You know who needs a bail out? Live music venues!

I know COVID World has existed for nearly 6 months in this part of the country, but I think we still haven’t come to grips with how far down in a hole we were, and in some places still are. This report that came out today from the Commerce Department gives an illustration about how much business certain sectors lost in the first half of 2020, and take a look at what’s happened to a couple of parts of the entertainment industry.

Channel 58 in Milwaukee recently gave a local flavor to this issue, illustrating how much has been taken away from live music venues in the 6 months of COVID-related shutdowns. The story starts off by talking to Gary Witt, the CEO of Milwaukee’s Pabst Theatre Group, which includes the Pabst, Riverside and Turner Hall venues downtown.

Between their five venues, the Pabst Theater Group does 700 shows every year in the city of Milwaukee.

Thirty-percent of the people attending the events come from below the state line.

"We also contribute about a quarter of a billion dollars to the city's economy, so people who come to town and stay in a hotel or rent a car or go out to a restaurant or go to a bar," he added….

Meanwhile, smaller venues in Milwaukee are worried they may be on the verge of shutting down.

"Trying to keep paying foundational bills and hope to make it through this very difficult time, there's venues across the country that are comparably sized that are closing," said Kelsey Kaufmann, owner of Cactus Club.

The Pabst group says there is a relatively easy way to keep Wisconsin’s live music places afloat during the pandemic - give state subsidies to keep them afloat, since they can't put on shows due to COVID-19 crowd limitations.

We've said it before and we'll say it again until we're heard by our state!!! Independent venues need help to survive as we remain closed for the foreseeable future. Keep contacting @GovEvers and let him know how important live entertainment is to you » https://t.co/xCkqLDKdQE pic.twitter.com/7XDsPQdgAx

— Pabst Theater Group (@PabstTheater) September 8, 2020

Witt is just one venue group out of more than 70 in the state who is part of Wisconsin's National Independent Venue Association.

The NIVA is petitioning Gov. Tony Evers to set aside less than $10 million of CARES Act funding for the Live Entertainment Grant Program, which would help venues get by until they can open again.

Remember that CARES allows Evers to hand out the money without having to wait on the Legislature, so some of the $200 million+ of Wisconsin’s CARES funds that hasn’t been designated could go to independent operators of live music places and other forms of live arts. The program can also be tailored to exclude publicly-funded and/or 5,000+-seat venues, since those places are often “paid-for” and/or can make up the money in a much easier fashion. 

 Compare this to the airline industry, which had their revenues go down by 78.5% in the first half of 2020, got $32 billion in bailouts from Congress, and is now asking for $25 billion more. We could bail out live music and arts venues that have lost even more of their business, at a fraction of the price, whether that's via individual states or some kind of Act of Congress. 

In the process, we would help a lot of entrepreneurs, save a lot of jobs, and help the survival of an industry that adds more to our society than a lot of other economic areas that have already gotten plenty of COVID-related assistance. Seems like a pretty good idea to me.