A lot of people still don't feel safe to attend
September 2021
Cultural Participation Monitor
Wave 4 | Autumn 2021
This research is from The Audience Agency's nationwide longitudinal (ongoing) panel survey of changing views about participating in creative and cultural activities through the recent and ongoing crises, and beyond, the Cultural Participation Monitor.
Contents
Themes
Willingness to attend has not increased since June and people remain worried about others' behaviour, though they don't appear to think there is much more organisations themselves should be doing to make them feel safe.
Willingness to Attend
The proportion of people 'happy to attend' has not increased (29% in June, 28% now). In fact, the only major change is an almost doubling of the 11% to 20% of those who said they were 'not interested' in attending.
This significant increase is largely at the expense of those who previously said they 'were not comfortable attending until there has been a significant reduction in risk from COVID', suggesting that opinions may be hardening up.
Safety Concerns
The measures considered 'very important' most frequently to make people feel comfortable attending indoor events were:
- Crowd management 46%
- Hand sanitiser 45%
- Only vaccinated or those with negative tests allowed to attend 41%
- Masks 40%
- Social distancing of >1m 37%
The importance given to hand sanitiser, over masks and distancing, is a little surprising, given that Covid-19 transmission is predominantly airborne, rather than from surfaces contact.
People had substantial concerns about the presence or behaviour of others in terms of return to attendance (% who answered Strongly agree):
- Only vaccinated or those with negative tests allowed to attend INDOORS 35%
- Unsafe behaviour of others puts me off attending 32%
- Only vaccinated or those with negative tests allowed to attend OUTDOORS 26%
- Boosters would make me feel much more comfortable 28%
- Cultural organisations could be doing more to make visiting 'COVID safe' 19%
Related videos
Cultural Participation Monitor | Latest Findings on Audience Attitude and Behaviours
Watch nowTEA Break: Bad behaviour? - What types of behaviour people prefer when attending culture
Watch nowTEA Break | From Interest into Action
Watch nowTEA Break | More Insights on Changing Audiences
Watch nowTEA Break | Key Changing Audiences for Art Forms
Watch nowOther findings from Wave 4 | Autumn 2021
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Increased wellbeing is offset by continued worry
While people's sense of wellbeing continues to slowly improve, the same audiences' concern about falling ill with Covid-19 is growing, and most expect further lockdowns both this year and next.
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Changed working habits may trigger a surge in localness
Most people who have worked at home for some or all of the pandemic expect to continue to do so for the foreseeable. As these tend to be high cultural engagers, they may drive increased local attendance in future.
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Engagement is set to decline and pantos may struggle
People expect to engage less in general with arts, culture and heritage in the coming months, with a particular decline in interest in festive shows potentially signalling a bleak midwinter for venues.
