THEJames Bond’s mission is no longer just to save the world but cinemas, the cinema itself and why not all of culture. To die can wait, twenty-fifth episode of the saga, comes out Wednesday, October 6, and whether Agent 007 is in good shape is not the subject here. He must restore confidence, embody a newfound happiness (stretched on the screen at 2:43 a.m. all the same) after almost twenty months of Covid-19 and especially a black September.
Because the start of the school year was not that of renewal. Part of the audience still does not return. In a survey on the world of entertainment, published in The echoes September 29, Martine Robert gives figures in the shape of a cold shower.
Those that we gleaned, in all sectors, are of the same barrel, that is to say from 10% to 70% of decrease in attendance compared to September 2019. Private theaters are the most affected, confirms Bertrand Thamin, president of the National Union of private theater, most members living in a situation “Unforeseen and tragic”, especially since ticket reservations for the near future are not taking off.
It’s slightly better in subsidized theaters. Large museums suffer, among other things, from the absence of tourists. The Paris Opera has posted a 20% drop in reservations for the coming season. And the cinemas are doing very badly: – 51% in September compared to the same period of 2019.
Offer heavy
The fault of the sanitary pass? Has domestic culture been in vogue for eighteen months? Offer problem? Question of trust? Probably all of that.
Many are now banking on mid-October, others are talking about the end of the year, or even further. But the obligation of the health pass for 12-17 year olds since September 30 and the possibility of a sesame extended until the summer of 2022 will not make things easier. The mask either.
It is not just an audience that is always absent. There is the gap between a few works and cultural places that are emerging, for example at the Philharmonie de Paris and the Opéra-Comique, and the ocean of supply in the doldrums. This two-speed attendance is not new, but it is increasing. To hang on to the wagon of success, you have to offer something heavy. Big names. Spectacular. An original poster. The Morozov brothers’ art collection, which has just opened at the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris, shows reservations “Superior”, we are told, to those of the Shchoukine exhibition, which triumphed in 2017.
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