February: Hardship Fund for Creative Freelancers and Screen Hardship Fund £9m 17 February: Extension of Pivotal Event Business Fund/ Events Industry Support Fund £8.5m 23 February: SG publishes Strategy Framework Update for reopening 17 February: Arts Council Wales opens Connect and Flourish 2 £2.7m (of £5m) 10 February: Freelancer Fund extended by £8.9m 19 February: Restrictions eased March UK wide 3 March: UK Government present the 2021 Budget with SEISS rounds 4 and 5 22 March: CRF Round 2 extension announced for support up to September 2021 April 6 April: Arts Council Wales Fund for organisations opens April UK wide 17 April: DCMS launches Events Research Programme with pilot event at World Snooker Championships May UK wide 10 May: The four Chief Medical Officers of the UK agree to reduce the UK COVID19 alert level from 4 to alert level 3 May 15 May: Events Research Programme pilot event at FA Cup Final 18 May: Taskforce and cultural strategy announced 17 May: Most of Scotland is level 2, allowing live venue opening 10 May: Welsh Government announce events pilot series Table1.2 (Cont.) England Northern Ireland Scotland Wales June 21 June: DCMS Events Research Programme first report published 17 June: Creative Scotland Culture Organisations & Venue Recovery Fund Round 2, £25m 25 June: NHS Covid passes introduced Table1.2 (Cont.) Table 1.3 Culture Recovery Fund revenue funding for DCMS sectors showing distribution by arm’s length body (England only) Arm’slength body Funding pot Subsectors targeted Amount (£m) Arts Council England Culture Recovery Fund (Grants) National Portfolio Organisations (NPOs¹) – organisations that recieve substantial funding from ACE 118 NonNational Portfolio Organisations 209 ACEaccredited museums and museums working towards accreditation² 137 Music venues – independent grassroots music venues, including indoor arenas and concert halls 36 Arts Council England total 500 Historic England and the National Lottery Heritage Fund Heritage Restart and Rescue Grants (CRF for Heritage) Heritage sites, venues or attractions in England, and organisations managing culturally significant assets or collections (including nonaccredited museums) 92³ British Film Institute Independent Cinema Grants Independent cinemas that provide a yearround programme 30 Total available in phase 1 for England 622 Contingency 258 Revenue grants total 880 1The arts organisations, museums and libraries, ranging in size and location, in which Arts Council England (ACE) invests. 2Museum accreditation is the benchmark for a wellrun museum. Accreditation is made by ACE. There are about 1,700 accredited museums in England. Accredited museums and those working towards accreditation had to apply for CRF through ACE. All other museums could apply to the CRF for Heritage. 3£2m of this was for the Architectural Heritage Fund and up to £2m was for digital support and business support programmes. Source: National Audit Office analysis of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport’s documentation. 28 Pandemic culture providing over £100m in Emergency Funding to nearly a thousand applicants in Spring 2020, including 7,484 individual creative practitioners and 2,374 organisations) (SQW, 2022, p.1). Phase Two: attempting recovery The UK Government eased some restrictions in May 2020 in England as part of a pandemic recovery strategy (Cabinet Office, 2020), however, these were quickly reversed to avoid a potential ‘second wave’ (Home Office, 2020a). Although ‘Cultural Renewal Taskforce’ led by Lord Mendoza was established by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Secretary of State (DCMS, 2020a) national support did not fully emerge until July 2020, when the £1.57bn Culture Recovery Fund (CRF) was announced, the single largest investment in the creative and cultural sectors ever made in the UK (DCMS, 2020b). Until then, the high degree of uncertainty led to a considerable number of open letters and campaigns by sector advocates which continued to hold the UK governments to account throughout the pandemic period (see, for example, Equity, 2020; The Stage, 2020). The CRF was created in response to evidence of the severity of the impact of the pandemic on the sector, with DCMS estimating that the cultural sector had seen commercial income fall by 95 per cent since March 2020, provisionally aiming to ensure survival of a target 75 per cent of those organisations at risk of falling off the ‘cliffedge’ of financial failure by September 2020 (NAO, 2021, p.5). Overseen by a new Culture Recovery Board, with revenue and capital grants and repayable loans distributed via the arm’slength bodies within the four nations, CRF calculations were based on a worstcase scenario assumption that social distancing might remain in place until March 2021. The criteria for shaping funding decisions were established broadly according to two principles: firstly, cultural value and significance, such as organisations recognised as excellent by their peers or assets that are deemed nationally important or irreplaceable and, secondly, by their significance to place, for example, by providing access for participation to audiences or contribution to creative economies and/ or local policy agendas (NAO, 2021, p.13). Although the loan scheme remained undersubscribed, 29Cultural policy and the pandemic 29 the grant schemes were heavily oversubscribed. By February 2021, around £495m had been paid out to recipients, of the total of £830m awarded to the DCMS sectors, which included £622m revenue funding and £120m capital awards, plus a further £100m provided to the arm’slength bodies as grant in aid (NAO, 2021, p.20); see Table 1.3. The timing and policies for reopening cultural venues differed across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, primarily driven by monitoring of localised case rates, with venues in Northern Ireland and Scotland reopening in July 2020, while those in England were delayed from reopening until midAugust 2020. By September 2020, as new variants of the virus emerged, national and localised restrictions were reintroduced, lasting throughout the winter into 2021, and despite attempts by the four nations to harmonise regulation over Christmas (Welsh Government, 2020a) there remained distinctive approaches across the UK. A 10pm curfew for pubs and restaurants, the ‘rule of six’ (Home Office, 2020b) and the Eat Out to Help Out scheme (Hutton, 2020) were introduced in England in quick succession, creating further confusion, and in some cases further spikes in cases. On 31 October 2020, the UK Prime Minister announced a new Englandwide lockdown, Wales moved in and out of localised lockdowns (Welsh Government, 2020b), while Northern Ireland saw restrictions introduced for a fourweek ‘circuit breaker’ which forced cultural venues to close on 19 November 2020 (Executive Office of Northern Ireland, 2020). In Scotland, restrictions on social gatherings were reintroduced with local lockdowns from November 2020 which, coupled with a national lockdown coming into force over the new year, encouraged the launch of specific funds targeting Scottish cultural venues (Creative Scotland, 2020). At this time, it remained unclear when the furlough scheme would end, and there was continued lack of guidance on how venues might reopen safely. Reopening with reduced capacity but a full staff complement placed a huge financial strain on cultural organisations that were already facing further loss of income at a traditionally busy time of year. The furlough scheme was eventually extended in November 2020 through to March 2021, with calls to extend and plug the ongoing gaps in the SEISS left unheeded despite growing lobbying from pressure groups, workforce Table 1.4 Policy interventions, Summer to November 2021 England Northern Ireland Scotland Wales July 2021 19 July: ‘Freedom Day’ ending of Covid restrictions – English cultural venues reopen 27 July: Phased reopening of venues and removal of restrictions 13 July: Selfisolation grants of £500 for low income 19 July: Scotland moves to alert level 0 August 16 August: CRF opens Continuity Support for Rounds 1 and 2 recipients 23 August: £750k Scottish Government (SG) Touring Fund for live music 5 August: Wales moves to alert level 0 September 16 September: Northern Ireland (NI_ Executive transfers £500k toArts and BusinessNI 7 September: Strategic vision and policy review for culture announced 10 September: SG launch Public Libraries COVID recoveryFund October 13 October: Arts Council of Northern Ireland (ACNI) launches £750k Health & Safety Capital Programme 1 October: SG Covid certificationof vaccination for venue access 11 October: NHS Covid Passes for large events, nightclubs November UK wide 27 November: Omicron variant detected in UK 29 November: CRF Round 2 rolling programme 16 November: SG update Scotland’s Strategy Framework 29 November: Omicron detected in Scotland 15 November: NHS Covid Pass for cinema, theatres and concert halls 31Cultural policy and the pandemic 31 networks, arm’s length bodies, funders and cultural organisations (Bectu, 2020). Attempts to support workforce development were hindered by these turbulent conditions; for example, the launch of the UK Government’s ‘Kickstart’ scheme which encouraged young people to take up apprenticeships, including in the creative and cultural sectors, yielded mixed results (Powell, 2022). Meanwhile, financial support through grants and loan schemes continued, with the opening of CRF Round 2 in January 2021 (Arts Council England, n.d.). Phase Three: continuing uncertainty In February 2021, a further roadmap out of the lockdowns was published by the Prime Minister’s Office (2021), with sectorspecific guidance added by the DCMS (Woodhouse and Hutton, 2021). The government budget statement in March confirmed an extension to the SEISS and an uplift in funding for the culture department (DCMS, 2021a). A research programme was launched in April 2021 to test the impact of holding largescale events under certain conditions, and underpinned further guidance as new variants were beginning to take hold in the UK (DCMS, 2021b). By May 2021, Wales and most of Scotland had moved into Level2 restrictions, allowing theatres, cinemas and live venues to reopen (Welsh Government, 2021). However, full reopening across the whole of the UK was not permitted until the summer, when the socalled ‘Freedom Day’ on 19 July 2021 saw the removal of all Covidrelated restrictions in England against a backdrop of increased transmission rates and a prime minister in quarantine (James, 2021). This apparent change in logic was tempered politically by a broadly successful rollout of the vaccination programme, and a high uptake of ‘booster jabs’ reducing the risk of serious illness and hospitalisation. It also provided the means to propose safer venue opening, with vaccination certification schemes trialled in Scotland and Wales in ‘highrisk venues’ such as theatres, cinemas and music venues (Morris, 2021). The third round of the CRF opened in August 2021 and saw a further £100m in continuity and recovery grants. The autumn budget in October 2021 included funding to boost culture in local 32 Pandemic culture communities and on the high street. It also confirmed temporary extensions of tax reliefs for theatres, orchestras, museums and galleries, plus further support for creative industries through schemes such as the Live Events Reinsurance Scheme and the Film & TV Production Restart Scheme, which were successful in reinstating cultural production (RSM, 2022) despite the initial delays in their inception. However, after eighteen months of turmoil, in November 2021, the first cases of the Omicron variant were detected in the UK, and transmission rates soared back up. Despite the substantial injection of public funds, evolving models for safe return to cultural venues, and growing understanding of the specific issues caused and revealed by the pandemic concerning workforce and business model precarity, the uncertainties for arts and cultural producers and consumers, as well as the challenges for policymakers, were set to continue. In the next section we examine further the variety of policy responses, beginning with the distinctive challenges in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, before considering the significant and central role of Westminster in setting policy (and rhetoric) not just for England but across the UK. We then turn briefly to discuss the implications of these responses for understanding cultural policy in the UK context. Tailoring interventions in Scotland The Scottish Government’s ambitions for culture prior to the pandemic were laid out in a new cultural strategy, published on 28 February 2020. The result of lengthy sector stakeholder consultation lasting several years (Scottish Government, 2020), the policy articulated a nuanced vision for culture that is responsive to the diverse histories, geographies, cultures and communities of the national population (Scottish Government, 2020, p.3). Although derived before the beginning of the pandemic, the policy provided a template of stated aims and action planning, and principles of place, inclusion and cultural democracy, which were used to guide the national response. Much of this was delivered through the national arm’slength body for culture Creative Scotland, who distributed £85.3m in 33Cultural policy and the pandemic 33 emergency funding on behalf of the national government between 2020 and 2021 (EKOS, 2022). As with Arts Council England in England, Creative Scotland was able to act ahead of national legislative policy, relaxing delivery restrictions for their portfolio of Regular Funded Organisations (RFOs) and redirecting existing funds to provide emergency support for the sector, with £11m of funding announced on 27 March. However, where analysis of emergency funding in England has confirmed that ‘relief flowed disproportionately to institutions’ (de Peuter, Oakley and Trusolino, 2022, p.8), Scotland’s initial emergency response prioritised support for individuals, with further funding decisions detailing significant distinctions across the devolved national responses within the UK. Predominantly funded by £97m released to Scotland through the Barnett formula following the announcement of the Culture Recovery Fund,1 the period after July 2020 saw a programme of eight rolling funds targeted at different areas of the sector. Some outcomes of these interventions are unsurprising. Glasgow and Edinburgh, the two largest cities in the country with the highest concentration of RFOs and the largest creative workforce, benefitted from the most funding, receiving over 50 per cent of the total amount distributed across all funds with the two highest levels of inward investment per person (see Figure 1.1). Beyond these headline figures, however, the picture is more varied. While Glasgow and Edinburgh dominated general funds, such as the £28m Cultural Organisations and Venues Recovery Fund which was open to commercial and publicly funded organisations, targeted funds, such as the £24.5m Performing Arts Venue Relief Fund for publicly funded theatres and performance venues or the £5.9m Culture Collective Fund for local creative networks, reached different areas of the sector, with a higher proportion of funds going to a wider range of local authorities. Direct support for freelancers also continued, with two inparallel hardship funds, totalling £17m, replacing the emergency support established in the first month of the pandemic. Delivered in partnership with sector bodies such as Craft Scotland and Help Musicians Scotland, these programmes offered support for freelancers until the end of March 2021, accounting for 17 per cent of the total spend across all funds (EKOS, 2022, p.33). 34 Pandemic culture A number of these programmes ringfenced grants for nonRFO organisations, reaching beyond existing funding patterns to protect local cultural infrastructures alongside the nation’s flagship assets. Alongside this expansion, there was notable recognition of crosssector support through the establishment of the Scottish Tourism Emergency Response Group (STERG) with a £25m fund to support the recovery of the tourism industry (STERG, 2021). Projects that impacted culture and heritage through this fund were primarily concerned with enticing audiences through days out schemes and holiday vouchers. However, the group was also concerned about longer term infrastructure and capacity building Figure 1.1 Distribution of emergency cultural recovery funding per head across Scottish local authority areas, analysis by Mark Taylor Source: Creative Scotland 35Cultural policy and the pandemic 35 around sustainable travel to the more remote areas of the highland and islands particularly for festival attendance. The delivery of these policies and the efficiency with which they were able to achieve their aims was significantly affected by networks, knowledges and individual and organisational capacities as they existed before the pandemic. Primary research into how festivals in Scotland fared throughout 2020 helps illustrate these dynamics, discussed below. The restrictions on social gatherings had particularly acute impacts for festivals. Additionally, while other areas were served with bespoke funding programmes, there was no targeted support for festivals, leaving many organisations feeling overlooked and under supported. Many of the interviewees from festivals expressed frustration at a lack of coherent messaging from the Scottish Government, particularly in relation to eligibility and to changing health and safety guidance, leading to concerns that the Scottish Government did not understand how the festival sector operated. In the absence of policy leadership, networks of rural and smaller festivals resorted to pooling resources and knowledge, disseminating advice from other festivals and individuals that had managed to receive guidance from civil servants. One of the major communication issues concerned the eligibility criteria for emergency funding and the employment of freelancers. For many festivals, the collapse of box office income meant that they were applying for and receiving more public funding than before the pandemic. One effect of this influx was that organisations were working with unfamiliar financial restrictions, and festivals found themselves having to seek clarification from the government and funders, with irregular working patterns and portfolio work of creative and cultural freelancers proving a particular challenge (Tsioulakis and FitzGibbon, 2020; Jones, 2022). This caused major delays for some festivals and logistical problems when it came to hiring seasonal workers, whose numbers were already depleted due to restrictions on movement and travel. Eligibility criteria also differed between emergency funding programmes without explanation, leading to frustration for festival organisations desperate to receive funding to stop them from going under. Of course, these experiences are not universal. Throughout the pandemic, local authorities acted as a proxy for national 42 Pandemic culture Ireland. As a result, its recommendations are practitioner focused and deal with longstanding issues around inaccessible and inflexible funding (p.18). This approach was notably different to that of the DCMS but had similarities with the general consensus in both the Welsh and Scottish Governments’ commitments to freelancers and individuals through more collaborative policymaking. This closer engagement with decisionmakers and successful lobbying for more experimental and risktaking investment has led to schemes such as the £4.7m Future Screens Northern Ireland Art Works programme, which aims to increase the attraction and retention of creative workers in local arts organisations by creating threeyear posts (Moore, 2022). Policy, rhetoric and Westminster The timeline and accounts of the devolved nations above recognise the dominant role of government in Westminster. It sets levels of budgets and direction of travel for policy approaches and fiscal interventions which were distributed by the devolved and local governments and arm’slength bodies. It also offered guidance from newly established bodies such as the Cultural Renewal Taskforce, with some variations in the timing of restrictions and in the distribution and allocation of funds. While at the time of writing the efficacy of both process and outcome for the arts and cultural sector is still being evaluated, within the moment these interventions received intense scrutiny and prompted debates on social media and within sector publications, which we argue are indicative not only of policy rationale but of rhetoric. Amid the eddies of uncertainty and continual pressure of funding applications for stabilisation and recovery funding from national and local sources, certain discursive moments rose to the surface which revealed prevailing attitudes and tensions concerning the value of arts, creativity and culture within national public life. These were articulations of crisis, but like the outcries and movements coalescing around the contemporaneous activism of Black Lives Matter, following the murder of George Floyd, and the toppling statuary and culture battles pitched against the National Trust (see, for example, Henley, 2020; Aaronovitch, 2021; The Guardian, 2021; Adesina, 2022), these mediated moments 43Cultural policy and the pandemic 43 punctured any sense of coherent and consensual national policy for the arts and cultural sector in England, despite the vital importance and magnitude of the CRF and other public funds. For example, the Arts Council England’s Emergency Fund scheme, rapidly established within weeks after the first lockdown, included the earmarking of £90m out of £160m for its national portfolio, the organisations who are in receipt of regular funding from the arm’slength body. This provoked debates about the fairness of the funding formula and eligibility criteria, and accusations that these favoured trickledown economics which neglected organisations and places outside of the regular funding ringfence (Hill, 2020). Similarly, the announcement of the CRF scheme was accompanied by a misstepped statement of commitment by the UK Secretary of State to prioritise the (predominantly Londonbased) institutions who were ‘the crown jewels of our national life’ (Evans, 2020). Such utterances opened old wounds about the metropolitan bias of arts funding, but also represented concerns for the precarious position of creative freelancer ecologies who were perceived to be doubly neglected by general fiscal policy and targeted sector funds (Thompson, 2020). This concern seemed justified as the pandemic wore on, when those responsible for these policies appeared to undermine the case for sector support further. In October 2020, a poorly considered campaign to encourage people to retrain in digital technologies featured an image of a ballet dancer with the caption ‘Fatima’s next job could be in cyber’, causing acute embarrassment to Secretary of State Oliver Dowden (Bakare, 2020) and the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, to backtrack on comments about adaptation for survival (Snow, 2020). Meanwhile, those who received CRF funding were required to share assets across their social media channels, publicly thanking the government for support through a #HereForCulture hashtag, and tagging arm’slength bodies, the Treasury and the DCMS (Arts Council England, n.d.). Responses from within arts commentary showed the exasperation of a sector who was watching its business model slip through its fingers. At times those with leadership roles seemed to simply misunderstand how creative production works, for example, underestimating the lead time for ‘opening up’ required for theatres and performing arts in recovery roadmaps (Billington, 2020), or providing cripplingly delayed and inadequate policy levers to help festivals 44 Pandemic culture and events with cancellation insurance (Jowett, 2022). The importance of arm’slength bodies in providing expertise and relationship management at a local level, in partnership with local government arts officers, anchor institutions and local networks, was underlined by the frustration with centralised policy, as discussed in Chapter 5. As the pandemic progressed, Westminster turned to policies for regeneration and economic recovery, which aimed to address geographical inequalities in productivity under the banner of the idea of levelling up (DLUHC, 2022). A cluster of funds for capital projects and infrastructure investment was brought together under this agenda, organised by placebased eligibility criteria and prioritising projects with culture and heritage themes. The rationale for allocation of funding shifted from the need to stabilise a critically undermined arts and cultural sector to the leverage that arts and culture can provide in aiding place recovery: Investment in cultural assets can rejuvenate places, leading to positive economic and social outcomes at a local level. It can help to retain and grow a highly skilled workforce, attract tourists to bolster local business, and provide opportunities to grow people and communities’ connections with places. (HM Treasury, 2021, p.12) Furthermore, the renewed focus on place, signalled also in the criteria of CRF allocation, was identified in the Levelling Up White Paper as a requirement for delivery by Arts Council England, who were compelled to increase the number of sites for targeted investment in their Priority Places scheme, from the fiftyfour identified by their Delivery Plan to 109 local authority areas, all outside of Greater London (ACE, 2022; DLUHC, 2022). While addressing longstanding issues of place inequality in arts investment in ‘left behind’ places, this was a clear example of centralised government intervention with ramifications for the sanctity of the arm’slength decisionmaking of Arts Council England. Implications and conclusion As outlined above, the unfolding timeline of the pandemic shows the unevenness and fragmentation of decisionmaking and policy interventions across the UK, at times rapid and timely but often frustratingly delayed. The waves and spikes of coronavirus cases driven by 45Cultural policy and the pandemic 45 new variants were interwoven with shifting public health restrictions and fiscal policies, in attempts to control the spread of the virus and mitigate its impacts on the nations’ economies. For creative workers, organisations and arts leaders this meant successive appraisal and reappraisal of business models, audience confidence, operational structures and value propositions, plus continuous lobbying and bidding for emergency funding. For policymakers this meant decisions on the borrowing and distribution of public spending, making calls on what levels of attrition were palatable among the hardesthit sectors and the forms of mitigation that would protect both publics and economic futures. It also repositioned the role of expertise and evidence, within a climate of suspicion of the former and cynicism about the latter, following the clamouring rise of ‘fake news’ and ‘culture wars’ in postEUreferendum UK. The policy responses that emerged over the course of the pandemic demonstrate different approaches and capabilities within statecraft at national, regional and local levels. They reveal dissonance between public health strategies, economic policy and the mitigation of the impact of these strategies on the arts and cultural sector. However, commonalities between the four nations’ responses can be characterised broadly within the following categories: • Unprecedented injections of funds to secure the survival of the sector through emergency and recovery funding primarily at the national level, but also locally. • Relaxed criteria for eligibility and use of funds, although with anomalies and controversy for freelancers and for prioritising places. • Policy interventions to support innovation and experimentation with new business models – e.g. hybrid delivery, commercialisation of streaming and other assets. • Ad hoc strategies repurposing arts and cultural activities and spaces to cater for new needs and values revealed by the pandemic – e.g. Cultural Care Kits, food banks and ‘Nightingale Courts’ in theatres. • Policies that continue to instrumentalise the value of culture and attach it to other policy objectives – e.g. levelling up, creative improvement districts, local high street recovery plans. There were variations however, which we argue reflect the distinct policy assemblages (Prince, 2010) which advocate and mediate specific rationales for decisionmaking, and which have direct and 46 Pandemic culture indirect consequences for cultural and creative industries. At different moments in the pandemic these rationales were drawn on and instantiated within policy guidance, such as the levelling up prospectus, and interacted with local recovery plans which highlighted the role of cultural and creative industries in attracting inward investment and agglomeration. The turmoil of the pandemic has also brought together, or perhaps more aptly collapsed the boundaries between, discrete rationales for cultural policymaking. For example, the aspirations of the devolved nations for UBI for artists prioritise particular rationales for policy interventions within creative and cultural industries that were embedded in their policy assemblages, even when frustrated by the centralised control from Westminster. Ultimately, COVID19 proved to be a device for revealing the divergence of cultural governance across the regions and nations of the United Kingdom, as well as the unequal capacity of different places to support strategies for recovery. Notes 1 The Barnett formula, named after Chief Secretary to the Treasury Joel Barnett, who introduced it in 1979, provides a mechanism for setting the budgets for public monies from Westminster to the devolved governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. 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Available from: http:// arts coun cilni.org/ fund ing/ fund ingforindi vidu als Audience Agency. 2021. Winter 2021. [Online]. [Accessed 27 January 2023]. Available from: www.theaud ienc eage ncy.org/ evide nce/ covid19cultu ralpartic ipat ionmoni tor/ rec entkeyinsig hts/ win ter2021 Bakare, L. 2020. Government scraps ballet dancer reskilling ad criticised as ‘crass’. The Guardian. 22 October. [no pagination]. Bectu. 2020. Unions, business groups and campaigners write to the Chancellor, urging him to fix the gaps in support. [Online]. [Accessed 27 January 2023]. Available from: https:// bectu.org.uk/ news/ uni onsbusin essgro upsandcamp aign erswritetothecha ncel lorurg inghimtofixthegapsinsupp ort Billington, M. 2020. Dear Oliver Dowden, have you even begun to grasp the scale of our arts crisis? The Guardian. 3 July. [no pagination]. Business Wales. 2020. Wales Cultural Recovery Fund FAQs. [Online]. [Accessed 27 January 2023]. Available from: https:// busine sswa les. gov.wales/ sites/ busin esswales/ files/ Wales%20C ultu ral%20R ecov ery% 20F und%20F AQs%20Engl ish.pdf 48 Pandemic culture Cabinet Office. 2020. Our plan to rebuild: the UK Government’s COVID19 recovery strategy. [Online]. London: Cabinet Office. [Accessed 27 January 2023]. Available from: www.gov.uk/ gov ernm ent/ publi cati ons/ ourplantorebu ildtheukgove rnme ntscovid19recov erystrat egy# fullpubl icat ionupd atehist ory Cheung, A. 2020. Barnett formula. [Online]. [Accessed 27 January 2023]. Available from: www.ins titu tefo rgov ernm ent.org.uk/ arti cle/ explai ner/ barn ettform ula Creative Scotland. 2020. Culture Organisations and Venues Recovery Fund launches. [Online]. [Accessed 27 January 2023]. Available from: www. creat ives cotl and.com/ whatwedo/ lat estnews/ arch ive/ 2020/ 09/ cult urerecov eryfundlaunc hes de Peuter, G., Oakley, K. and Trusolino, M. 2022. The pandemic politics of cultural work: collective responses to the COVID19 crisis. International Journal of Cultural Policy. https:// doi.org/ 10.1080/ 10286 632.2022. 2064 459 Department for Communities (DfC). 2020. Minister announces reopening of the Creative Support Fund, 23 July 2020. [Online]. [Accessed 10 January 2024]. Available from: www.communities-ni.gov.uk/news/ minister-announces-reopening-creative-support-fund Department for Communities (DfC). 2021a. Culture, Arts and Heritage Recovery Taskforce. [Online]. [Accessed 2 February 2023]. Available from: www.communities-ni.gov.uk/articles/ culture-arts-and-heritage-recovery-taskforce Department for Communities (DfC). 2021b. The art of recovery - survive: stabilise: strengthen. The report of the Culture, Arts and Heritage Recovery Taskforce. [Online]. London: The National Archives. [Accessed 27 January 2023]. Available from: www.communities-ni.gov.uk/ Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). 2020a. Culture Secretary announces Cultural Renewal Taskforce. [Press release]. [Online]. [Accessed 27 January 2023]. Available from: www.gov.uk/ government/news/culture-secretary-announces-cultural-renewal-taskforce Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). 2020b. Culture Recovery Fund. [Online]. London: The National Archives. [Accessed 27 January 2023]. Available from: www.gov.uk/government/ groups/culture-recovery-board Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). 2021a. Main estimate memorandum (2022 – 23). [Online]. London: The National Archives. [Accessed 27 January 2023]. Available from: https://committees. parliament.uk/publications/22317/documents/165015/default/ Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). 2021b. Events Research Programme: Phase 1 findings, policy paper. [Online]. London: The National Archives. [Accessed 27 January 2023]. Available from: www.gov.uk/government/ publications/events-research-programme-phase-i-findings/ events-research-programme-phase-i-findings 49Cultural policy and the pandemic 49 Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC). 2022. Levelling up the United Kingdom. [Online]. [Accessed 27 January 2023]. Available from: www.gov.uk/ gov ernm ent/ publi cati ons/ levell inguptheuni tedking dom Donnelly, S. and Komorowski, M. 2022. Road to recovery? Cultural Freelancers Wales Report. [Online]. [Accessed 27 January 2023]. Available from: https:// cfw.wales/ recov ery Doustaly, C. and Roy, V. 2022. A comparative analysis of the economic sustainability of cultural work in the UK since the COVID19 pandemic and examination of Universal Basic Income as a solution for cultural workers. Journal of Risk and Financial Management. 15(5), pp.1– 17. EKOS. 2020. Local government support to arts, culture and creative industries in Scotland. Final report to Creative Scotland. February 2020. Glasgow: EKOS Limited. ElisThomas, D. 2020. Written statement: creative industries. [Online]. [Accessed 27 January 2023]. Available from: https:// gov.wales/ writ tenstatem entcreat iveind ustr ies Equity. 2020. Take action, share your experience and urge the Chancellor to support the creative workforce. [Online]. [Accessed 27 January 2023]. Available from: www.faceb ook.com/ Equit yUK/ posts/ 101583 7745 4917 394/ Equity. 2021. DCMS summary of roadmap details for performing arts. [Online]. [Accessed 27 January 2023]. Available from: www.equ ity. org.uk/ news/ 2021/ febru ary/ dcmssumm aryofroad mapdeta ilsforper form ingarts/ Evans, R. 2020. Arts bailout: Oliver Dowden says £1.57bn of government support will start with ‘crown jewels’ such as Royal Albert Hall. iNews. [Online]. 6 July. [Accessed 27 January 2023]. Available from: https:// inews. co.uk/ news/ artsbail outoli verdow densays157bnofgov ernm entsupp ortwillstartwithcrownjew elslikeroyalalb erthall483 790 Executive Office of Northern Ireland. 2020. Executive tightens restrictions to curb Covid19. [Online]. [Accessed 8 August 2022]. Available from: www.exec utiv eoffi ceni.gov.uk/ news/ execut ivetight ensrestr icti onscurbcovid19 FactCheckNI. 2019. Do Northern Ireland arts need a 660per cent uplift in government funding? [Online]. [Accessed 10 October 2022]. Available from: https:// fact chec kni.org/ top ics/ econ omy/ donorth ernirel andartsneeda660upl iftingov ernm entfund ing/ Henley, D. 2020. Black Lives Matter. 5 June. Arts Council England blog. [Online]. [Accessed 27 January 2023]. Available from: www.arts coun cil. org.uk/ blog/ blacklivesmat ter Hill, L. 2020. ‘Trickledown funding for artists doesn’t work’, and Arts Council England knows it. [Online]. [Accessed 9 August 2022]. Available from: www.artsp rofe ssio nal.co.uk/ news/ tric kledownfund ingarti stsdoe sntworkandartscoun cilengl andknowsit/ HM Revenue & Customs. 2021. VAT: reduced rate for hospitality, holiday accommodation and attractions. [Online]. [Accessed 14 December 2022]. 50 Pandemic culture Available from: www.gov.uk/ guida nce/ vatredu cedrateforhosp ital ityholi dayaccomm odat ionandattr acti ons HM Treasury. 2021. Levelling Up Fund: prospectus. Published 3 March. [Online]. [Accessed 1 February 2023]. Available from: www.gov.uk/ gov ernm ent/ publi cati ons/ levell ingupfundpro spec tus Home Office. 2020a. Home Secretary announces new public health measures for all UK arrivals. [Online]. [Accessed 27 January 2023]. Available from: www.gov.uk/ gov ernm ent/ news/ homesecret aryannoun cesnewpub lichea lthmeasu resforallukarriv als Home Office. 2020b. Rule of six comes into effect to tackle coronavirus. [Online]. [Accessed 27 January 2023]. Available from: www.gov.uk/ gov ernm ent/ news/ ruleofsixcomesintoeff ecttotac klecoro navi rus Howe, S. 2020. Future Generations Commissioner calls for a basic income pilot for creatives. [Online]. [Accessed 30 August 2022]. Available from: www.future gene rati ons.wales/ new s/ fut uregene rati onscomm i ssio nercallsforauniver salbasicinc omepilotforcreati ves/ Hutton, G. 2020. Eat Out to Help Out Scheme (Briefing Paper Number CBP 8978). [Online]. London: House of Commons Library. [Accessed 10 January 2024]. Available from: https:// resear chbr iefi ngs.files.par liam ent. uk/ docume nts/ CBP8978/ CBP8978.pdf Institute for Government. 2020. Barnett formula. [Online]. [Accessed 9January 2024]. Available from: www.ins titu tefo rgov ernm ent.org.uk/ arti cle/ explai ner/ barn ettform ula. Jackson, A. and Devlin, G. 2005. Grants for the arts: evaluation of the first year, Research Report 40. London: Arts Council England. James, W. 2021. England’s ‘freedom day’ marred by soaring cases and isolation chaos. Reuters. [Online]. 19 July. [Accessed 9 August 2022]. Available from: www.reut ers.com/ world/ uk/ pmjohn sonple adscaut ionfree domdayarri vesengl and20210718/ Jones, S. 2019. The chance to dream: why fund individual artists? [Online]. [Accessed 27 January 2023]. Available from: https:// padwi ckjo nesa rts. co.uk/ thecha ncetodreamwhyfundind ivid ualarti sts Jones, S. 2022. Artists’ precarity is not just about pay. Arts Professional. [Online]. [Accessed 7 June 2022]. Available from: www.artsp rofe ssio nal. co.uk/ magaz ine/ arti cle/ arti stsprecar itynotjustaboutpay Journal of Music. 2021. Creative Practitioner Bursary Programme. [Online]. [Accessed 10 January 2024]. Available from: https:// jou rnal ofmu sic.com/ list ing/ 090321/ creat ivepract itio nerburs aryprogra mme Jowett, P. 2022. Low uptake of live events insurance scheme by festivals. Arts Professional. [Online]. 23 June. [Accessed 8 August 2022]. Available from: www.artsp rofe ssio nal.co.uk/ news/ lowupt akeliveeve ntsinsura ncesch emefestiv als Moore, P. 2022. How a placedbased employment programme is bringing creative workers back to Northern Ireland. [Online]. [Accessed 22 January 2023]. Available from: https:// pec.ac.uk/ blog/ howapla cedbasedemp loym entprogra mmeisbring ingcreat ivework ersbacktonorth ernirel and 51Cultural policy and the pandemic 51 Morris, S. 2021. Wales to require NHS Covid passes to attend nightclubs and events. The Guardian. [Online]. 17 September. [Accessed 23 January 2023]. Available from: www.theg uard ian.com/ uknews/ 2021/ sep/ 17/ walestorequ irenhscovidpas sestoatt endnig htcl ubsandeve nts Morris, S. 2022. Basic income pilot scheme for care leavers to be trialled in Wales. The Guardian. [Online]. 15 February. [Accessed 30 August 2022]. Available from: www.theg uard ian.com/ soci ety/ 2022/ feb/ 15/ basicinc omepilotsch emeforcareleav erstobetrial ledinwales National Audit Office (NAO). 2021. Investigation into the Culture Recovery Fund, Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport. London: National Audit Office. Parkinson, A., Turner, D., Gallagher, P., Usher, S., Grunhut, S. and Heath, O. 2022. Evaluation of the Wales Cultural Recovery Fund 2020– 2021 (GSR report number 44/ 2022). [Online]. Cardiff: Welsh Government. [Accessed 10 January 2024]. Available from: https:// gov.wales/ eva luat ionwalescultu ralrecov eryfund20202021 Powell, A. 2022. Coronavirus: getting people back into work (CPB 8965). [Online]. London: House of Commons Library. [Accessed 10 January 2024]. Available from: https:// com mons libr ary.par liam ent.uk/ resea rchbriefi ngs/ cbp8965/ Prime Minister’s Office. 2020. Prime Minister’s statement on coronavirus (COVID19): 16 March 2020. [Online]. [Accessed 27 January 2023]. Available from: www.gov.uk/ gov ernm ent/ speec hes/ pmstatem entoncoro navi rus16march2020 Prime Minister’s Office. 2021. Prime Minister sets out roadmap to cautiously ease lockdown restrictions. [Press release]. [Online]. 22 February. [Accessed 27 January 2023]. Available from: www.gov.uk/ gov ernm ent/ news/ primeminis tersetsoutroad maptocau tiou slyeaselockd ownrestr icti ons Prince, R. 2010. Policy transfer as policy assemblage: making policy for the creative industries in New Zealand. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space. 42(1), pp.169– 186. RSM UK Consulting LLP. 2022. Process evaluation of the Film and TV Production Restart Scheme. Final evaluation report. [Online]. [Accessed 27 January 2023]. Available from: https:// ass ets.pub lish ing. serv ice.gov.uk/ gov ernm ent/ uplo ads/ sys tem/ uplo ads/ atta chme nt_ d ata/ file/ 1051 224/ Film_ and_ TV _ Pro duct ion_ Rest art_ Sche me_ - _ Fi nal_ Repo rt_ 2 601.pdf Scottish Government. 2020. A culture strategy for Scotland. [Online]. [Accessed 27 January 2023]. Available from: www.gov.scot/ polic ies/ artscult ureherit age/ cult urestrat egyforscotl and/ Scottish Parliament. 2021. Scotland’s public finances in 2022– 23 and the impact of Covid19. [Online]. [Accessed 1 February 2023]. Available from: www.auditscotl and.gov.uk/ uplo ads/ docs/ um/ ags_ 210813 _ fpa c_ co nsul tati on_ r espo nse.pdf Scottish Tourism Emergency Response Group (STERG). 2021. COVID19 tourism recovery programme. [Online]. [Accessed 27 January 2023]. 58 Pandemic culture number of hours worked each week. Figure 2.4 shows the change in the number of hours worked by people in each of the creative occupational groups, comparing the second quarter of 2019 (April– June) with the second quarter of 2020 (April– June). This comparison is to make sure the differences observed are not just due to seasonal variations. This reveals a substantial increase in the number of people that reported working zero hours in the previous week. The data also show us that the reduction in hours did not fall evenly across the creative industries: those working in crafts, film, Figure 2.2 Overall size of the workforce in creative industries and occupations in all four quarters of 2020 Figure 2.3 Workers in music and performing arts, 2017– 2021 Figure 2.4 Distribution of hours worked, by occupational group 61What happened to the workers? 61 TV, video, radio and photography, music, performing and visual arts and design were the most severely affected. Moreover, July– September 2020 data indicates that while there was a slight reduction in the percentage of workers working zero hours in this latter part of the year, the average number of hours worked were still far below prelockdown levels. Thus, we can see that workers in the creative industries were hit particularly hard by the COVID19 pandemic and lockdown. Within this segment, industries and occupations such as music and performing arts suffered most, with a collapse in the number of hours worked and large numbers of job losses. What were the national and regional differences, and the differences between demographic groups? In this section, again based on analysis of the ONS Labour Force Survey for the first three quarters of 2020, we dive down below the headline figures to look at the impact on different places and different groups of workers within the creative economy. Firstly, we compare the nations and regions of the UK. We then focus on disabled people; those who are younger; and those who haven’t engaged in higher education. This analysis complements work that looked at the impact on other demographic groups, such as women of colour (TUC, 2021). The nations and regions of the UK In 2020 there were no clear differences in trends between the four nations. Notably, almost every nation showed some level of contraction in 2020 Q2 (April to June 2020) as lockdown hit (Figure 2.5), and then a small expansion as restrictions eased and the economy reopened in Q3 (July to September 2020). This suggests that the size of the creative labour force is responsive to the type and extent of lockdown conditions. The exception is Q2 in Scotland, although we should bear in mind that the sample size is much smaller than for England, and for the UK as a whole. Indeed, this is one area where we need much more detailed data to give a more comprehensive picture of the Figure 2.5 Size of the workforce in creative industries and occupations 2019– 2022, by nations 63What happened to the workers? 63 Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish creative economies. The ONS Labour Force Survey collects data on the entire UK economy, with creative industries and occupations representing a significant, but small, proportion of the economy as a whole. Within that, England is by far the largest single national economy. The data for the creative economies outside of England therefore have to be treated with more caution as a result of the smaller sample sizes. These smaller sample sizes mean that there is limited scope for further regional breakdowns within Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. However, we can offer a more detailed analysis of England. London and the South East dominate the geography of the creative industries in England. This holds true even if we account for these regions having larger populations. For most regions there is little evidence of large changes in numbers from the beginning of lockdown onwards. There is some evidence of a particular decline in the South East, although we should bear in mind that the uncertainty around this is large, again due to small sample sizes. Nevertheless, the nationlevel data does suggest that the creative workforce contracted and expanded in line with lockdown restrictions. In other sectors of the economy (Taylor and Florisson, 2020) it appeared that those in contractually insecure jobs, often with lower levels of education, and in lowerpaid jobs, were the most vulnerable to job loss during this period. The impact on different demographic groups Before the pandemic, a range of academic literature was concerned that there were clear inequalities in creative jobs based on people’s demographic characteristics (see Brook, O’Brien and Taylor, 2020 for a summary). The most recent analysis, published by the AHRC Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre (Carey, O’Brien and Gable, 2021a, 2021b), shows the longstanding underrepresentation of women, disabled people, those from workingclass backgrounds and people of colour in the creative sector. In terms of changes in the representation of women, disabled people and people of colour, it is too early to say if the pandemic has had any longterm consequences, although we know from TUC (2021) analysis that there has been an immediate, negative impact on employment figures. 64 Pandemic culture There is fairly strong evidence that the proportion of people without degrees working in creative occupations is declining. The pandemic saw a decline in the percentage of workers in creative occupations without degrees from 37 per cent in the year before lockdown to 34 per cent in the six months postlockdown, a difference which is statistically significant. For context, the percentage in the overall workforce without a degree is more than 60 per cent. Figure 2.6 uses the longitudinal version of the Labour Force Survey to examine whether people who left creative employment were disproportionately drawn from certain demographic groups.5 The graph illustrates that while there are some differences, the relatively small sample sizes in the Labour Force Survey for each subgroup means that in most cases we cannot be confident whether these observed changes are real or due to sampling variation. An important exception, and the one where we see the biggest difference, is among workers aged under twentyfive. More than a quarter (27 per cent) of creative workers under the age of twentyfive left the creative occupations after lockdown, compared with just 14 per cent of workers aged twentyfive and over.6 Before the pandemic it was also typical to see a higher turnover of workers aged under twentyfive in and out of the creative industries compared with workers of other ages. However, among undertwentyfives, the rate of leaving since lockdown (around 15 per cent) was higher than what would typically be expected. We can see the biggest differences in the number of hours worked. In all demographic groups the average number of hours worked decreased, and the percentage of people working no hours increased following the 2020 lockdown. However, there were also clear demographic differences in the magnitude of the changes. There was a greater increase in the proportion of people working zero hours for people under the age of twentyfive, and for people without a degree, as compared with those over the age of twentyfive, and with a degree, respectively. For those under the age of twentyfive, over 30 per cent of workers reported working zero hours. There are also higher proportions of women working zero hours, as well as disabled workers. Of course, many of these groups were already more likely to be working zero hours prelockdown. Figure 2.6 Percentage of workers leaving creative occupations per quarter since lockdown 66 Pandemic culture We also looked at changes in hours worked for workers in creative industries and found similar trends. In this case, we found a larger increase in the proportion of disabled workers working zero hours compared with nondisabled workers. These differences in changes in hours worked broadly reflect what we observed in the overall labour force. The exceptions are that undertwentyfives in creative occupations and disabled people in the creative industries do appear to have greater reductions in working hours than we see in the labour force as a whole. Although changes in formal or selfidentified employment were not large, changes in the numbers of people actually working substantial hours were. To some extent this might indicate that the government support schemes were effective, in that they retained workers within the creative sector. However, it does also suggest that certain demographic groups were more vulnerable to losing their jobs in the first months of the pandemic. It is easy to see how this could lead to even greater inequalities in the sector. Additionally, it seems clear that younger workers were particularly affected. This is of particular concern regarding future inequality in the cultural and creative sector, potentially heralding a missing generation of creative and cultural workers. The impact on freelancers Freelancers are especially important to the creative economy, as they represent a high proportion of the workforce compared to other parts of the economy. At the end of 2019, ONS data indicated that around 15 per cent of the workforce were selfemployed, but the equivalent figure was 30 per cent of all creative occupations and an astonishing 88 per cent of music, performing and visual arts occupations. Freelancers, as a subset of the selfemployed, are highly overrepresented in music, performing and visual arts (27 per cent of the workforce) as compared with creative occupations (9 per cent) and the workforce as a whole (3 per cent).7 In this section, we explore what the ONS data can tell us about the plight of freelancers. We also drill down to look at trends in three clusters of creative occupations: film, TV, radio and photography; publishing; and music, performing and visual arts. We find 67What happened to the workers? 67 that the number of freelancers working in creative jobs decreased significantly during 2020. Moreover, the hours worked by those freelancers who continued to work have also seen a severe decline. Different demographic groups have suffered unevenly, with younger workers and women suffering job losses and reduction of hours at greater rates than their older and male colleagues. As with creative occupations as a whole, freelancers in different occupations had different experiences of the impacts of the pandemic. For those in media occupations, the flow of job losses seems to have been stemmed with some evidence of recovery. For those in music, performing and visual arts, the crisis continued well into 2022. Freelancers in all creative occupations Figure 2.7 shows the number of freelancers working in creative occupations from the start of 2018 to the end of 2020. The grey sections surrounding the central black line in the visualisation shows the confidence intervals that are associated with sample sizes in the Labour Force Survey. We can see that at the end of 2020 the number of freelancers working in creative occupations was lower (around 156,000) than the beginning of 2018 (around 176,000). This suggests that the trend for growth in freelance employment, as part of a growing creative economy sector, stalled as a result of the pandemic. In particular, the number of freelancers in all creative occupations declined by around 38,000 from the start to the end of 2020. We see similar trends in the numbers of hours worked. By the middle of 2020 there was a steep rise in the numbers reporting working zero hours per week in their freelance creative occupation (and an associated decline of those reporting working over 32 hours). There was some evidence of recovery in the numbers reporting working over 32 hours a week by the end of 2020. The data from the ONS Labour Force Survey suggests that the crisis for freelancers hit different demographic groups in uneven ways. Age clearly mattered most, with the decline in numbers of freelance workers impacting less severely on the oldest, and perhaps most established, freelancers. Figure 2.8 summarises trends for different age groups, highlighting steep declines in numbers for 74 Pandemic culture in the cultural sector. The popularly called ‘furlough’ scheme was indeed vital to protect jobs in the cultural and creative industries.8 However, as we saw in the previous section, high numbers of freelancers were not protected. For this analysis we’ve used data from the Business Impact of COVID19 Survey (BICS), a data set that, in March 2021, was renamed the Business Insights and Conditions Survey. This survey collected data every two weeks, using an online questionnaire from a sample of just under 40,000 businesses. It began in April 2020, asking questions about a range of business issues, including finances, workforce and trading confidence.9 The ONS classifies this data set as ‘experimental’ and there are many reasons to be cautious about it. For example, it is voluntary, depending on the goodwill of businesses to complete the survey questions. It does, however, offer a unique insight into businesses’ experiences over the pandemic period. The ONS reports BICS findings by industrial sector. This was incredibly useful in getting a picture of the UK economy over the course of the pandemic. However, there have been limitations in terms of understanding the experience of cultural and creative industries. These limitations exist for three reasons. Firstly, cultural and creative businesses and organisations are included in two separate industrial sectors in the ONS reporting: information and communication; and arts, entertainment and recreation. This means that we don’t have a single indicator for the sector. Secondly, businesses and organisations that are not cultural and creative are also included in these two industrial sectors. An obvious example is that betting shops, golf courses and gyms are included in the ‘arts, entertainment and recreation’ category. Figure 2.11 shows the percentage of workers furloughed across all creative industries, and in the economy overall (in a thick grey line). They are placed together on the same chart for ease of comparison. Figure 2.12 presents charts for each individual creative industry, against a backdrop showing the level of lockdown restrictions, from highest to lowest. This allows us to show the levels of the furlough relative to the levels of Covidrelated restrictions. Three sectors – performing and visual arts, museums and galleries, and film and television – are immediately striking. They are at the top of Figure 2.12, reflecting the fact they had very high proportions Figure 2.11 Percentage of staff furloughed by creative sector Figure 2.12 Percentage of staff furloughed by creative sector and Covid restrictions 77What happened to the workers? 77 of furloughed staff (over 80 per cent in performing and visual arts and over 60 per cent in museums and galleries) at the beginning of the pandemic. This is a significantly higher proportion than the average across the rest of the economy, which was just over 20 per cent, despite including sectors such as hospitality, which we know were severely affected by pandemic measures. What is also noticeable about performing and visual arts and museums and galleries is their slow return to ‘normal’. In the last waves of the BICS, when furlough was coming to an end, we can see how the performing arts had almost 30 per cent and museums and galleries had over 10 per cent of the workforce on furlough, even as pandemic restrictions were eased and ended, whereas other sectors had only 2 per cent of the workforce furloughed. The impact of the pandemic on film and television and publishing was less dramatic than for the performing and visual arts and museums, although still on average higher than the rest of the economy, and there was a spike in furlough for film and television at the start of 2021. For publishing, as other analysis has indicated, companies did not see the same levels of impact as those industries that engage physical audiences or work on film and television sets. Upskilling and retraining in the workforce One way in which creative workers responded to the pandemic was to enhance their skill levels by developing their qualifications and education. During economic crises the demand for education increases (Barr and Turner, 2015). Workers spend their time strengthening their skills to get an advantage in their profession – upskilling – or, alternatively, investing in acquiring new skills that will allow them to change their occupation – reskilling. Creative workers have been upskilling, taking artsrelated education courses to bolster their skills ready for a return to work. We’re again using the ONS Labour Force Survey for this analysis. Figure 2.13 shows that in 2020, the proportion of workers enrolled on either fulltime or parttime education courses (excluding for leisure purposes) was higher than in recent years. 78 Pandemic culture Figure 2.13 Workers enrolled in education courses The increase in 2020 bucks a relatively steady negative trend in noncreative workers’ enrolment in education and is more marked for creative workers in ‘core’ creative occupations. We define ‘core’ creative occupations as: film, TV, video, radio and photography; museums, galleries and libraries; music, performing and visual arts; and publishing. It is important to note that this is still a small proportion of the total number of core creative workers. However, the uptick in the numbers suggests a clear response to the sector’s economic crisis. 79What happened to the workers? 79 Figure 2.14 Proportion of art education enrolments Choice of subject We turn now to look more closely at enrolment in artsrelated education, a category that includes various creative fields: fine arts, music and performing arts, audio, visual and media production, design, crafts and general art programmes. Figure 2.14 shows that the proportion of core creative workers enrolled in arts education in 2020 (out of the workers enrolled in any education) was similar to that of 2019, if not even slightly larger. The estimates demonstrate an increase of around 5 per cent in the enrolment in arts education among core creative workers. However, the sample size is small and we should again be cautious when drawing definitive conclusions. 80 Pandemic culture We also estimated the number of workers enrolled in artsrelated education. This is to verify that the observed increase in the fraction of workers enrolled in arts education is not simply a result of the shrinking of the cultural workforce due to job losses and workers leaving during the pandemic. Our estimates, illustrated in Figure 2.15, show that this is not the case. Even with the contraction of the workforce, the observed increase in arts education is also apparent in absolute enrolment numbers. In Figure 2.16, we zoom in on the four most popular study fields as they appear in the ONS coding. The bar graphs depict the distribution of studied subjects. We should keep in mind that the total number of workers enrolled in 2020 is higher than in the previous years, so small increases in proportion represent an even more pronounced increase in absolute numbers. Figure 2.15 Overall numbers of art education enrolments 81What happened to the workers? 81 We merge all the creative workers into one group in this graph since some of the categories contain a small number of respondents. We find no dramatic changes in the proportion of creative workers enrolled in different educational programmes. The most pronounced changes over the period are not among cultural workers enrolled in arts courses. Instead, since 2017, we can see increases in enrolments in social sciences programmes and decreases in enrolments in humanities programmes. This result indicates once again that creative workers were not turning in big numbers to other fields of study to train themselves in alternative occupations. Figure 2.16 Subject choices of all creative workers enrolled in education courses 82 Pandemic culture Postgraduate and specialist skills Creative workers tend to have higher levels of educational qualifications than the average worker and are more likely to attain postgraduate degrees (Oakley et al., 2017). Figure 2.17 shows the level Figure 2.17 Level of qualification being studied 83What happened to the workers? 83 of degree programmes that workers who study artrelated subjects are enrolled in. It suggests that the impact of the pandemic has been to motivate core creative workers to extend their artrelated education. Figure 2.17 shows that, consistently over time, the proportion of creative workers studying for artsrelated postgraduate degrees is about double that of other workers. In 2020, for the first time since 2015, the number of core creative workers studying for an artsrelated higher degree (66 per cent) surpassed that of undergraduate degrees (27 per cent). In October 2020 a government advert with a picture of a young ballet dancer and the headline ‘Fatima’s next job could be in cyber (she just doesn’t know it yet)’ went viral in the media, receiving a large amount of backlash. The ad was read by many as a recommendation from the government that artists change their profession, against a backdrop of concern over the future of the creative industries. The pandemic does seem to have pushed many creative workers to think about their professional future and enrol in educational programmes. However, it seems that the goal of the educational activity of those core creative workers most impacted by the pandemic was not reskilling for alternative professions but rather upskilling to reap the possible benefits of more education within creative occupations. The upskilling trends seen in 2020 continued at least to the first months of 2021. 2021: doing more with less By the end of 2021 many parts of the economy and society had fully reopened. However, our analysis of ONS data demonstrates that the performing arts workforce still had not fully recovered. As illustrated in Figure 2.18, in terms of the size of its workforce, even at the end of 2021 the performing arts were recovering much more slowly than other sectors of the creative industries, lagging behind publishing, the screen and media sector, museums, galleries and libraries. Although music and the performing and visual arts was the second largest of these sectors before the pandemic, we can see that it lost over 40,000 workers since its peak at the end of 2019. In terms of the total number of hours worked per week, it was also still behind prepandemic levels, showing a sharp decline in the final Figure 2.23 Number of workers in core creative occupations by age group 91What happened to the workers? 91 We find similar results in the case of ethnicity and education. It seems that the recent increase in the number of workers reflects existing patterns of inequality; employment growth is driven by white workers and by workers with higher education levels. We also find that most of the growth in the number of workers is attributed to selfemployed workers, who face more precarious working conditions compared to employed workers. The ability to participate in creative labour markets is being further concentrated in those groups who have the resources to withstand potential precarity. Overall, this analysis, and the most recent data, reinforces the narrative of the uneven nature of the pandemic’s longterm impact. Ultimately, 2020 compounded the already existing problems of Britain’s cultural labour market. These problems are true globally, as we see in the concluding chapter, as well as within the specific case we have analysed here. We can end this pessimistic review of the situation in the core cultural occupations on a positive note with one silver lining brought by the pandemic: we found that the number of disabled workers in the core creative occupations has grown in the aftermath of the pandemic, as shown in Figure 2.24. We believe that the expansion Figure 2.24 Number of disabled workers in the core creative occupations 92 Pandemic culture of opportunities for remote work, encouraged by the pandemic, has opened new and more accessible pathways for disabled people to participate in the cultural workforce. It is essential that these new opportunities, rather than the return to the unequal prepandemic normal, are central to both cultural policy and the cultural sector. Notes 1 This is approximately 260,000 people (95 per cent confidence interval – 210,000 to 310,000), which is (statistically) significantly higher than the estimated 170,000 (130,000 to 210,000) people who were newly working in creative occupations in Quarter 2, indicating that the total number of people working in creative occupations has declined. 2 Although these numbers come with some uncertainty, as our data come from a sample of the population, the confidence intervals on the graph do not overlap. This means that we can be confident that more people have left the creative industries than would normally be expected at this time of year. 3 Defined as people without a job who have been actively seeking work in the past four weeks and are available to start work in the next two weeks. 4 This number is only those who left the creative industries and not the net change in size of the workforce. 5 For the purpose of this chapter we have used fairly broad sociodemographic groupings: the numbers of cultural and creative workers in the survey as a whole are small, which makes it difficult to draw conclusions about the population. It is important to bear in mind that there is likely to be considerable diversity within our groupings, even if we are not able to explore this given the data that we have available. 6 We experimented with a variety of age groupings. However, we report differences between undertwentyfives compared with the rest of the population as this was where we saw the most substantial differences. 7 The Labour Force Survey captures a range of different forms of selfemployment. Respondents saying they are selfemployed can choose up to four options from the following to capture their selfemployment status: 1. Paid salary or wage by employment agency 2. Sole director of own ltd business 3. Running a business or prof practice 93What happened to the workers? 93 4. Partner in business or prof practice 5. Working for self 6. Sub contractor 7. Freelance work 8. None of the above. In our analysis we’re looking at people who have indicated they are7) freelance workers. Therefore, they are only a small subsample of the overall number of selfemployed workers. 8 The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme was designed to cover wage and associated employment costs where businesses were unable to operate as a result of public health measures. Employees were given temporary leave, or ‘furlough’, and businesses and organisations were able to claim grants from the government for the costs of continuing to employ them. 9 More information about the BICS is available at: www.ons.gov.uk/ surv eys/ infor mati onfo rbus ines ses/ busi ness surv eys/ businessimpac tofc oron avir usco vid1 9sur vey 10 However, we have to be cautious as this difference is not statistically significant. References Barr, A. and Turner, S. 2015. Out of work and into school: labor market policies and college enrollment during the Great Recession. Journal of Public Economics. 124(C), pp.63– 73. Brook, O., O’Brien, D. and Taylor, M. 2020. Culture is bad for you. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Carey, H., O’Brien, D. and Gable, O. 2021a. Social mobility in the creative economy: rebuilding and levelling up? [Online]. London: Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre. [Accessed 8 January 2024]. Available from: https:// pec.ac.uk/ resea rchrepo rts/ soc ialmobil ityinthecreat iveecon omyreb uild ingandlevell ingup Carey, H., O’Brien, D. and Gable, O. 2021b. Screened out: tackling class inequalities in the Screen Industries. [Online]. London: Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre. [Accessed 8 January 2024]. Available from: https:// pec.ac.uk/ resea rchrepo rts/ scree nedouttackl ingclassine qual ityintheuksscr eenind ustr ies Oakley, K., Laurison, D., O’Brien, D. and Friedman, S. 2017. Cultural capital: arts graduates, spatial inequality, and London’s impact on cultural labour markets. American Behavioral Scientist. 61(12), pp.1510– 1531. Skillset. 2010. Women in the creative media industries. [Online]. [Accessed 24 August 2022]. Available from: www.scree nski lls.com/ media/ 1507/ women_ in_ the_ creati ve_ m edia _ ind ustr ies_ repo rt_ - _ se pt_ 2 010.pdf 94 Pandemic culture Taylor, H. and Florisson, R. 2020. UK labour market sees record redundancies. [Online]. 15 December. Lancaster University. [Accessed 6 February 2023]. Available from: www.lancas ter.ac.uk/ workfou ndat ion/ ourwork/ insec urework/ uklab ourmar ketseesrec ordredun danc ies TUC. 2021. Jobs and recovery monitor. Issue #3: BME workers. [Online]. London: TUC. [Accessed 8 January 2024]. Available from: www.tuc.org. uk/ sites/ defa ult/ files/ 202101/ Recess ion%20rep ort%20- %20BME% 20work ers%20(1).pdf Introduction The COVID19 pandemic has disrupted cultural production and engagement in ways we do not yet fully understand. It manifested as an interlude, an acceleration and an inflection all at the same time. Little remained the same: some things reduced then returned, while others reduced for good; some things kept changing in the direction they were already heading, and some sped up; others changed in new ways that have persisted beyond the immediate crisis. This observation holds as much for audience trends and dynamics as it does for institutions and practitioners. It is difficult to divine whether we will witness a gradual return to old patterns of engagement or a radical switch, pushed to further extremes by the costofliving crisis. The prolific shift to digital distribution made a wealth of new arts content available to audiences stuck at home, but did it have the democratising, gamechanging effect on audiences that many thought they were witnessing? This chapter investigates how audiences and the wider UK population engaged with cultural content during the pandemic, in both live and digital spaces, and explores how their behaviours and attitudes are evolving as we emerge from the COVID19 crisis into the costofliving crisis. It presents, contextualises and discusses the findings of the Cultural Participation Monitor, a bespoke longitudinal tracking survey of the UK population that analysed changing digital engagement habits and attitudes towards reengagement. Led by The Audience Agency, the Cultural Participation Monitor 3 The same people seeing more: audiences’ engagement with culture during the COVID19 pandemic Oliver Mantell, Anne Torreggiani, Ben Walmsley, Jenny Kidd and Eva Nieto McAvoy 96 Pandemic culture has been asking a representative sample of the UK population across multiple waves about their cultural experiences and expectations before, during and beyond the pandemic. Our exploration of audiences’ digital behaviour change includes a deepdive analysis of social media by Jenny Kidd and Eva Nieto McAvoy at the moment the UK went into national lockdowns in March 2020. The chapter interrogates how society’s relationship to arts and culture may have shifted over this time of significant change and tells a story about the kinds of cultural content and interactions that people found valuable in a period of unprecedented uncertainty and anxiety. The chapter concludes by assessing the signs of longerterm trends in audience behaviour and engagement and by exploring the implications of these trends for artists, cultural organisations, funders and policymakers. Methodological reflections on our population survey To understand and analyse any possible relationship between digitisation and democratisation of cultural engagement and to move beyond a perspective mediated entirely by cultural practitioners and commentators, we felt that it was vital to engage directly with the general public. As new rules and regulations for social distancing came into law, there was an outbreak of audience surveying as organisations and umbrella bodies rushed to understand the potential impact of each new wave of restrictions. Many surveys were hastily concocted, posing narrow or parochial questions, oneoff and closeup exercises, based on dubious samples, sometimes intent on ‘proving’ what the sector thought it was witnessing. Others were wellcrafted and considered but inevitably biased towards committed cultural audiences. In this deluge of more or less reliable intelligence, it seemed important to develop a statistically significant, universal understanding of the impact of the pandemic on people’s cultural engagement across the UK’s four home nations. Our aim was to provide an ongoing, realtime barometer of the public’s response, fleeter of foot and more responsive to change than existing studies such as Taking Part, the national statistical survey on participation (DCMS, n.d.), but more independent and impartial than the sector’s urgent DIY research. 97The same people seeing more 97 Accordingly, we chose a populationwide survey. The survey was carried out online for practical reasons, despite some risks of sampling bias. We attempted to mitigate these by making it nationally representative by region, age, gender, ethnicity and Audience Spectrum, The Audience Agency’s tencategory segmentation model, often and accurately used to track significant differences across a spectrum of cultural attitudes and behaviours. Audience Spectrum enabled us to differentiate between privileged segments ‘highly engaged’ with culture of the formal, publicly funded variety, less frequent or mediumengaged groups, and those ‘less engaged’ with formal arts and cultural offers. The research design also reflected our interest in the widest range of cultural and creative activity across society rather than a limited range of institutional offerings. Our primary interest was in the scope and degree of change in cultural habits over both the short and long term. We could not assume that those regularly attending before COVID19 would do so after it – and understanding potential new audiences would be as important as understanding newly lapsed ones. Similarly, we were looking for shifts in ‘everyday creativity’ (see Wright, 2022), evolving interaction with digital cultural content and evidence of other cultural or creative pursuits not mediated by public institutions. We therefore included questions about how much spare time people had and what they did with it before and during the pandemic, and what they anticipated doing after it. These core questions were repeated across roughly quarterly waves for eighteen months and offered a sense of how public attitudes were changing. To these we added spotquestions to understand sudden changes – in policy, attitude, the news, etc. – as they emerged. Having this fresh information at our fingertips became increasingly valuable as the sector became more adept at adapting; and since the rate of change has scarcely slowed, we continued the Monitor beyond the period of the original research, into 2022– 2023. This unforeseen extension to the survey contributes something of a sequel to the original research story and facilitates a longerterm observation of audience trends. The evolution of cultural engagement through the pandemic In terms of a direct response to the impact of the pandemic on external activities, a clear picture emerged from the first wave of 98 Pandemic culture the Monitor in November 2020. Nine months into the crisis, with one lockdown behind us and another one on the cards, it was clear that just over a third of the population had no intention of going out to do cultural – or indeed any other kind of – activity. Another third were only likely to do so under strictly controlled conditions, while a final group – just under onethird – were keen to go back to doing inperson activities. Perhaps predictably, these divisions of opinion corresponded to age and lifestage, with older audiences significantly more cautious than younger ones, especially those with young families. We mapped a similar divide between rural and urban communities: our survey highlighted how people in large metropolitan centres – especially London – were far more gungho. Intriguingly, it seemed that the different COVID19 policies across the nations may also have driven public confidence and perceptions of risk, with the proportion of people willing to return in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland being far lower than in England throughout the pandemic and despite factoring for age and other demographic influences. Remarkably, however, the vast majority – over 95 per cent in repeated waves of the Monitor, including those keen to get back to normal attendance – continued to think that social distancing was important and to be respected. Very few people suggested that distancing measures spoiled their experience – at least not enough to put them off returning to cultural venues – and 90+ per cent of respondents repeatedly rated arts and cultural organisations as doing a good job with the measures they put in place. Of all the measures, those allowing flexibility, such as offering ticket refunds and the chance to move time slots, were the most highly rated. This reflected our finding that what people liked best about digital opportunities was their ‘alwayson’ quality – the chance to engage as and when people wanted and on their own terms. A side story about the appeal of more flexible, customerconsiderate ways of working emerged in our analysis. Contrary to popular belief, the COVID19 pandemic was not unremittingly devastating for the arts and cultural sector – at least from an audience and funding perspective. In fact, the population’s interest in and support for arts and culture seemed considerably consolidated by the pandemic, with 57 per cent of people reporting that it was important to their wellbeing, 63 per cent saying they were more willing to support public funding for 99The same people seeing more 99 cultural institutions and 56 per cent confirming that they were more likely to donate personally to organisations to help them operate with COVID19 restrictions in place. The plight of public organisations through the crisis clearly touched a nerve and we might speculate that the creative, social engagements that some organisations turned to with their communities, as highlighted in various chapters in this book, made a significant public and civicimpact. Meanwhile, as reported widely in the media, people got used to staying in, discovering the joys of hunkering down and getting creative or consuming lots of new cultural content – and sometimes both at once. However, it emerged that very few people actually took up new creative hobbies or developed a new digital cultural habit during the pandemic. Our research demonstrated that people who were already keen everyday creatives and/ or digital culture enthusiasts engaged more than ever before. This generally applied to more privileged, more artsengaged people who fell into the group with more time on their hands. However, these trends started to drop off relatively steeply after lockdown as a significant proportion of the population returned to the office (and the gym, commuting etc.). This suggests that removing physical barriers to engagement such as lack of time, lack of money and the need to travel is not in itself an effective way to open up cultural and creative opportunities to a more diverse audience base. This confirms existing research by Stevenson (2019), which identifies the presence of the ‘disinterested’ cultural participant but challenges the finding by Brook (2016a) that spatial equity can have a significant impact on cultural participation. The segmentation of audiences by levels of confidence – a third staying in, a third remaining cautious and a third getting out – was remarkably persistent throughout the pandemic and it was only by the very end of 2021 that we observed a small but significant shift. By November 2021, a residual 37 per cent were still staying in and, as of September 2022, 26 per cent of people said they still did not want to return. This highlights a significant lag between the actual level of risk and people’s perception of it, which is continuing to hamper ticket buying and thus to hinder the recovery of the cultural sector itself. The enthusiastic ‘keen to get out’ group, however, did indeed flock back to venues as they reopened, with many of them reporting higher levels of engagement than prepandemic. 106 Pandemic culture the profile of these enthusiasts is significantly younger, with much higher representation among people of colour than the audience for inperson arts and museums. As depicted in Figure 3.2, younger people were also far more likely to take part in participatory and immersive kinds of experiences. Although there has been a gradual tailoff in the amount of time younger audiences are now spending online, at the end of the lockdown significant numbers said they thought they would engage more with digital culture in future. By September 2022, a net 12 per cent of the whole sample said they would do more if more online culture were available and the percentage was far higher among underthirtyfives and people with families – for example, 22 per cent of the younger, educated Gen Figure 3.2 Digital cultural activities people engaged with in the last 12 months, by age group, November 2021 107The same people seeing more 107 Y/ Z segment ‘Experience Seekers’. 20 per cent of our participants said they would do more if they could find what they were interested in. Again, this figure was much higher for underthirtyfives and even higher for people with young families. One of the most important discoveries was that digital really did open up access for disabled audiences, many of whom had been campaigning for more equitable access to cultural content for some time. A significantly higher proportion of disabled people engaged online than they had in person. They engaged far more online than the nondisabled people: 74 per cent of disabled undertwentyfives, compared with 48 per cent of nondisabled undertwentyfives. This unprecedented access has increased their appetite for future activity, with 25 per cent of disabled twentyfives to sixtyfours versus 9 percent of nondisabled respondents strongly agreeing that they wanted more digital culture. Indeed 62 per cent of artsgoing disabled twentyfives to sixtyfours thought they were likely to replace most or some of their inperson engagement with digital in future. Combined with our findings about younger audiences, this reinforces the strategic need to develop more online cultural content for younger and disabled people and families to build future audiences. This enforced innovation in digital practice reached beyond the UK population participating in the Monitor. As showcased in Chapter 5, many organisations were delighted to find new niche audiences in farflung places across the globe, and they were often surprised to connect with them by increasing their social media and gonedigital events. Meanwhile, at the other end of the global– local scale, there were inspiring stories of communityembedded organisations who chose to focus on the hyperlocal and target those furthest from opportunity. Often out of concern for the vulnerable people they work with, practitioners were prompted to try new digital routes to engage with surprising consequences. These creative forays into online engagement demonstrated how for some it can be less intimidating to meet on Zoom than in a public space, that WhatsApp can be an inclusive conduit for a migrant community’s creativity, that digital archiving is a great way to start and connect a new community, and that museums make far more compelling school resources than most. There were many other stories of unexpected and transformative emergent practice, all of which demand further investigation. In short, we must conclude that, seen in a more nuanced way, there is a considerable and untapped market for digital content and 108 Pandemic culture digitally enabled experiences in a hybrid mix that is set to grow significantly in the future. While the pandemic may not have solved the digital business model conundrum, the sector was at least able to test demand and build a better understanding of what kinds of experiences work for whom. We saw how digital could enable more accessible, flexible visitor journeys, be a channel for dialogue and community building both locally and globally, draw large numbers, and cement and extend relationships. Although it did not diversify audiences on the macro level, it did attract more younger and disabled audiences and deepen engagement and loyalty among existing audiences. This supports existing research highlighting how digital platforms show more potential in enhancing engagement among existing audiences than in attracting new audiences (Walmsley, 2019). However, we should note that digital experimentation is still in its infancy in the arts and cultural sector and therefore warrants much more strategic investment, research and evaluation. Social media engagement As part of our audience research we conducted a systematic analysis of a sixweek snapshot of Twitter activity from 19 March to 5 May 2020, the early weeks of lockdown in the UK. The findings presented here are grounded in a mixedmethods analysis of 9,000 tweets shared across the hashtags #MuseumAtHome and #CultureInQuarantine.1 This approach enabled an assessment of social media interactions that extends far beyond the elementary metrics which cultural institutions typically report on, such as likes, comments and shares – the socalled ‘vanity metrics’ that, it is argued, often amount to little more than ‘success theatre and projection’ (Rogers, 2018, p.454). While we used these metrics as a starting point, our aim was to better understand the quality and depth of interactions on Twitter – rather than just their reach – through an analysis of themes, tone and values in the tweets.2 Most tweets were from accounts representing cultural institutions or those working in the creative/ cultural sectors. Members of the public accounted for only 7 per cent of the tweets in our sample, and only a minority of these (as far as we could tell) were new audiences. Tweets featuring video were more likely to register as high on traction, that is, in the top ten tweets for numbers of likes, retweets 109The same people seeing more 109 or quote tweets (thus most visible).3 This is perhaps unsurprising given the amount of video content we encounter now in social media environments, but it is really pronounced in our sample, echoing research reporting on cultural institutions’ successes in using video content to spark interaction (NajdaJanoszka and Sawczuk, 2021). The sample was international, but mostly representative of the English Twittersphere, and for tweets located in the UK, London and the Southeast were the most active regions. Some institutions, notably museums and galleries, proved more agile in pivoting to the social media environment during lockdown, quickly moving to produce new content and activities which privileged empathy and intimacy over traditional production values (see also Kidd, Nieto McAvoy and Ostrowska, 2021). A significant proportion of tweets from institutions tried to sparkand celebrate the value of curiosity by asking questions and encouraging people to explore and experiment digitally. Other types of cultural institutions (e.g. theatres, opera houses, etc.) were more likely to be conducting traditional promotional activities around events. Regardless, we found that most members of the public were positive about the offer on social media, mentioning pleasurable and enjoyable interactions with content or events. We found an overall increase in the number of tweets that tried to inspire interaction as compared to previous research (e.g. Kidd, 2011), either asking for engagement or issuing a call to action for people to respond to (in 26 per cent and 17 per cent of tweets, respectively). Strategies included asking people direct questions or inviting them to take part in quizzes or crowdsourcing projects. We also found examples of calls for users to be creative at home, either by providing links to downloadable activities or asking people to engage with everyday objects and to tweet or post the results back to institutions (for example, the Getty Museum Challenge). These examples point to the importance of ‘hybridity’ – that is, efforts to bridge the traditional physical– digital divide. As institutions closed their doors, we found a heightening of ongoing efforts to connect users with the materiality of cultural institutions in ways that go beyond mere representation (cf. Galani and Kidd 2020; Noehrer et al., 2021; Walmsley et al., 2022). Other examples of hybrid or blended approaches included work with online exhibitions, virtual and 3D guided tours, workshops and lessons for adults and children, and livestreaming of concerts, theatre 110 Pandemic culture and other performances. We also found ‘behindthescenes’ moments and snapshots of surrounding outdoor venues (like museums’ gardens) that attempted to connect audiences with (closed) cultural spaces as well as nature. Wellbeing and everyday creativity Shaped by its realworld contexts during this period, popular content connected powerfully, playfully and/ or emotionally with the themes of the pandemic. ‘Arts as a way of coping’ was present in 59 per cent of qualitatively coded tweets.4 This included tweets that were Covid inspired or related, as well as tweets which specifically referenced the arts in relation to wellbeing and care. Preempting the subsequent findings of the Monitor, many of those tweeting spoke about the potential of culture and the arts to make lockdowns and the related isolation they were experiencing more tolerable. Also of related interest was a grouping of tweets that referenced support, advocacy and funding for the arts in particular. Although not quite so prevalent, references to nature were also present, often cited in relation to art and wellbeing and linked to the value of reflection. A significant proportion of tweets championed the value of creativity and celebrated practical engagement with the arts. We found plenty of examples of institutions encouraging users to be inspired by objects in their collections to create artistic responses at home to share online. One of these initiatives was National Galleries of Scotland’s call for users to respond to a challenge and create #arttogether on 25 March 2020: It’s time to get creative and make some ART TOGETHER! [emoji smile] [emoji palette] Inspired by Paolozzi’s gigantic ‘Vulcan’, here’s your chance to make and share your own fantastic Vulcan sculptures using whatever you can find around the house. Here to inspire you is one we made earlier! #arttogether.5 Users responded well (twentyseven replies, eleven of which were creative contributions, some by children). This tweet offers a perfect example of the hybrid approach mentioned earlier. We also found a number of responses to the responses, demonstrating the value of playful interaction in the social media environment. 111The same people seeing more 111 Other values that were celebrated in the sample of tweets included social value (discussed below), playfulness (often demonstrated through the use of emoji and GIFs) and considered reflection (including nostalgia, admiration and resilience). We saw only very few tweets which debated or made the case for the arts’ economic value. Place and community Arts and culture were connected dynamically with place in our sample (mostly locally or regionally rather than nationally, especially through the use of hashtags). Tweets reaffirmed the heightened importance of community and local green spaces during the early weeks of lockdown. Perhaps unsurprisingly, museums and galleries were most likely to share information about collections, but they were also the most likely group to be sharing ‘behindthescenes’ insights. These attempts to open up institutions via behindthescenes snapshots proved popular in our sample, perhaps demonstrating a longing within audiences for the reassurance and familiarity the physical space and place of a museum building seems to suggest, to some people at least, even remotely. This is interesting, as it highlights the importance of place and locality in the sample and underscores active attempts by organisations grounded in communities to be visible, and to engage, collaborate and support. In this respect, we may have seen a more nuanced consideration of what specifically social media ‘community’ means for these organisations, an examination of which, according to Wong (2015), is long overdue. During this initial period of lockdown many tweets promoted and celebrated social values. Some promoted initiatives for local placebased communities, while others referred to wider civic and societal issues. Many sought to solicit a sense of belonging or togetherness among followers, offering comfort, enrichment and connection digitally while their doors were closed. There was a sense of benevolence from institutions sedimented into our sample, a wish to be publicspirited, helpful and ‘of’ the communities they represent. As such, tweets that might provoke or anger users were 112 Pandemic culture avoided. It has been noted elsewhere that the pandemic has seeded or nurtured civicmindedness within institutions – a ‘pivot to purpose’ (Walmsley et al., 2022) – and our analysis suggests that digital teams have played an important role within that endeavour (see also Kidd, Nieto McAvoy and Ostrowska, 2021). Changing ideas of the local Attitudes to local engagement reflect other trends. As well as respondents indicating that they expected to engage more locally after the pandemic than before it, they also indicated that they had become aware of more cultural things to do as well. This effect was most pronounced for younger, highly engaged groups in urban areas, highlighting that there is less likely to be ‘spill over’ from cities to surrounding areas. This trend is likely to intensify the existing geographical inequalities between areas. Working from home (WFH) is another trend already changing attendance habits and it looks set to have a lasting impact. We know from previous research, including Brook’s (2016b) analysis of Audience Finder data, that working people are most likely to attend either where they live or work. When these become the same place, there is likely to be a greater concentration of local audiences. Moreover, not only do many of those who have been working from home expect to continue to do so, they also prefer it (and hence are incentivised to maintain it where possible). In practice, as debates have continued about the future of home working, changes to office accommodation (with many organisations downsizing), working practices (familiarity with online working) and location (e.g. remote hiring) mean that many changes are already ‘baked in’. The Monitor showed us a strong correlation between those that anticipated WFH most or some of the time and high levels of cultural engagement. We can be sure, then, that this is likely to shift the profile of audiences significantly for some venues and organisations and could well have a positive impact for smaller organisations that are located further away from iconic citycentre buildings and shiny creative districts (Florida, 2002). This shift implies that cultural organisations should maintain a more local presence and reimagine and reengage their local audiences. 113The same people seeing more 113 Conclusions and implications The most significant finding from our investigations into audience behaviour and perceptions over the course of the COVID19 pandemic is that the removal of what have traditionally been perceived to be spatial and financial barriers to engagement failed to diversify who engages with publicly funded arts and culture in the UK. This confirms existing research into cultural engagement but challenges studies that advocate for more local arts venues as an audience development strategy. Our analysis of social media tells an important story about the kinds of content and interaction that users found valuable during this time of crisis. It therefore helps us to understand and articulate the value of cultural content on social networks more broadly as we emerge from the pandemic. It presents a rich and nuanced snapshot of social media activity and highlights emergent debates that demand further consideration in those contexts relating to hybridity, the value of user creativity and connection, digital inequalities and the limitations of traditional engagement metrics. Our analysis raises a number of questions as we consider implications for future digital engagement and for research in that field: How has the pandemic impacted institutional assessments of the value and importance of social media activity? How do those assessments inform digital strategy, resourcing and training within institutions, and across the sector? Can cultural institutions continue to centre placebased and community initiatives online, as well as work towards inclusion and social justice, in the midst of a postpandemic recovery that sees cultural infrastructure being squeezed? As social networks continue to evolve, and as their own priorities shift postpandemic, how will cultural institutions respond? Overall, our research demonstrates that the sector’s efforts to stand by their communities paid off. Support for the cultural sector and public understanding of its value have increased significantly since 2019. Perhaps it took the pandemic to show many of us how important culture and creativity really is, especially when enjoyed in the company of others. In many senses, then, the case for culture has never been stronger. This makes the plight of organisations caught between the aftereffects of the COVID19 tsunami and the current storm of the costofliving crisis seem particularly unjust. It 114 Pandemic culture is probably still too soon to call what the lasting changes on audience and engagement trends are likely to be, especially given the new volatility generated by the costofliving crisis. As we conclude our analysis, there are four clear issues emerging from our research that we ignore at our own peril. The first is that the widening gap between the nation’s haves and havenots is particularly problematic in the context of cultural engagement: the Monitor shines a spotlight on the structural inequalities that continue to determine who does and who doesn’t engage with publicly funded arts and culture in the UK. Despite the sector’s growing confidence and skills in building meaningful relationships with people traditionally less engaged with formal arts and culture, the setbacks wrought by the pandemic and now the costofliving crisis are severe. We know that in times of crises like these, people need both bread and circuses and yet many organisations are illequipped to provide accessible and attractive cultural content, creaking as they are under the pressure to maintain their social commitment while increasing revenue. This reality appears particularly challenging in the face of the second trend: the general changes in habit which are likely to diminish the core audiences the sector has relied on for far too long. We have seen a measurable change among less committed, less confident audiences, which will only be consolidated by the costofliving crisis. The Monitor shows us that a significant group – largely older, away from the big cities – were already predicting they would be engaging less in person in future. This trend has been masked in some places by large numbers of younger people doing more in a postCovid rush, but the costofliving crisis is disrupting this shift: the autumn 2022 wave of the Monitor showed that the large majority of the population (particularly younger people and those with young families) think they will be spending less on culture as a result. This is especially worrying given that these groups were emerging from the pandemic as segments with the highest potential to engage with culture, as revealed in our earlier analysis. Ultimately, the pandemic has helped to put a spotlight on the generation gap and the critical importance of not assuming that each generation wants the same thing. Futurethinking organisations will need to pay close attention and apply their ingenuity to address 115The same people seeing more 115 the increasingly divergent habits and preferences of the next generations of audiences. In this environment, it is also essential that organisations are mindful of the third issue: the changing dynamics in how we relate to the places where we live and work. The Monitor gave us many clues that this change is on the cards, although it may be subtle, long term and hard to perceive. Again, futureproofing will require organisations to become fully enmeshed in the DNA of their place, to be vital partners in cultural coproduction and engagement, and places of community, joy, solace and sanctuary. The fourth major trend – the shift towards public expectations of highquality digital and hybrid content and experiences – is arguably the most critical. Poised, as many predict we are, on the brink of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the technically enabled ‘imagination age’ (Moin, 2022) seems to be the factor we can least afford to ignore. Frustratingly, then, while many organisations learned from and gained new confidence from their pandemic digital experiments, many have ‘snapped back’ to business as usual: some because they framed their digital offers as a temporary way of getting through the crisis rather than as a way of anticipating seismic change; others because, despite a sense they were on to something good, they lack capacity to keep pushing forward on all fronts. Our research clearly signals that change, showing us that early adopters at the front of the curve are highly responsive to emerging digital offers; that digital can provide new solutions to old problems; that the next generation want not just digital content but digitally transformed cultural experiences that are immersive and participatory; that we can and must offer the smarter, more flexible, more personalised visitor journeys that automation, AI and immersive and responsive technologies can enable. It is hard to see how this potential can be properly met by organisations who still struggle for survival and lack the deep pockets required to convert their pandemic learning, let alone accelerate the rate of experimentation or collaborate with others, to seriously scale the sector’s reimagination. There is an obvious role and responsibility for cultural funders and policymakers here, and elsewhere we have set out our recommendations for these key stakeholders (see Culture Commons and Centre for Cultural Value, 2022). In summary, the cultural sector urgently needs targeted support to capitalise on the 122 Pandemic culture by precarity and exacerbated by the inequitable ways in which theatre’s workforce is structured and remunerated (Comunian and England, 2020; DCMS, 2020). It has since been claimed that ‘no other industry outsources its creative leadership or its innovation to such a degree’ (Freelancers Make Theatre Work, 2021, p.8). When the pandemic hit, the twin central pillars of the UK Government’s pandemic policy response – lockdown and then the implementation of the Job Retention Scheme – created an inequitable situation for those across the performing arts who were selfemployed, and for the many portfolio workers or those employed on casual or zerohours contracts (DCMS, 2020). In many buildingbased organisations, those in the latter group included staff employed in important components of mixed business models, such as hospitality or retail. Our interviews documented how, while many leaders sympathised with their freelance and temporary workers, most moved instinctively into ‘survival mode’ and turned their focus inwards: as one director told us bluntly, ‘[freelancers] can’t have the same expectation of continuing employment with an organisation as a permanent staff member’. Similarly, while casual staff may have initially been supported in some organisations, this eventually proved unsustainable, with most quietly ‘falling off the books’ as venue closures extended into 2021, thereby often leaving the remaining workforce even less diverse than it had been before the pandemic. Other research suggests that many freelance theatre workers responded with typical resilience, developing innovative practice, skilling themselves up or moving sideways into digital work, starting courses of further education, and seeking or expanding previously held portfolio roles outside theatre (Maples et al., 2022; Shaughnessy et al., 2022). However, despite the introduction of the Coronavirus SelfEmployed Income Support Scheme (SEISS) in March 2020, the complex nature of employment in the sector meant that a significant number of freelance theatre workers still fell through the gaps, leaving them unable to claim support and seeking alternative work or turning to Universal Credit (Maples et al., 2022). Anxiety and frustration were expressed on social media and elsewhere at the inequalities implicit within policy responses, with the experience of freelancers and smaller organisations often pitched against that of bricksandmortar organisations and what Culture 123Pandemic drama 123 Secretary Oliver Dowden MP had damagingly termed the nation’s institutional ‘crown jewels’ when introducing the sector’s £1.57bn rescue package in July 2020. Our interviews also pointed out a difference in experience between those working in the subsidised and those in the commercial sectors. Indeed, one director of a large commercial theatre told us that it felt the national narrative was consistently driven by the subsidised sector. A lack of understanding of the respective positions and circumstances occupied by those working within different parts of theatre’s ecosystem was highlighted regularly by interviewees. Harnessing such concerns, the Freelancers Make Theatre Work movement was formed to provide a collective voice for freelancers, campaigning to industry and government and demanding a seat at the table in discussions about support, recovery and reset. Faced by the real hardship being experienced by many individuals, we did hear stories of larger organisations proactively working across their theatre ecologies to support smaller companies and freelance artists both financially and in terms of professional support – for example, to apply for alternative sources of funding. Various organisationbacked initiatives with similar aims also sprang up. For example, in May 2020, 150 performance companies and venues signed an open letter addressed to freelance workers, followed by a pledge to sponsor an individual member in working as part of a Freelance Taskforce intended to strengthen the voice of the freelance community (Fuel Theatre, 2020) in all key conversations. Organisations often noted their involvement in collegiate initiatives such as Greater Manchester’s Artist Hub (see Chapter 9). Many also expressed a personal sense of responsibility and reported engaging in pro bono as well as funded mentoring, advice and development support for freelance colleagues during the crisis. Overall, our research identified a sharp rise in collegiality across the cultural sector and this was certainly true in the theatre sector where existing networks strengthened almost overnight and new networks quickly emerged to offer moral and operational support. Theatre workers were keen to share their stories and help each other and perceived networks as ‘silently looking out for each other’. One interviewee described the tangible impact of these networks as profound: ‘It did feel like those networks did have some actual influence …the amount of pressure that was put on the government 124 Pandemic culture from the whole theatre sector …I genuinely don’t think that money would have been anywhere near what it was if the sector wasn’t … collectively lobbying the government.’ However, for many theatre freelancers, time and labour already sunk into development of future work (generally unpaid) meant that many were already significantly out of pocket when the pandemic struck. While some commitments for cancelled work were honoured immediately following the initial lockdown, this was not uniformly the case, with distressing results. One creative producer, for example, voiced frustration and anger at a major buildingbased organisation that, she said, had simply backed out of a project that had been four years in the planning: ‘The two lead artists said to me they felt disposed of.’ Any new work on offer necessarily leant towards learning and participation or digital programming. So, for those already well networked or with these indemand skill sets, the pandemic generally bit less hard. Indeed, some theatres found themselves directly employing more freelancers than previously: delivering learning and participation work online took greater resource than its inperson equivalent and they reported an increase in collaboration with local authorities and statutory support and third sector organisations, providing targeted support for groups such as economically disadvantaged children, young people and families. As the crisis extended, some freelancers felt that ‘transparency and communication’ from organisations finally reached a level that many had been demanding for years. However, opportunities handed out to freelancers still sometimes felt, as one venue’s senior leader termed it, more like ‘crumbs’ from the table; others argued that, as usual, cultural recovery funding simply failed to ‘trickle down’ from larger to grassroots organisations or to individuals in the way that some had clearly anticipated. Experiences of employed and furloughed staff For those who remained employed, the stresses were different, although many also found themselves reflecting on the fragility of the industry, its unsatisfactory career structure and the inflexibility of its normal working conditions. Additionally, interviewees pointed to disparities between the experiences of those furloughed 125Pandemic drama 125 and those who remained working. Those working often found themselves illequipped and in unfamiliar territory; they were required to take on multiple and different roles, to use different skills and to bear heavier workloads: ‘All the usual structures and boundaries and parameters that we usually adhere to went out the window and we all had to get stuck in’, one senior manager told us. As a venue director confided: ‘[M] y role … doesn’t resemble any job description I have ever seen … it’s all about interpreting and enacting government guidance.’ Some staff, in particular members of facilities and technical teams, were furloughed well into 2021. Furlough was capped for most, affecting those on higher salaries. While many organisations made efforts to include furloughed colleagues in regular communications, there was widespread understanding that many may have felt frustrated and isolated. However, there was also some resentment among those who remained working. This was part fuelled by the knowledge that furloughed colleagues were not exposed to the same pressures and had perhaps even picked up additional work in other sectors while some of those remaining working had taken pay cuts to keep their organisations afloat. Those with existing skills at the intersection between live and digital or with assets ready to be made into digital native performance were well placed to benefit. In contrast, interviewees expressed particular concern around prospects for independent technical, facilities or backstage specialists, many of whom could be offered no possibility of work for extended periods. A hint at the difficulties that might accompany a full reopening came when several commercial production companies were part of Operation Sleeping Beauty, an illfated (most closed before opening night) attempt to rehearse and stage panto in 2020, supported by the government and underwritten by the National Lottery. A director involved in one of these productions that we interviewed struggled to bring back technical and frontofhouse teams since many had found alternative work. Those who remained employed often found themselves questioning their career choice, as did freelancers and those who were furloughed and could not find rewarding work in other more agile sectors. As one freelancer mused: ‘Why am I working in theatre? It doesn’t offer any security …pay rises in theatre just don’t exist. 126 Pandemic culture TheEquity rate goes up so, so slowly …. It’s a mad industry to work in anyway, and then to have something happen like this…’ Throughout 2020 and 2021, feelings of exhaustion, dislocation and anxiety about what might happen as a consequence of failure were common for those who continued working. Interviewees with caring responsibilities described ‘flexible’ hours extending into late nights and early mornings while working from home: ‘I think it’s important to acknowledge that the personal really does impact on the professional at the moment’, one manager told us. Interviewees frequently expressed a sense of duty and generosity towards colleagues and their local and wider communities: ‘It’s been relentless. I think everyone has found that. … And the energy of constantly reimagining and feeling like you want to do so much more is really hard in itself.’ Such feelings perhaps reflected Alacovska’s (2020) argument that cultural work should be viewed ‘as a labour of compassion as opposed to a labour of passion’ (p.728); and compassionate and emotional labour takes a heavy toll: there were reports of increased sickness rates and new or exacerbated mental health conditions, with some organisations seeing high levels of uptake in their creaking wellbeing and counselling services (when they were fortunate enough to have these). Others talked of training employees in ‘mental health first aid’. Each new lockdown created fresh scars, as hopes for returns to normality were raised and then dashed. Everyone felt most keenly the absence of the thrill of live theatre and the physical presence of audiences and of colleagues. With ghost lights flickering in many empty theatres, it was hard to keep delivering work that, for many, smacked of compromise. Case study: Theatre Absolute ‘To be honest, we have not stopped working’, Theatre Absolute cofounder and director Julia Negus nevertheless confessed in January 2021. Embedded in its local community, Theatre Absolute opened a small shopfront theatre space in central Coventry in 2009 as a shortterm project; the company never anticipated that it might still be there thirteen years later. Project funded, with a small core team supported by a network of associates, the theatre creates 127Pandemic drama 127 crossdisciplinary performance, offering audiences and performers opportunities to explore radical or disruptive narratives. In March 2020, just three days before the opening night of a longplanned project, the first lockdown forced the shopfront theatre space to close. The resulting loss was creatively and emotionally challenging for everyone, and while backing from funders Esmée Fairbairn was never in danger, significant income from the bar and hires was lost, ticketholders had to be contacted and reimbursed, and the two leaders were very conscious that staff, freelance artists, all those involved in future planned commissions, and the theatre’s audiences might all need support. The organisation adapted immediately: ‘We’re storytellers at the end of the day, so we created a raft of work both so that we could keep commissioning freelancers …but also be with our communities.’ Importantly though, alongside multiple funding applications, the core team took time out to nurture their own artistic practice and reflect strategically, working with a consultant on the company’s mission, vision and values. A series of online workshops for Coventrybased writers culminated in a series of microcommissions and an online sharing event. Emergency Response Funding from Arts Council England meant that they could also offer mentoring and a onetoone online script dramaturg service: ‘We could have run that four times over!’ Mindful of the strong correlation between everyday creativity and emotional wellbeing (Wright, 2022), Theatre Absolute also made and posted out 300 Writing Boxes filled with stimuli and prompts to support creativity at home. Across multiple lockdowns, the shopfront space remained an asset, despite being closed to the public. Its large streetfacing windows formed a changing exhibition space, engaging passersby with film, photography, poetry and textiles. Local artists were offered short solo residencies along with a small bursary – no strings attached – allowing them to make work or just to be in the space. The company had never viewed its work within and with its local communities and the shopfront space as separate because the space wouldn’t exist without those who make and come in to see its work; its creation was ‘a deliberate act of civic theatre’. The pandemic saw Theatre Absolute renegotiate its relationships with its audiences while developing a heightened sensitivity towards inclusion and the barriers to it. The company felt that some relationships deepened 128 Pandemic culture through the use of digital technology: ‘There are lots of people who won’t engage in the physical space, for lots of reasons.’ As part of plans for the regeneration of Coventry city centre, the building in which the shopfront theatre is sited is scheduled for demolition in 2023 and the theatre will close. It is clear though that the pandemic will be writ large in the company’s future plans because of its role in highlighting the inaccessibility and lack of inclusivity affecting many cultural spaces and places. At the time of writing, these plans included short residencies in community and public spaces around Coventry alongside digital and online delivery. The company is also determined to make work that can form an exemplar for care and compassion, for themselves as theatre producers, for those with whom they work and for those living their lives around them. Organisations: mission, vision and citizenship As the effects of lockdown prompted many organisations to focus more regionally, local cultural ecologies consolidated and this led to new collaborations on funding bids and pioneering community projects. In the very early days of the pandemic, there were instances of fractiousness as the stress of unpicking artistic contracts and coproduction deals began to take its toll. There was inevitably some ‘unpleasant financial wrangling’ with collaborators, which damaged some existing business relationships in the short term. As noted above, relationships with freelancers were sensitive and in some cases not helped by certain unions who, wittingly or not, quickly sowed seeds of division. Emergency relief income (Economic Resilience Fund1 and Culture Recovery Fund) saved many theatres and producing companies from bankruptcy, but some smaller organisations found the application process ‘insanely complex’ and felt that it wasn’t designed for them. As the lockdowns eased, organisations started to reassess their financialpositions and get on with the business of programming and reprogramming, with some interviewees admitting to making safer choices. Many organisations used the break in producing and presenting work to focus on schools and/ or community engagement: ‘We’ve really leant into our L&P [learning and participation] work. It was always 129Pandemic drama 129 a really vital part of our creative programme, but at the moment it is our creative programme.’ Policymakers initially responded slowly, with some demonstrating limited understanding of the complex logistics, operations and infrastructure of the sector. This resulted in a set of poorly researched COVID19 restrictions, all of which presented a raft of new challenges for live theatre. Not least of these were the 1– 2m social distancing measures which essentially made live performance financially untenable. These presented a particular challenge for commercial venues, which were not eligible for relief funding. The government’s tiered approach to Covid restrictions played out differently across the country; theatres in some regions (including London) could open for most of autumn/ winter 2020 and much of 2021, whereas others (especially in northwest England) remained closed for months on end. Some theatres struggled to deploy box office, frontofhouse and hospitality staff as even many of those who had been furloughed had either found other (often betterpaid) jobs and/ or enrolled in higher education courses to skill up. This recruitment crisis endured into 2023. Confirming our findings from the Cultural Participation Monitor (see Chapter 3), existing audiences proved slow to return to live events. Many theatres felt as though they were almost developing audiences from scratch: one director commented ‘I think we have to think about our theatres as if, it’s almost as if we are opening them for the first time. It’s not a kind of everybody’s ready to come back through the doors, it’s like going into a place of low engagement and deciding you’re going to build a theatre and opening campaign.’ As another interviewee put it: ‘turning up and just expecting people to come to the theatre is oldfashioned now’. Although we know that audiences didn’t broaden or diversify on a macro level, many theatre companies did see new audiences emerge to them, as existing cultural audiences became increasingly omnivorous and hungry for cultural content and engagement. Moving towards full reopening in 2021, therefore, many organisations also took time to review how they were engaging with their publics. The results included plans to ditch printed brochures, initiatives to deepen relationships with existing patrons and strategies to reexamine ticket pricing models that might encourage new or cautiously returning audiences. 130 Pandemic culture Case study: The National Theatre As elsewhere, shutting down was a traumatic experience for the National Theatre (NT). This was the first time in its then fortyfouryear history that the NT had closed its building and its shutdown was not just unprecedented; it was also unplanned and occurred in a vacuum of public information. As one interviewee put it, ‘there was skeletal information and a heightened sense of fear …. The HR team were out of their depth. We all made mistakes and communicated badly.’ The stress was ‘phenomenal’ – decisions had to be made within hours, including closing the theatre and sending staff, actors and audiences home before that evening’s performance. Staff had to track down 150 colleagues working across the large site and communicate complex information rapidly and sensitively. Staff and audiences had fundamentally different levels of understanding about the pandemic at the time and there were vulnerable people to consider among both groups. The pandemic brought immediate change and speeded up planned strategic developments. Before COVID19, NT was reliant on 85 per cent capacity to balance its finances and it quickly had to reconsider this unsustainable income model. In the words of one director, ‘The P&L [profit and loss financial statement] was not robust: we were reliant on a bit of luck and a prevailing wind.’ As another director confided: ‘It dismantled the business … it’s been about survival, not strategy and it’s knocked any sense of certainty out of the business.’ The immediate financial impact was ‘grim beyond belief’ and the organisation only survived thanks to its £15m reserves, emergency government funding and a loan of £20m. In this sense it was a victim of its own success and had to radically rethink its business model alongside its concept of its own resilience. NT realised how key its strong national networks were; this meant they could quickly be harnessed and mobilised to address the immediate challenges and collectively lobby for support. On the positive side, the pandemic forced a wider range of staff to engage with the business model, encouraging greater understanding of the need to manage budgets very tightly and take ‘a more businesslike approach to cost management’. It also encouraged a more entrepreneurial use of the venue’s spaces, with the Lyttleton being temporarily transformed into a lucrative film studio, producing 131Pandemic drama 131 inhouse content for global film media networks. The organisation responded much more rapidly and radically than it ever would have in normal times, where pressures on box office income historically delimited opportunities for business model development. Innovation notably included the launch of National Theatre at Home, representing a shift not only in the business model but in the ethos of the entire organisation to embrace domestic engagement with theatre. Over 10,000 people subscribed to the streaming platform in the course of several weeks, forcing the theatre to redesign its intellectual property policies, its evaluation metrics and analytics and its entire audience engagement model. The organisation quickly came under pressure to support its significant number of freelance staff and accessed its Benevolent Fund to support freelancers who were at risk of losing their homes. As one senior manager pointed out, the pandemic immediately ‘shone a light on who has career security’. The discrepancies between different cohorts of staff – those who were furloughed versus those who weren’t; those who were made redundant versus those who kept their jobs; employed versus freelance – inevitably created tensions and feelings of guilt: ‘It feels like an incredibly bruised organisation: there’s a sense of survivor’s guilt.’ This sense of injury was confirmed by another interviewee who confided: ‘Wounds have been left; people feel like they have been through a traumatic time and we’re trying to heal the wounds as quickly as possible.’ The ‘survivors’ were soon pivoting to home working and working harder than ever, covering for vanished colleagues and cancelling annual leave. Redundancies were significant and took an artistic as well as psychological and operational toll: 25 per cent of permanent roles had to go to achieve cost savings of 30 per cent, culminating in an overall loss of 50 per cent of staff who were on the payroll in February 2020; the diversity of staff decreased from 19 per cent to 15 per cent against a target of 30 per cent; and a whole generation of stagecraft was lost almost overnight, compromising skills and institutional memory. Exhaustion soon set in, but this was tempered by a shared sense of a more nimble organisation facing unique opportunities: ‘I’ve achieved things that it would have taken me years to achieve … and it forced us to rethink inclusion.’ Former Executive Director Lisa Burger summed up the strategic challenges as follows: ‘We’ll 234 Pandemic culture even as business models and conventional principles of cultural strategy collapsed. The qualitative methodology for ecosystem case study provided access to the narratives and perceptions of our interviewees, presenting insight into the relational forms of cultural governance in the cityregion and realtime reflections on the changes to local strategic objectives as these went ‘out the window’ at the start of the pandemic, leading to an unprecedented period of improvisatory decisionmaking and policy innovation in the region. Our study is therefore both informed and bounded by the perspectives of our interviewees as research partners and, as such, reflects institutionally informed conceptions of place, context, and the purpose Figure 9.2 Workforce size, Greater Manchester (industries) Source: ONS, Labour Force Survey 235Epistemic governance and partnerships in place 235 and impacts of policy. This has two main consequences for this research. Firstly, we rely on policymakers and cultural partners to act as interlocutors for the broader impacts of policy innovation for audiences, communities and other local stakeholders. Secondly, the lens introduced in this study is biased by a political infrastructure that has, historically, privileged Manchester city centre. Though we spoke to policymakers and cultural partners in each of the region’s ten districts, the discussion presented here should be seen as an overview of policy development in the region that would benefit from further placefocused research at a local authority level. ‘Everything was on an upward trend’: culture before the pandemic GM has a history of collaborative working across its towns, cities and districts, which paved the way to cityregional devolution. The strength of the relationships within this ‘red wall stronghold’ of mainly leftwingled local governments working to create the first combined authority in England has raised the cityregion’s profile and identity, and has benefitted the strategic negotiation of capital investment related to the Northern Powerhouse, an initiative aimed to rebalance geographic inequalities in productivity and support economic development across the north of England (Gilmore and Bulaitis, 2023). This initiative, choreographed by the former Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne and combined with a longstanding advocacy for culture and creative industries, provided visibility for the cityregion within Westminster which resulted in £78m of central government investment in The Factory, a new home for Manchester International Festival (MIF), among other component parts of the 2014 devolution deal (Jenkins, 2015). Manchester itself is an expert in boosterism, with a reputation for strong leadership, placebased working and advocacy at a cityregion level (Localis, 2009). City leaders were familiar with the politics and discourse of creative industries and creative clusters, and the technocracy of their extrinsic powers, having come top of Richard Florida’s Creative Class Boho Index exercise in 2003, which ranked UK cities by their propensity to host the ‘creative class’ (Carter, 2003). The city claims a global track record as a 236 Pandemic culture cultural capital, particularly in football and music, and has a strong presence of creative industries clusters, concentrated in the city centre and areas of its neighbour city Salford (Siepel et al., 2021; Tether, 2022), including MediaCityUK, the home of BBC North and ITV Granada. The presence of clusters and ‘microclusters’ of creative businesses has long been a lever for targeted investment to underpin strategic development, most recently in a pilot Local Industrial Strategy (BEIS/ HCLG, 2019). However, this approach exacerbated longstanding concerns around the uneven distribution of cultural investment and opportunity across the cityregion, raising questions for district authorities about the value of their investment into the combined authority’s cultural budget. As a representative for Bury observed: ‘In GM, the local politicians feel that the outlying boroughs are basically housing estates for Manchester City Centre, and I think it’s easier for them to leave all that culture stuff to Manchester City Centre, rather than actually investing in it in local terms.’ Weeks before the first national lockdown, GMCA launched the Culture Fund, an investment of £8.6m over two years, designed to support a ‘balanced’ (GMCA, 2020a, p.1) portfolio of thirtyfive cultural organisations representing each of the region’s ten districts. Alongside the inaugural GM town of culture (Bury Council, 2020), the portfolio is a key pillar in the GMCA culture team’s efforts to address inequality in the region’s cultural offer and to build links between GMCA, district authorities and cultural partners beyond Manchester and Salford. This progress is complemented by efforts from policymakers across each of the ten districts to develop local cultural strategies at various stages of maturity at the start of 2020. Local cultural strategies ‘make the case’ for culture, locally and regionally, helping to secure local authority buyin by identifying opportunities for culture to support local policy ambitions through policy attachments (Gray, 2007) to generate positive outcomes for communities, town centres and the local economy, while providing visibility for local cultural interests and identities as part of regionwide policy discussion. This work is supported by strong lines of communication between the districts and the combined authority, facilitated by bodies like the GM Arts Network, which brings together arts officers from each of the region’s districts with a remit for cultural planning and development. 237Epistemic governance and partnerships in place 237 Despite the influence of historical conditions that have tended to privilege the city of Manchester, there was, as a regional policymaker observed, a strong sense that culture was ‘on an upward trend’ in the months before the pandemic, both in its legitimacy as part of wider strategy and policy development across the region, and in the inclusion of the diverse districts and communities that make up the region. Though the creative cluster model has undoubtedly helped bolster the case for culture in the region, and continues to receive political and financial support, there are clear efforts at district and combined authority levels to extend thinking about culture’s relationship to policy beyond the ‘winnertakesall urbanism’ (Florida, 2017, p.6) of Florida’s creative class. The GM Culture Fund was led not only by the principle of economic redistribution, but also by the conviction that a healthy cultural ecosystem should transcend the values held by a small number of flagship institutions. Along with regionwide schemes like Great Place GM (2018– 2021), a joint funding scheme by Arts Council England and the Heritage Lottery Fund which aimed to capacity build cultural placemaking, there have been significant efforts to formalise strategic relationships between culture and substantive outcomes in other policy areas within GM, from municipal cultural strategies to the local industrial strategy for GM, which foregrounded cultural venues and creative industries clusters as economic drivers (Gilmore and Bulaitis, 2023). As a local government officer explained of their district’s plans for culture prior to the pandemic: ‘it was all about trying to establish a cultural ecology across the borough and to engage stakeholders in what that cultural ecology blueprint could and should look like’. Such initiatives were in progress at the start of 2020 and indicate a direction of travel rather than an established policy environment. Nevertheless, they reflect the approach and ambitions that were in place towards the end of 2019 and the conditions that informed the region’s response as the pandemic developed over the following years. ‘An overwhelming sense of anxiety and concern’: local impacts of a global pandemic Established relationships between cultural organisations, supported by the region’s history of strategic cultural development, allowed for 238 Pandemic culture a coordinated response across the cityregion, with a number of publicly funded organisations closing their doors on 20 March 2020, in advance of national guidance. Nevertheless, our research found strong similarities between the initial stages of the pandemic within GM and the broader national picture. As interviewees observed, the early weeks of the pandemic were characterised by shock and panic as cultural workers and policymakers tackled the complete shutdown of venues and inperson activities, and a profoundly uncertain future as they waited for government advice. As the executive director of a Manchester flagship organisation explained: ‘The way that the pandemic and the restrictions that came in were handled threw everybody … into a sort of flat spin because of the lack of guidance or clear direction or structural timing.’ Local policy objectives and organisational strategies were quickly rendered untenable and alternatives during these early weeks were described as ‘kneejerk’ reactions, driven, as a combined authority representative observed, by a ‘sense of powerlessness’ reflected in testimonies from cultural workers and policymakers across the four UK nations. Local efforts attempted to respond to the impacts on work and jobs and the vulnerability of the freelance workforce, effects observed elsewhere which were combined with structural issues that preceded the pandemic (as described in Chapter 2). The exacerbation of already precarious conditions for large parts of the cultural sector was acknowledged by the rapid response of highprofile organisations such as the biennial MIF, which was preparing for its next festival in 2021 and prevented by the pandemic from moving to its new home, the flagship Factory building. By 18 March 2020, five days ahead of the announcement of the first national lockdown, MIF had launched a programme of online dropin sessions for artists and freelancers offering support and resources (MIF, 2020). This was prompted by the reliance of the festival on freelance labour, but also signalled the collective concerns expressed by the proliferation of crossorganisational, crossdistrict initiatives that emerged in parallel in GM. As a member of the GMCA culture team explained: ‘There was the running around like headless cultural chickens, and then we go: okay, actually, we’re all doing this… Why don’t we do this together?’ As Figure 9.2 shows, the pandemic had a significant impact on workforce size for the creative and cultural industries, especially 239Epistemic governance and partnerships in place 239 for venuebased activities during the first three quarters of 2020. Results from MCC’s annual Cultural Impact Survey suggest a 95 per cent decrease in audiences and an 84 per cent decrease in productions between 2019 and 2020 (Cultural Heritage in Action, 2022) and, as Figure 9.2 shows, sectors such as music, performing arts, visual arts, museums and galleries, where business models are most reliant on inperson participation, were those that showed an overall downward trajectory of workforce across the four quarters of 2020. Additionally, the central government’s tiered approach to managing case numbers disproportionately impacted GM as much of the northwest region was placed in ‘special measures’ with more stringent travel and social distancing restrictions for most of the second half of 2020. These conditions placed particular strain on cultural organisations and on the wider events and hospitality sector, significantly exacerbating the impact on the freelance workforce. As a local authority officer noted, the claimant rate for Universal Credit in the city increased by 100 per cent in 2020, suggesting that ‘a lot of that is younger people who might work in the creative industries but are also supplementing their incomes by working in cafés, bars, restaurants, etc.’. Workers in the cultural sector are more likely to hold two or more jobs than those in other sectors (PasikowskaSchnass, 2019, p.8) and, as our interviewee observed, many creative workers were doubly impacted as additional, often more stable, income streams were cut off as complementary sectors such as hospitality, tourism and the nighttime economy also remained closed. Our qualitative research provides nuance to the impacts of these conditions on the region and on the pressures facing creative and cultural workers. As an executive director of a largescale cultural organisation in Manchester observed: ‘Where we saw the biggest and most immediate impact was just an overwhelming sense of anxiety and concern from artists and the whole arts supply chain in terms of technicians, crew, freelance producers.’ These anxieties were exacerbated by the lack of clear leadership or prompt decisionmaking from central government in the early stages of the pandemic and continued when guidance on social distancing and public events was repeatedly revised throughout 2020 into the first half of 2021. Characterised as an exhausting series of ‘false starts’, these conditions not only made it impossible for cultural 240 Pandemic culture organisations to establish a coherent strategy around reopening, but eroded audience confidence as events had to be cancelled or rescheduled at short notice. Additionally, while centralised policies such as the Culture Recovery Fund (CRF) were universally welcomed, they failed to address the needs of the most vulnerable cultural workers in the region. As one freelance artist explained of the central government’s response: There was a real lack of care for the way that artists so often sacrifice a stable, singular income in order to make their art and, as a result, piece together an income from different sources. So, for all of the support that was provided, disadvantaged people who were going to be in that position of working multiple jobs …. That disproportionate disadvantage was not met with appropriate support, and I think that was shocking, and I will be angry for a long time. There were more ‘carefull’ efforts by local government to find pragmatic solutions tailored to the needs of the region. GMCA, for instance, consulted with cultural sector partners to make an early decision to suspend agreed funding requirements for their Culture Fund portfolio, arranging immediate advance of 2020– 2021 funds. MCC took similar action. As a representative explained: I remember, my last day in the office, I spent the day drafting a letter to cultural organisations and getting it signed by my executive members to say that we will be suspending the monitoring and conditionality of our funding agreements with immediate effect. For most organisations that received local funding, these steps allowed them to enter the initial stages of the pandemic with a degree of financial stability. Though anxiety over the potential longevity of the pandemic was high, these provisions clarified the expectations of their local authority partners, signalling their intention to continue support and underlining a flexibility that allowed organisations to think carefully and critically about their resources and how they might be deployed. Described by a Manchester museum director as an ambition to ‘serve the city properly’, for most this involved a turn towards place and locality, drawing on relationships with audience groups and stakeholder communities to understand how their surrounding population was experiencing the pandemic and how the cultural sector might mitigate the worst of its impacts, even when 241Epistemic governance and partnerships in place 241 they were outside of scope of the organisation’s normal business. This valuesled response positions the cultural sector as a public service in the context of the pandemic, with unambiguous financial support from government authorities releasing various forms of social and cultural capital in support of the local population. The policy response to COVID19 often blurred the line between cultural and social provision, including a proliferation of advice sessions for artists and creative workers; creative packs sent out to families, young people and people experiencing social isolation to keep them entertained at home; and a variety of online activities and projects including quiz nights, play readings and community groups for older people and refugees. As the artistic director of a Bolton theatre explained: ‘for some people it’s a real lifeline …. We felt very keenly the responsibility … to entertain and connect people remotely during this time.’ These informal strategies were reflected in policy responses within the cityregion. GMCA’s plan for cultural recovery, published towards the end of 2020, included revised guidelines for its Culture Fund organisations that encouraged them to use their resources to ‘support the wider GM Cultural sector’ (GMCA, 2020b, p.12) by supporting individual artists and freelancers, emphasising cultural opportunities for hardhit communities, providing opportunities for young people and reducing structural inequality in the cultural sector. Manchester’s Cultural Leader’s Group, a de facto steering group of venue and organisation directors and leaders for culture with responsibility for delivering the city’s Cultural Ambition strategy (MCC, 2016), expanded their membership, reaching beyond the city centre’s flagship organisations and subsidised sector to incorporate new members from museums, dance, comedy, marketing and photography. Activities shifted from delivering the prepandemic conviction that ‘international art and culture brings the greatest local benefit’ (MCC, 2016, p.1) towards local communities’ concerns and policy attachments to reinforce the relationship between cultural institutions and social goals. As a Manchesterbased company director explained: ‘it feels like going local is going to be the anthem of our time when we emerge from this’. This led to some extraordinary coordination across the sector and the cityregion, including initiatives like the GM Arts Hub, to be considered shortly. However, the value of the relaxed funding 242 Pandemic culture restrictions for MCC Portfolio and GMCA Culture Fund organisations varied significantly depending on the circumstances of organisations and districts at the start of the pandemic. As a representative for a Manchesterbased theatre explained: I think it was the 20th of March that we shut our doors, and for our business it was the worst possible moment …. We were at the height of producing … which requires huge sums of sunk cost in advance…. We’ve got a show that was on our stage that didn’t make its own press night …. We were in preproduction for two other plays. The costs associated with that were considerable. For organisations that fell in the gap between local support and the introduction of national programmes like the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, Arts Council England’s emergency funding and CRF (see Chapter 1), the organisational impacts were significant, involving redundancies, scrapped work and high personal and emotional costs. The picture varied for different local authorities. Not all ten districts had established culture teams at the start of the pandemic, and, in many cases, already limited teams were reduced further as officers were redeployed to other duties. As a representative from Wigan Council explained, ‘quite quickly we lost about 60 per cent of our team to frontline critical service delivery’. While a valuesled approach to managing the pandemic helped establish what one GMCA representative described as a ‘coalition of the willing’, infrastructural issues relating to capacity and resource at organisational level limited the reach of these efforts and their benefits. As they explained: ‘when you don’t have people, that’s when it trips up … because we’re all enthusiastically on a joint mission with a completely shared purpose, and then you’ll have a district where they haven’t got staff’. The ambition to ‘serve the city’ drew on placebased networks to support understanding of the pandemic’s impacts and the sharing of knowledge, resources and expertise in ways that made a meaningful difference to organisations and to those most impacted by the pandemic, within and beyond the sector. The conditions of place, however, also defined the reach of these projects and policy interventions, indicating the limit point at which chains of communication, resource and shared value begin to break down. In the following section, we consider the relationship 243Epistemic governance and partnerships in place 243 between the pandemic and place in more detail, looking at two projects that sought to establish and extend placebased networks in strategic response to the pandemic, and consider their impacts for cultural sector organisations, workers and audiences. Placebased partnerships The examples considered here are the GM Artist Hub, a regionwide network of cultural organisations established to support independent artists in response to the pandemic, and the Salford Culture and Place Partnership (SCPP), a crosssector steering group for culture in Salford that launched its first major policy initiative, Suprema Lex (SCPP, 2020), eleven days before the first national lockdown. Though distinct in their aims, they illustrate common interests associated with placebased thinking, networks and decisionmaking to highlight the role and potential of an ecosystems perspective in managing sector response during thepandemic. The GM Artist Hub was established in the early weeks of the pandemic in response to impacts on the livelihoods and wellbeing of independent artists. As a representative explained, the Hub was designed not just to offer financial support, but to provide a point of contact for artists whose relationships with the sector had been cut off: ‘they haven’t just lost income, they’ve also lost support …. They’ve lost their ability to draw on us to understand what the bigger picture might look like.’ Led in its initial stages by The Lowry, the Hub relied on partnership work undertaken by their artist development team prior to the pandemic, bringing together fourteen organisations including Manchesterbased institutions such as the theatre venues of HOME and Contact, the Manchester International Festival (MIF) along with smaller partners from districts across the cityregion. Initially, the Hub was resourced through the inkind commitment of its members, relying on contributions of knowledge and time that would adjust as the pandemic developed and in response to the circumstances of individual organisations. Described by one of its members as ‘collective responsibility, flexibly delivered’, 250 Pandemic culture economic capital. The establishment and privileging of knowledge networks within places – in this case Greater Manchester and, particularly, Manchester itself – has been critical in promoting the sector regionally and supporting the local ecosystem during the pandemic. These conditions also indicate a correlation between epistemic communities and the reproduction of structural, placebased inequalities. Our case studies illustrate the ways in which sector response during the pandemic might be seen to disrupt this equilibrium and the possibility of longerterm change in the epistemic registers that structure and inform cultural policy and ecologies at the regional level. As Zygmunt Bauman notes, community is always a strategic discourse of inclusion and exclusion, offering visibility and agency to its members while making epistemological, if not actual, enemies of those on the outside (2006, p. 14). The projects considered above trouble the longstanding logics, networks and values that have historically determined thresholds of inclusion and exclusion in GM’s epistemic communities. Operating as an arm’slength body for culture within its own district, SCPP brings together organisations such as the outdoor arts company Walk the Plank, whose thirty years of practice can be linked to the legacy of the British alternative theatre movement and the countercultural ambitions of the 1960s and 1970s, and the Peel Group, one of the region’s most prominent property developers. Where contemporary policy contexts can often be characterised by economic priorities that dictate culture’s value and significance (Throsby, 2010), SCPP makes explicit the relational and interdependent qualities of cultural policy to bring different value systems together by inviting stakeholders from across the local cultural ecosystem into the same room. This opens up the range of perspectives on how culture is understood and managed in the district, positioning policy as a responsive, dynamic outcome of the partnership itself. As a member noted: ‘everyone seems to have a voice at the table … it feels democratic in that way to me … it feels supportive’. The GM Arts Hub, similarly, sought to extend local epistemic boundaries by repositioning cultural workers as stakeholders in the health and survival of the cultural ecosystem. Another member explained that breaking down competitive barriers between organisations was 251Epistemic governance and partnerships in place 251 key to increasing the representation of artists within the decisionmaking processes of the Hub and Hub members: By visibly building better collaborative relationships between the organisations in the cityregion it created better opportunities for all of the artists … to be supported properly, because they could have honest conversations about what they needed and whether they were getting their needs met or not. In both cases, these projects extended the practices of inclusion and representation that challenge or complicate the ‘normative behaviours’ that Haas (1992) suggests are characteristic of epistemic communities and their approach to managing change: while epistemic communities are usually legitimised through the training, prestige and reputation of their members, here the reputations of GM epistemic communities are being used to authorise new discourses in value, decisionmaking and policy. The experiences of our interviewees suggest the pandemic facilitated, or perhaps more aptly wrenched, a dynamic reconsideration of values and productivity relationships across the local ecosystem. The GM Artist Hub explicitly promoted an interconnected view of cultural sector activity, positioning a commitment to collective responsibility as a barrier to entry for the project’s partners. In contrast to the discrete organisational agendas that were characteristic of the region’s cultural ecology prior to the pandemic, the Hub positions the support and welfare of independent artists and freelance workers as a legitimate outcome of organisational activity. More broadly, this shift echoes Holden’s framing of the cultural sector as a ‘cycle of regeneration’ (Holden, 2015, p.27), in which the outcomes of investment are not lost but are recirculated within the wider cultural ecosystem. SCPP might be allied with similar developments. As a representative for MediaCityUK observed, Box on the Docks provided ‘proof of concept’ to corporate partners that investment in culture could be mutually beneficial. More specifically, it traced these benefits onto place, as a demonstration case which links financial investment from private partners with positive outcomes for city residents. As the interviewee observed: ‘There’s a realisation from developers – property developers – that actually the days have gone where you can just rent an office without stuff happening in 252 Pandemic culture the actual place.’ Notably, what this project proposes is a multivalent interpretation of value that promotes simultaneous benefit for corporate investors, city residents, artists and the wider cultural ecology as a principle of future policy development. Though these developments emerged in specific response to the conditions of the pandemic, the prominence of the cultural sector in the cityregion indicates a potential for significant, sustainable change. As an interviewee with responsibility for citycentre development observed: ‘the cultural sector very much leads itself and our job is to support it in the way that they want to be supported’. These newly configured communities, then, have the potential to build on the strength of the cultural sector prior to the pandemic to devise a future for local cultural policy that remains attentive to the relationships considered here. Conclusion Taking a qualitative ecosystems approach to the exceptional case of GM (Dunn and Gilmore, 2021), this chapter has described how the pandemic lockdown restrictions and the abrupt end they brought to business as normal in GM shifted the balance of power from national policy responses of the central government in England, characterised by indecision and by inadequate consideration of the precarious situation of the freelance creative and cultural workforce, to the local epistemic communities involved in cultural programming, resource allocation and strategic decisionmaking. Through rich, indepth qualitative research with policy practitioners, political representatives and arts and cultural leaders which drew on the collaboration of research partners, we have identified the significance of approaches that recognise creative and cultural ecosystems and their complexities as a heuristic framework through which to identify interdependency. Importantly, the relational dynamics of ecosystems revealed by taking this approach, alongside this protracted period of uncertainty, facilitated conditions for experimentation, unlikely new allegiances and collective action. They also foregrounded valuesled responses which, given the economic instability created by the pandemic, shifted policy rationales 253Epistemic governance and partnerships in place 253 from economic and private interest to the cultural sector’s role as a public service, supporting local communities through acts of care and the animation of Covidsafe public spaces and individual creative practitioners with opportunities for employment and subsidy. The cultural networks and partnerships extant in our case study ecosystem were facilitated by strong political buyin from a predominantly leftwing complex of local and cityregional government, familiar with narrative discourse on both economic and social returns of arts and cultural investment and mobilised by the challenges of the pandemic to seek collective solutions that could demonstrate further value to both public and private interests. These were represented by local authority policy attachments aimed at addressing not just cultural matters but also economic deprivation, isolation and social exclusion, the strategic aims of national funding bodies such as Arts Council England, whose job it was to effectively distribute public funds to sustain the sector through the crisis, and also the corporate interests of major asset holders and property developers, alongside private companies within the creative industries, events, hospitality and nighttime economies. We argue that the presence of epistemic communities and their connectivity through local partnerships, hubs and networks allowed policy innovations attempting to address existing problems which were surfaced by the pandemic. These included the contingency of creative and cultural production on freelance workers, with their attendant lack of protection for labour and economy, and the inherent problem within arts audience development created by the expectation that audiences should overcome spatial, social and economic barriers by leaving their neighbourhoods to attend dedicated flagship buildings. We also argue that the presence of these networks of expertise and their support by local government aided increased resource development as CRFs were successfully attracted to the cityregion, albeit disproportionately favouring Manchester’s city centre. Furthermore, we identify how the involvement of corporate partners within some of these partnerships has led to the sharing of new practices and knowledges that may inform future strategic collaboration, overturning the lack of attention historically given by landlords and property owners to the potential of cultural animation and inclusive placemaking for mutual benefit to people and place. 254 Pandemic culture There are caveats and limitations to these observations, however. The return to ‘normal’ operating conditions after the lifting of restrictions in July 2021 has seen an exhausted and somewhat traumatised cultural sector attempting to sustain these innovations alongside the ‘digital pivot’ and ‘pivot to the civic’ (Walmsley et al., 2022), amid continued uncertainties over audience return and retention, turmoil in national government and immanent economic recession, never mind global concerns of climate change, food security and international diplomatic relations. Further challenges remain both locally and national, such as the entrenched structural inequalities of the creative and cultural sector (Brook, O’Brien and Taylor, 2020; Comunian and England, 2020), an overreliance on ‘trickle down’ and the ‘gravitational pull’ of elite institutions and their presence (and absence) in cities and towns which continued to skew arts investment even during the pandemic (Johnson, Gilmore and Dunn, 2021; see also Chapter 2). Likewise, public– private partnerships for cultural and highstreet recovery require caution as identified by the critics of cultural policy instrumentalisation (e.g. Gray, 2007; McGuigan, 2009; Belfiore, 2020), as well as careful regulation and intervention from local governance to ensure that social responsibility rather than profit is the primary motivation for participation and to avoid the pitfalls of gentrification and social exclusion. These are continuing challenges for cultural policy locally, nationally and internationally as postpandemic placebased approaches aim to maximise the benefits of cultural funding for broader regeneration and economic recovery, and arts and cultural organisations hope to find sustainable ways to plug income gaps and innovate their business models. Such approaches can, we argue, learn valuable policy lessons from the exceptional case of GM and the relations of its creative and cultural ecosystem. References Banks, M. and O’Connor, J. 2021. ‘A plague upon your howling’: art and culture in the viral emergency. Cultural Trends. 30(1), pp.3– 18. Barker, V. 2019. The democratic development potential of a cultural ecosystem approach. Journal of Law, Social Justice and Global Development. Issue 24, pp.86– 99. 255Epistemic governance and partnerships in place 255 Barker, V., Gilmore, A., Dunn, B. and Taylor, M. 2021. 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Throsby, D. 2010. The economics of cultural policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Walmsley, B., Gilmore, A., O’Brien, D. and Torreggiani, A. eds. 2022. Culture in crisis: impacts of Covid19 on the UK cultural sector and where we go from here. Leeds: Centre for Cultural Value. Introduction We began this book noting that, even before the pandemic, a series of longstanding problems confronted cultural policy and the cultural sector in the UK. Within national policy, there has been a consistently low level of understanding about how differently individual parts of what are understood as ‘creative industries’ operate (House of Lords, 2023). This problem is accentuated in the case of the arts and culture; there is a distance between the policy rhetoric about the sector’s economic and cultural importance and the reality of precarious workers and undervalued, precarious organisations (Banks and O’Connor, 2017; Comunian and England, 2020). Audience development and widening participation have equally longstanding issues. Government data shows static levels of engagement with the arts over almost two decades, irrespective of government policy (DCMS, 2020). Academic analysis, of both survey and ticketing data, demonstrates that although there are high levels of engagement and participation in ‘everyday’ cultural activities (Miles and Gibson, 2016, Taylor, 2016; Gilmore, 2017; Belfiore and Gibson, 2019), audiences for more formal types of culture were both a minority, and unrepresentative, of the wider population (Hanquinet, O’Brien and Taylor, 2019; Brook, O’Brien and Taylor, 2020). These findings indicate that the conditions for cultural and creative production and consumption can be characterised by structural continuity rather than rupture or shift. This is a theme we have stressed throughout this book, and the overarching and Conclusion: disruption and continuity in the cultural industries: from pandemic culture to an endemic crisis? Dave O’Brien, Abigail Gilmore and Ben Walmsley 259Conclusion 259 dominant theme has been continuity. Of course, the pandemic was hugely disruptive and we hope our book has also clearly demonstrated that impact. Yet throughout the range of case studies, national and regional analysis, subsectoral and artformspecific discussions, and various methodological approaches, we have consistently foregrounded the ongoing impact of inequalities in the cultural sector. Rather than being products or consequences of 2020, these trends and structures were exacerbated, rather than created, by the pandemic. Our concluding chapter develops this theme. At the same time, we are also keen to reflect on the impact of our findings for cultural policy researchers. Most notably, we conclude with reflections not only considering the impact of the pandemic on future research subjects, but also on the conditions for cultural policy knowledge production and research itself. Understanding the pandemic in a global context There is a clear consensus within research, irrespective of the national context, of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on creative and cultural production and consumption. The sudden halt to almost all activities, whether international touring or local participation, meant the arts, cultural and creative industries were among the worstaffected sectors. The 2022 UNESCO report on Culture in times of COVID19 finds that the global cultural sector’s Gross Value Added fell by 25 per cent in 2020. This fall was accompanied by widespread job losses estimated at 10 million, comparable in its severity to sectors such as accommodation and catering (UNESCO, 2022). The impact of COVID19 on cultural workers, particularly the freelance and selfemployed, cannot be understated. Many saw their income sources disappear rapidly and struggled to access often illtargeted public wage compensation (Dümcke, 2021; Joffe, 2020; Johnson, 2020; Pacella, Luckman and O’Connor, 2021; Wright, 2020). However, the effects of the pandemic were unevenly distributed. The narrative of absolute market failure does not capture the nuances of impacts that were differentiated by sector, occupational status and socioeconomic group (as is discussed in Chapter 2 in 266 Pandemic culture and the need for organisations to be relevant to their local, regional, national and even international communities (e.g. Lane, 2022) were all part of this discursive and practical shift. These organisational realisations were perhaps long overdue, providing a wakeup call for radical change and for many in the sector, including academics and boards of trustees, to reconceptualise their notions of resilience, which our study reveals became associated more with collaborative networks than to the diversification of income streams. This in turn led many to question (or requestion) the growing future directions for the sector and the increasingly tense interrelationship between the arts and the wider cultural and creative industries. Yet despite these moments of rethinking, our analysis has shown the wickedness of the problems facing culture in the UK. Here, even with the examples of new forms of best practice, the sector still needed, and continues to need, leaders willing not only to share and collaborate but to make substantive changes. Commentators have been mulling over the apparent crisis in cultural leadership since the beginning of the century (Hewison, 2004), acknowledging skills gaps and structural barriers to entry and progression, which combined with the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements highlighted a prevalence of white, male and all too often abusive leadership in the sector. Progress remains slow and cultural leadership and governance remains alarmingly ‘male, pale and stale’ (Clare, 2009, p.34). Cultural leadership is too often overlooked in analysis of organisational success. It remains a topic that, given its significance to the strategic development of the sector and its research prevalence in other sectors, remains woefully underexplored and undertheorised for culture. Although many scholars have justifiably argued that we need to move beyond the sector’s quasi cultish romanticisation of charismatic leaders and shift our focus from leaders to leadership, leaders themselves are still key agents or blockers of change (Walmsley, 2019b). If the positive changes that the pandemic inspired, required and/ or foreshadowed are to endure or be adequately addressed, then capable, strategic and representative leaders will be vital. Collaborative models of leadership emerged to be particularly effective in a time of crisis. This was set against a more general context of calls for a shift away from charismatic and transformational 267Conclusion 267 leadership towards a more distributed and relational approach (Jancovich, 2015; Nisbett and Walmsley, 2016). Chapter 6 offers excellent examples, where collaborative models drove change in Northern Ireland’s cultural sector at an unprecedented pace. The learning from the Northern Irish case is that change needs principles of mutual support, transparency and trust. These values are difficult to nurture and sustain in the much more demanding context for workers and audiences that the analysis in Chapters 2 and 3 has demonstrated. Future audiences The findings regarding audiences are especially crucial. Prior to the pandemic audience researchers had been calling for a more sustained focus on processes of audience engagement (Walmsley, 2019a) and for greater understanding of marginalised audience groups, such as workingclass audiences (Barrett, 2022), d/ Deaf, blind and neurodiverse audiences (Hadley, 2022) and audiences of colour (Conner, 2022; NovakLeonard, 2022). The physical disappearance of audiences from arts and cultural venues during the pandemic focused minds and forced producers and organisations to radically rethink their relationships with audiences. As questions of relevance and community or civic engagement rose to the fore, processes of participation, coproduction and cocreation were actively realised and pernicious barriers to access (especially for disabled audiences) were temporarily removed as production shifted online. As we emerge from the pandemic, and as highlighted in Chapter 3, we are possibly witnessing a radical shift in audience behaviour and demographics. Families and younger audiences appear keen to attend cultural venues and older audiences remain more hesitant. This inevitably begs questions about cultural programming (and the poor theorisation of such) and about the sustainability of art forms such as classical ballet and opera that have long relied on older audiences. Thanks to insights provided from our Cultural Participation Monitor, the pandemic taught us that audiences equate arts and culture with solace and wellbeing – especially outdoor arts and heritage activities. The Monitor also highlighted positive public perceptions 268 Pandemic culture about public funding for arts and culture and a growing propensity to donate. These findings have three important implications. Firstly, they suggest that cultural policy and funding should prioritise investment in outdoor arts and heritage, especially since previous research has demonstrated that more representative audiences are attracted to these activities. This could offer a muchneeded breakthrough for the apparent deadlock in the flagging audience development project that has failed to diversify UK audiences for over fifty years. Secondly, our findings signal the need for cultural venues, producers and marketers to engage with audiences as artistic partners rather than transactional ticketbuyers. Audiences are hungry for highquality cultural content and we would all benefit from them having a much greater voice and stake in our public cultural institutions. This observation has implications not only for cultural policy but also, and more urgently perhaps, for arts management and marketing. Thirdly, the nuanced, timely and representative insights offered by a regular population survey proved the benefits of empirical audience research conducted by a team of specialists and integrated into a comprehensive mixedmethods analysis of the cultural sector. As we witness our national audience data being tendered out to commercial management consultants (Puffett, 2022), the urgency of opensource cultural sector data has never been more acute. This should serve as a rallying call to cultural funders and policymakers as well as to the sector itself. Where next for cultural policy scholarship? The writing of history, and arguably all social science and humanities, has been one of debate on the explanations and the tools and epistemologies that provide them: what causes change, what mitigates it? In the context of crisis, this is even more fundamental but complicated by an urgent need for speedy answers to provide the rationale for mitigation. In our study, we have identified various longerterm trends that help to explain the severity of the impact of the pandemic on specific parts of the cultural sector and its workers. However, we leave open the exact balance between the specific 269Conclusion 269 decisions of individuals and organisations and longerterm structural trends. To give a clear example, we know that inequalities in the workforce were present for decades before the pandemic (Brook et al., 2023). We also know that audiences for statefunded art forms and institutions are drawn disproportionately from the older, professional middleclass segments of society (Bennett et al., 2009; Hanquinet, O’Brien and Taylor, 2019). These structural characteristics of the arts workforce and of audiences were also identifiable in the demographics of those more likely to leave cultural jobs and more likely to be cautious about returning to inperson performances. In turn, these impacts of the pandemic have knockon effects for a further lack of diversity for the arts and cultural workforce and question the sustainability of revenues generated from ticket sales and related conceptions of organisational resilience. Teasing out the degree of impact to offer precise causal explanations is complex; this may be a key challenge for further cultural policy studies. What we can say with certainty is that the structural problems confronting arts and cultural organisations have certainly not been ameliorated by the pandemic, nor have any of the supposed new ways of working and innovative forms of delivery adopted during 2020 been particularly effective in addressing these wicked problems (Feder et al., 2022), with the notable exception of greater accessibility offered by digital performances for disabled audiences. This question of challenges for cultural policy leads to the concluding discussion of this collection and our research project. It is not, of course, the conclusion of research on the impact of the pandemic. COVID19, as of 2023, has become endemic across the world. At the risk of an insensitive analogy, the issues our analysis has highlighted are seemingly endemic to the cultural sector. Where does this leave cultural policy research? This question is twofold. In the first instance there is the question of academic labour and the sorts of partnerships needed to conduct responsive research at speed. In the UK, as universities face funding constraints and academics face worsening labour conditions, particularly at the earlycareer and entry stages to the profession, there are acute challenges for undertaking the sorts of cultural policy research discussed in this book. As academic workers are made more precarious, the sorts of skills and rich subject and fieldspecific knowledges required are increasingly under threat. Reinforcing capacity 270 Pandemic culture is a crucial task for both institutions and those who set the policy framework under which they work. The question of the future for academics and their institutions is mirrored when we think of partnerships with organisations and practitioners in the cultural sector. A significant part of the success of our project, and the breadth of research approaches and perspectives in this book, was the positive and productive working relationships with the cultural sector. This included sector organisations, practitioners and consultants who act as researchers themselves. The impact of the pandemic will not only impact the sector’s ability to deliver on its aims; it will also constrain the sector’s capacity to know itself, and thus be responsive to longterm trends and immediate shocks. Research capacity here is essential, not only for the sorts of R&D required to deliver successful ‘hits’ (House of Lords, 2023) but also for the longerterm strategies of the organisations, practitioners and policymakers complicit in such an exercise. Secondly, there are the specific questions for cultural policy researchers. There are many obvious ones: international comparisons are crucial to thinking through the social, economic and cultural impacts of the pandemic on local, national and international cultural policies, as are mixedmethods and interdisciplinary approaches providing conceptual challenge to questions of rationalism, evidence and care. We have referenced some of the initial work here already in this conclusion. More generally, there is the problem of innovation in cultural policy research. As the question of explanations that opened this conclusion illustrates, cultural policy research may be trapped in a toonarrow focus on identifying the pandemic’s role in changes to longerterm inequalities. Rather, the challenge for cultural policy research is to connect the pandemic to more existential questions, such as the role of policy in supporting the rights for all to access culture and creativity for a fairer and more just cultural sector, and indeed a better global society. 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Leeds: Centre for Cultural Value. #CultureInQuarantine 4, 10, 13, 108 #HereForCulture 43 #MuseumAtHome 4, 10, 13 2022 UNESCO report Culture in times of COVID-19 259 AHRC Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre 2 arm’slength bodies 20, 21, 28, 31, 32, 41, 42, 43, 44, 250 Arte Útil 215, 223 Arts Collaboration Network 41, 170, 172 Arts Council England 21, 43, 44, 127, 135, 171, 212, 216, 237, 242, 248, 249, 253, 265 Arts Council of Northern Ireland 22, 40 Arts Council of Wales 37, 38 arts education 79–80 arts management 2, 7, 119, 268 audience development 6, 113, 158, 247, 253, 258, 264, 268 audience engagement 14, 15, 131, 267 audience research 3, 4, 108, 119, 267, 268 BBC Cymru 186, 196, 198 Bectu 194 belonging 111, 144–161 Big Burns Supper 151–156, 158, 160, 161 Black Lives Matter 42, 132, 266 boards, diversification of 132–133 Boom Cymru 197 Bruguera, Tania 215 Burger, Lisa 131 Business Impact of COVID19 Survey (BICS) 74, 77 business models 1, 5, 14, 16, 45, 118, 119, 121, 122, 133, 141, 177, 178, 234, 239, 254, 264, 265 business rates relief 21 Capital Kickstart 232 Cardiff Capital Region 185, 188, 196, 202, 206 care 17, 39, 45, 128, 153, 155, 156, 158, 160, 174, 178, 180, 199, 212, 217, 219, 240, 253, 265 case studies 3, 4, 7, 9, 16, 119, 133, 146, 212, 213, 215, 216, 220, 221, 224, 232, 250, 259, 263 civic engagement 6, 197, 267 civic responsibility 15, 16, 213, 224–227 civic role, of arts 213, 224, 265 civic role, of theatre 14, 119, 132 Clwstwr 188 Index 275 275Index collaborative leadership 15, 164, 165, 166, 167, 174, 176–181 collaborative policy networks 163, 165, 167, 173, 175, 178, 179, 180 collegiality 123, 171, 199, 265 commercial theatre 123, 133 community engagement 16, 128, 133, 136, 220 comparative analysis 145, 146 consumer behaviour 5 continuity 17, 31, 258, 259 convergence 14, 17, 119, 263, 265 Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme 21 Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme 21, 74, 93, 242 corporate sponsorship 6 Creation Theatre 139 Creative Cardiff 188, 194 creative clusters 235 Creative Diversity All Party Parliamentary Group 5 creative economy 5, 61, 66, 67, 73, 195, 261 Creative Improvement Districts 17, 45 Creative Practitioners Bursary scheme 41 Creative Scotland 10, 22, 23, 24, 25, 32 Creative Wales 37, 188, 189, 190, 194, 204, 205, 207, 208 cultural and creative industries 46, 55, 74, 193, 259, 260, 261, 266 cultural consumption 4, 5, 9, 150 cultural democracy 6, 32 cultural ecology 11, 16, 41, 136, 173, 177, 230, 233, 237, 244, 245, 251, 252 cultural economy 15 cultural ecosystem 11, 16, 233, 237, 250–254 cultural exceptionalism 261 cultural festivals 14 cultural industries 1–5, 8, 13, 16, 17, 54, 55, 230, 238, 260, 262 cultural leadership 15, 16, 119, 163–165, 174, 180, 181, 266 cultural networks 247, 253 cultural occupations 91 cultural participation 10, 99, 140 Cultural Participation Monitor 9, 13, 95, 100, 104, 107, 110, 114, 129, 267 cultural policy studies 2, 3, 7, 119, 269 cultural production xvii, 4, 5, 20, 32, 95, 151, 164, 166, 233, 253, 259, 262 Culture Recovery Fund 16, 33, 34, 37, 39, 40, 41, 124, 212, 232, 240, 248, 253 Cultural Renewal Taskforce 28, 42 cultural value 6, 14, 15, 28, 119, 155, 262 cultural workforce 3, 4, 6, 38, 80, 86, 92, 252, 269 Culture Collective Fund 25, 33 Cyw 195, 199 Department for Communities (DfC) 10, 40, 168 Department for Communities (NI) 166 Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) 10, 28, 29, 31, 37, 42, 43, 171 depth interviews 7, 9, 119 devolution 36, 197, 230, 235 devolved nations 11, 42, 46, 262 digital burnout 138 digital engagement 13, 95, 113, 140 digital production 6, 138, 140, 152 divergence 17, 20, 46, 119, 177, 263, 264, 265 diversity 5–6, 39, 85, 131, 132, 187, 195, 203, 205, 265, 269 Dowden, Oliver 43, 123