So... who still has a job?

You working?


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I've been off for a little more than a month now. Still being paid as I'm one of the only actual staff members on the technical side. We're currently rescheduling things for june and are looking to live stream a bunch of stuff though the legality and right issues with most of the events are going to throw quite a wrench in those plans, but at the moment its something we can at least look at and start to prep for, instead of sitting around and doing nothing. Ohio is "opening" back up slowly may 1st so we're just trying to take it a week at a time for now.
 
Maybe we consultants should call ourselves manufacturers, of buildings.

My work is slowed a bit, and new projects don't seem to be on the way. With a time line in years I expect effects to be delayed.

That said, my IA local is completely done since early March. I (used to) take a few calls to keep an eye on the biz. Some shows are scheduled in August, but who knows.
 
Same in Oregon. Big part of the problem is that the IT system they have to process the claims is literally from the Reagan administration and uses COBOL, a programming language roughly the equivalent to Aramaic as far as anyone who can speak it. They basically said that to overwrite the one week waiting period to get benefits would take longer than the waiting period itself and stop claims from being processed. They were supposed to upgrade it about 12 years ago and are slated to finish the work in another 5-6. Similar situation in a number of other states from what I’ve seen.
The same issue in Kansas - 40 year old main frame computer running COBOL. When former governor Sam Brownback rode the most recent ultra-conservative backlash (in Kansas, plain old conservatives are considered liberals) to the Governorship, he wrecked our economy by trying the same Arthur Laffler bullshit that didn't work for Reagan or either of the Bush administrations. When the tax cuts didn't bring general prosperity and more revenue, the result was cancelling the long-postponed update to several state computer systems (among a bunch of capital improvements), including the Labor Dept's online system for unemployment. The legislature went along with that and swept $billions from the state highway trust fund into the general fund leaving Kansas's once-enviable highways, roads and streets badly maintained. This is what happens when politicians would rather buy a vote than earn respect.
 
Furlough officially starts tomorrow, but we've been closed for business since 3/13 and been paid full 40 hour weeks until now. Will we be back before fall? Or sometime next year? When you do daily numbers on par with stadiums, I think I know what I'm gonna brace for.
 
This is what happens when politicians would rather buy a vote than earn respect.

it is also what happens when somebody decides that it is cheaper to outsource support for legacy systems to lower costs. There’s no substitute for experience. If they need a COBOL programmer send them my way. It’s been 25 years but it would come back quickly.
 
4 weeks into the country being in lock down and working from home down here at the bottom of the world. Our government is providing a 12 week wage subsidy to businesses that can show a greater than 30% decrease in revenue due to the situation. I'm on a casual contract meaning my employer gives me no guarantee of work and is under no obligation to pay me if I'm not working. My employer however is looking after us and paying us the average hours we worked over the 8 weeks prior to shutting down for the 12 week period they're receiving the government subsidy. Of note is it is only a small minority of employees are on casual contracts, with most being full-time or part-time with guaranteed hours.

It hasn't been all bad for us though - we opened our new building with multiple venues in July last year and there was definitely no soft opening. In the first 7 days after getting sign-off for public occupancy we did something like 5 full capacity gigs with still a reasonable amount of building works to be completed in non public facing areas. The venues have been operating at a high capacity since so this forced break has given a great opportunity for our team to catch up on documenting systems and processes. Eventually we'll run out of paperwork and be suffering just as much as everyone else in the industry though.
 
I’ve been stood down for three weeks now (and had two weeks with no shows prior to that but we were doing a lot of prep for what we knew was coming, basically putting everything into hibernation mode) but the company is paying us 50% of regular wage and we can top up to 80% with accrued leave. At this point we’re stood down until 31 July with the hope we’ll get some of a winter season but I don’t hold much hope for that - I think the next thing we’ll get up will be a concert performance of an opera scheduled for October, closely followed by the Ring Cycle. We lost the last fortnight of our summer opera season, the entire Opera on Sydney Harbour season (cast were about to get on the stage for rehearsals - the whole thing was nearly built and they had to turn around and pull it all back down), and our autumn ballet season.

The government here is in the throes of putting a subsidy in place to pay all permanent workers and casuals who had been with their employer for over a year (and were actively employed on 1 March) $750 per week for six months, if employers can show a 30% downturn in business (or 50% if you turn over a billion dollars or more per year). So that‘ll stop the company going bankrupt paying us all and means we’ll have jobs to come back to. We’re very fortunate that my husband is still working as normal, just from home, and we’ll have no financial issues riding this storm out. It could be so very much worse, and Australia is in a pretty good position in terms of the virus too.
 
Half the tours I was supervising closed down for good, the other half are postponed until the Fall. My next sit-down show was cancelled the day before we were supposed to go into shop prep, three days after Broadway went dark. Week 6 of stay-at-home and New York UI has been a train wreck to navigate for freelancers -- verifying a few dozen employers across a few states is hard in the best of times, even worse right now so most of the freelance community here in NYC has our UI claims pending. All the usual summer theater work in NYC has cancelled their seasons, and the corporate work we fall back on doesn't look any more promising. I think come August we'll find a very different freelance market here in the city, and after living through the last recession here it may be time to start looking at other careers.

On the plus side, I've had all the time in the world to finally update my entire Vectorworks symbol library and start building out a 3D symbol library, I'll have fantastic rack drawings if I ever get to design a show again!
 
Words are not enough.. You guys always made this rank amateur, make it up as I go guy feel welcome here. I am fortunate in that
Theatre is only my avocation. I did have to sit with a room full of people and make the decision to shut down a show just short of production week.
So far in my own business, (veterinary) we have slogged along about 1/2 load..seeing the essentials, no electives, no clients in the building. The employees are being paid, but I have the honor
of being the owner.. lets just say.. I'm ok for now, but everyone else gets paid first.

And now realistically we are going to have no Summer season. A lot of community houses will not likely survive. Ours will because of a 70 year history
and leaders who ran the non profit like a true business, and now our rainy day is here. Our costume ladies working with supplies pulled from the shop, and their own supplies, working from home have
produced over 1000 masks for nurses, nursing home workers, first responders, police. We have about 6000 sq feet packed to the gills with costumes, fabric and supplies, and rent to a wide variety
of schools and theaters mostly in a 2 hour radius.. so we will take a hit there.. probably 100+ organizations wont be renting for a while.
 
I was officially furloughed April 5th. My last day worked was March 15th but they kept us all on payroll till the end of the month.

Work hopes to have us all back in the shop first week of August. I do think/hope I’ll be on the front end as the industry starts to grind again, as I work in a fabrication shop and not a venue.
 
There was an industry Town Hall meeting (mostly touring music concert) earlier today that brought some genuine heavyweights like Jim Digby of the Entertainment Safety Alliance and Nederlander's Alex Hodges to the panel. The URL for the program, minus the 26 minutes of PP loop...

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Actual running time is about 2 hours including the Q&A and I urge everyone to watch this and pay attention to the first 10 minutes, especially security expert Michael Downing. If he's right, get used to the idea of being health-screened every time you come to work, wearing gloves, masks and maybe face shields. Far fetched? I thought searches of local crew were, and they're seen as normal today.

There are a lot of moving parts to touring a show and most of them were discussed or at least touched on.

What's it gonna take to go back to work? Public confidence, capital for the public to spend, the ability to present shows to smaller and less-proximate audiences at least initially, and the awareness that the first 'big' event, festival, or show that is identified as an infection cluster will get the entire industry shut down - again.
 
I'm fortunate to have moved into Broadcasting in the past year which has deemed me essential. Though thanks to modern technology our team is actually remoting into our studios and virtually controlling our primary systems. We've dropped all production down to a bare minimum hibernation state so that we can work remotely as possible. While technically exist within a university that's been the hardest part. Trying to help students transition to distance learning for the arts has been and continues to be an incredible challenge. Our sports broadcasters have turned into news casters and podcast stars, but we're getting them through. For now we wait and broadcast what seems to be an endless loop of Corona news desperately searching for something new to report.
 
My real job is unaffected, home furnishings, and is actually thriving as people realize how much they need to and can afford to upgrade their homes since they are working from their and not spending money doing anything else.
The church I usually mix at is doing 100% livestream, which I setup. Maybe once every other week I go in on Monday and do some various work when no one else is there. It's in Alameda County in California and there, every business has to post notices on the door stating they are complying with the shelter in place order. Checking a box that says they told staff to work from home, that hand sanitizer stations are available and the building is actively turning away any groups that attempt to gather (not hold church)
 
Thankfully my institution is doing all they can to retain their employees. We were planning to produce a show this summer, but that is now on hold. Trying to fill the time learning things at home.
 
Our theater is city owned, and for the moment the Mayor has kept all city staff on salary. So I'm really grateful to have a job, at least for now. We are dark at least through June. Spending a lot of time doing desk work, learning new software, and updating files. We have now live-streamed three shows from an empty theater - solo performers onstage, with the empty house as a background. It's pretty poignant. I can't imagine having those seats full again any time soon... Stay safe everyone.
 
Doing alright for now; my primary gig is in higher education, and while we're not doing events, I am able to work from home doing paperwork (Do YOU Have a binder of all the SDSs for chemicals used in your venue? We will now!) and being an educational institution, they value professional development, so I've been able to take a lot of the training that's out there. Classes have gone entirely online through the end of the summer, and the effect on enrollment remains to be seen. I'm supported by a union (not IA), but I have a deep feeling that we're going to see RIFs if the governor prohibits large gatherings beyond lifting the shelter-in-place order. We would have 4 TDs supporting 0 events in 5 spaces, one of which is expected to be self-supporting...

My freelance work as a designer has completely dried up. I might have a gig still lined up for Jan/Feb, but the producing company just furloughed their whole production department, so who knows if they'll even make it to then.
 
My day job is in food manufacturing so it's considered essential so I'm still working.

I'm the part time carpenter for a children's theater so that has come to a halt. The theater is still in rehearsal, they use zoom and have a rehearsal schedule so that they don't overwhelm zoom with 45 participants. The main stage show has been canceled, the down stage show may end up on video and academy may just be a read through at a church when small groups are allowed again. Financially, they are OK, the big fund raiser was late last year, then the venue we were using closed so we went month to month renting a school district's PAC while the attached school is being rebuilt. That means costs have dropped along with revenue so those with full time tasks are getting paid.

Michael
 
I'm an estimator for a rigging/drapery and lighting company here in Chicago. Our production side is pretty quiet right now. The contracting side, building theaters and TV studios is working right now. We start up on two jobs Monday.
 
all my shows, and my installed system projects and design cycles have ground to a halt. Doing a bit of Unified communications virtualizations. I see a very long, slow tail to this - like into late 2021. Our son is trying to navigate college admissions and gap year planning, and our daughter moving into her senior / thesis year in college. eek!
 

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