Live Comedy & Coronavirus - Emergency Survey Report

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Comedy is facing both an existential and economic challenge unlike anything we’ve ever seen – how does the live comedy industry continue, when live shows are suspended indefinitely? How will our venues stay solvent? And how will our staff and artists – the comedians, promoters, venue managers, techies, producers et al – stay financially afloat?

●      A third of comedy venues believe they’ll be forced to close within the next six months, with 77.8% facing closure within the next year.

●      Over 45% of respondents have already given serious thought to leaving comedy because of the pandemic, with just under 60% of all respondents predicting they’ll need to leave before February 2021 unless we’re able to get back to performances.

●      73.5% of respondents have found their mental health negatively impacted by job & industry uncertainty during the pandemic.

●      Over three quarters of performers have earnt less than 5% of their pre-pandemic estimated income from online performances of any kind.

●      Only 17.1% of promoters expect that after Coronavirus they’ll be running 100% of the regular events they promoted before lockdown.