The Guardian view on arts and the pandemic: support needed now

A vocal minority in the UK say the arts are parasites on the state, leaching away public money when they ought to live or die by the market. And yet most people agree that museums, galleries, music and theatre are a public good, and should be available to everyone, no matter who they are, not just the wealthy. Take the great national museums as an example – in Cardiff, Dundee, Salford, London, Belfast, Leeds, Edinburgh and elsewhere. They are free to enter, and have a special role as the keeper of civic memories, at the heart of the public realm. The burden of some of their costs is shared so that their benefits can be shared. They belong to us all.

In fact, though, the public purse does not bear much of the burden of the arts. Cultural organisations in Britain have received less and less public funding proportionate to their turnover. In 2010 the coalition government cut the Arts Council England budget by 30%, while local authority support has been shattered by Conservative austerity measures. British performing arts organisations tend to receive only around 20-30% of their funding from public sources. The rest is earned, largely from ticket sales.

In Germany, those figures are reversed. Arts organisations are usually publicly funded between 70% and 80%. As lockdowns are gradually eased, venues in mainland Europe will be able to operate half, even three-quarters empty because of their relatively minimal reliance on the box office. The Royal Opera House in London, by contrast, breaks even only when its houses are 95% full. Socially distant performances in this country will therefore be, without extra financial support, a non-starter. Because of their very “success” at “weaning themselves away from subsidy”, British arts organisations face a tougher, slower and more painful exit from the current situation than many overseas neighbours. If they recover at all.

Arts organisations cannot earn at the moment. Venues are leaching money fast; London’s Southbank Centre has been the latest to warn of imminent disaster. Wonderful music, opera, dance and drama has been made available online but even when the public is asked to contribute financially, there is no prospect of income from the public for digital activities making up for lost ticket sales. Meanwhile income for musicians from streaming services such as Spotify can be risible: violinist Tasmin Little, for example, has said that 5 million streams over a six-month period earned her a grand total of £12.34.

Many of Britain’s workers in the performing arts – designers, technicians, directors, singers, actors and musicians – are freelancers. They now face a desperate situation. Most of them cannot work, there is no sense of when they might be able to work, and a significant minority is ineligible for the government’s scheme to help the self-employed. With little current prospect of theatres and auditoriums being fully opened in the autumn, both furloughing and help for the self-employed need to be extended – tailored for the cultural sector rather than tapered – beyond October.

The government’s response has been sluggish. There has been much talk of hospitality and sport, other industries in the mass-gathering business, but next to nothing about the arts. A Cultural Renewal Taskforce was announced only on 20 May, two months after venues closed their doors; it feels like a body put together hastily, and lacks expertise from the music world. There is no more time to waste. Unless the government wants to preside over the ruination of the UK’s cultural institutions, it needs to step in with a proper arts recovery fund, and fast.