Getting Broke: Arts in MKE

The performing arts bunch in Milwaukee has a problem.  No money.

Lousy attendance, cancelled shows, and then there's the extra expense involved with hiring understudies to take over in case of "breakthrough" Red Chinese Death disease.  And Obedience Masks.  (Should we call them the "Masks of the Red Chinese Death"?)

...Milwaukee Repertory Theater had to cancel 68 performances, or nearly 10% of the 700 it had scheduled last season, due to positive COVID-19 tests. The most painful loss: two weeks of sold-out performances of "Titanic the Musical." ...

Not good.

The Symphony migrated to a new venue on West Wisconsin Avenue.  They never cancelled a show, but they DID require masks for audience members until March (or so) this year.  Results?

...With the Bradley venue having a smaller capacity than the MSO's former home, the Marcus Performing Arts Center's Uihlein Hall, the MSO anticipated 90% attendance last season. But average attendance turned out to be 54%, according to Niehaus. 

"Yes, it is true that more popular programming continues to pull people in, however the programs that were on the margins but would still do well in the past were not as well attended," he wrote. "People will go out for a 'must see' performance, but not for a 'may want to see' performance." ...

Note well:  no mention of the Obedience Mask requirement, nor the more-spicy West Wisconsin neighborhood and parking locations.  But it's good for Niehaus to mention 'marginal' programs which are (usually) "woke" music--stuff that nobody really wants to hear, but "woke!!"

Moreover, when the Red Death hit, virtual work arrived, meaning Downtown offices were empty.  That raises a 'convenience' problem; if you're already Downtown--where the arts are--it's a lot easier to go to the show, especially if you usually work until 6-7 PM.  That 'work-late' bunch is the bread-and-butter audience for the arts, and it was absent.

Finally, the typical arts audience was frightened by over-consumption of and over-credence in Fauci-lies and -distortions, echoed by all the local "experts." 

Oh well.  Klaus Schwab's Great Reset/New World Order doesn't need the arts, which are filled with all that dead Western Culture stuff like Shakespeare and Bach.  That's stuff which is antithetical to the concept of the New Man of Artificial Intelligence, anyway.

Screw 'em.