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CarLa Bryant’s family reunion would have celebrated its 46th straight meeting this year, but there will be no such gathering of the generations.
Too many of Bryant’s older relatives are still not ready to travel again.
“I’m not around too many people yet,” relatives told Bryant, 56, who lives in Prince William County and works for the Fairfax County government.
Eleven hundred miles away, in Fort Smith, Ark., Terry Davis, a 71-year-old retired Safeway manager, made his family’s reunion a priority. Although last year’s event was canceled because “we didn’t want to put the older people at risk,” this year, “people were adamant: ‘I’m not afraid, I’m coming,’ ” he said. “We’ve kind of gone on with normal life, especially things that are important to us.”
Two-and-a-half years into the coronavirus’s deadly spread, after nearly all government-imposed restrictions have been lifted, as many businesses urge or require workers to come back to their offices, President Biden declared last week that “the pandemic is over.”
Yet even as the passion to get back to normal overrides years of caution, many Americans remain conflicted and confounded about what activities are safe.
Americans are coming out of the pandemic in the same kind of dynamic disarray that marked its beginning, with a crazyquilt of contradictory decisions about how to spend their discretionary time and money:
Americans are flying again, but they’re not too keen on getting back aboard buses, subways and other public transit.
Concert tickets are being snapped up, but theater tickets, not so much.
In-person visits to medical doctors have returned to pre-pandemic levels, but mental health counseling remains overwhelmingly virtual.
The blizzard of decisions each person must make — even as the coronavirus remains highly contagious, although without nearly the severe or deadly effects it had in 2020 — can seem blinding…….
This year, the pop, rock, hip-hop, country and other concerts put on by Live Nation Entertainment, the country’s largest concert producer, are attracting the biggest audiences it’s ever seen, more than 20 percent over 2019’s attendance, according to company data.
Through this July, Live Nation had sold more than 100 million tickets, compared to 74 million during the same months of 2019, said Joe Berchtold, the company’s president.
“Everybody’s returned to pre-pandemic levels, across all venues, from small clubs to stadiums and festivals,” he said. That’s true across the concert industry, according to Pollstar, which collects box-office data nationwide.
The average number of tickets sold per show jumped above 2019 levels in the first half of this year, the data showed.
But among theaters, symphonies and other arts groups, many of which appeal to an older audience, the number of tickets sold this year is down by 32 percent compared to 2019, said Eric Nelson, who analyzes research for TRG Arts, a consultancy that tracks how more than 140 arts organizations in the United States and Canada fared through the pandemic.
On Broadway, the total audience was less than half the size last season as in the season before the pandemic.
This fall, to appeal to older patrons concerned that theaters had lifted mask mandates, some theaters added back weekly mask-required performances…….
Too many of Bryant’s older relatives are still not ready to travel again.
“I’m not around too many people yet,” relatives told Bryant, 56, who lives in Prince William County and works for the Fairfax County government.
Eleven hundred miles away, in Fort Smith, Ark., Terry Davis, a 71-year-old retired Safeway manager, made his family’s reunion a priority. Although last year’s event was canceled because “we didn’t want to put the older people at risk,” this year, “people were adamant: ‘I’m not afraid, I’m coming,’ ” he said. “We’ve kind of gone on with normal life, especially things that are important to us.”
Two-and-a-half years into the coronavirus’s deadly spread, after nearly all government-imposed restrictions have been lifted, as many businesses urge or require workers to come back to their offices, President Biden declared last week that “the pandemic is over.”
Yet even as the passion to get back to normal overrides years of caution, many Americans remain conflicted and confounded about what activities are safe.
Americans are coming out of the pandemic in the same kind of dynamic disarray that marked its beginning, with a crazyquilt of contradictory decisions about how to spend their discretionary time and money:
Americans are flying again, but they’re not too keen on getting back aboard buses, subways and other public transit.
Concert tickets are being snapped up, but theater tickets, not so much.
In-person visits to medical doctors have returned to pre-pandemic levels, but mental health counseling remains overwhelmingly virtual.
The blizzard of decisions each person must make — even as the coronavirus remains highly contagious, although without nearly the severe or deadly effects it had in 2020 — can seem blinding…….
This year, the pop, rock, hip-hop, country and other concerts put on by Live Nation Entertainment, the country’s largest concert producer, are attracting the biggest audiences it’s ever seen, more than 20 percent over 2019’s attendance, according to company data.
Through this July, Live Nation had sold more than 100 million tickets, compared to 74 million during the same months of 2019, said Joe Berchtold, the company’s president.
“Everybody’s returned to pre-pandemic levels, across all venues, from small clubs to stadiums and festivals,” he said. That’s true across the concert industry, according to Pollstar, which collects box-office data nationwide.
The average number of tickets sold per show jumped above 2019 levels in the first half of this year, the data showed.
But among theaters, symphonies and other arts groups, many of which appeal to an older audience, the number of tickets sold this year is down by 32 percent compared to 2019, said Eric Nelson, who analyzes research for TRG Arts, a consultancy that tracks how more than 140 arts organizations in the United States and Canada fared through the pandemic.
On Broadway, the total audience was less than half the size last season as in the season before the pandemic.
This fall, to appeal to older patrons concerned that theaters had lifted mask mandates, some theaters added back weekly mask-required performances…….
