Even as capacities grow, Evers realizes that Wis entertainment and travel biz still need help.

A lot of us are excited that the large reduction of COVID cases will let us use more entertainment options this Summer and Fall. Wisconsin sports teams are returning to full capacity, including the Bucks for the playoffs, and the Brewers tomorrow.

In addition, I got an email from the alma mater yesterday which shows that they see no problems with packing the house when students comes back next Fall.

It's time to Jump Around!

Camp Randall will be back at full capacity and we can't wait

⬇️ Ticket Info https://t.co/ynbGmigqTI pic.twitter.com/Ugr0V8vqCh

— Wisconsin Football (@BadgerFootball) June 23, 2021

In addition, Summerfest looks to be ready to go on full-bore in September and more movie theatres have reopened in recent months, along with more new movies being released to theatres. But that doesn’t mean those sectors of entertainment are close to returning to pre-COVID levels, and a lot of jobs and venues are still at risk halfway through 2021.

If you look at movie box office numbers, each June since 2008 had over $1 billion in ticket sales, until we got to 2020. And while many more movie theatres are open compared to this time last year, Box Office Mojo reports that we just passed $1/4 billion in ticket sales for June, leaving the US down well over 70% on a daily revenue basis.

On another entertainment front, live music shows are finally coming back, but that’s only happened recently and still not at the levels that we saw before the pandemic. As today’s article by Bruce Murphy in Urban Milwaukee points out, while the Summerfest grounds might be getting shows and stimulus funds, many other live music places are still waiting for both business and assistance.

The irony is not lost on Gary Witt. The CEO of the Pabst Theater Group, who helped lobby Congress to create the $16 billion Shuttered Venue Operators Grant to reimburse entertainment venues across the nation, has yet to get a dollar of that dough. Nor have the vast majority of venues nationally and across the state, some of them small operations teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.

But Summerfest, the big kahuna of local concert promoters is among the few that got aid, a windfall of $10 million in federal pandemic aid, the maximum allowed by the program, and far more than any other organization in the state.

…it was the group co-founded by Witt, the National Independent Venues Association (NIVA), that successfully lobbied Congress to create the special pandemic aid program, which passed last December. Since then the money has been delayed by a confluence of issues, leaving concert venues desperate for money. Witt told Rolling Stone magazine that due to the pandemic the Pabst Theater Group lost 97 percent of its annual revenue and he lost nearly all of his life savings.

“I feel confident that we will survive,” he tells Urban Milwaukee. “But will the Cactus Club or Club Garibaldi or Shank Hall?”

Shank Hall, he notes, just received its grant, as did the Rave. But they are the exceptions. As of Monday, the SBA reported that 1,445 grants had been awarded for a total of $833.4 million, CNBC reported. All told, 7,118 applications remain in the submitted phase and 5,853 are in review. The combined requests yet to be processed represent $11.6 billion in grants.

These Wisconsin entertainment venues still have to pay rent and other fixed bills in the meantime, which is why it was likely a welcome sight for them to see this news out of the Governor’s office today.

Gov. Tony Evers today announced more than $140 million in grants to businesses and organizations that play an integral role in Wisconsin's tourism and entertainment industries. The new grant programs will be invested in industries hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, including live event venues, movie theaters, summer camps, minor league sports, and the lodging industry. Additional investments will be made in reopening Wisconsin historical sites and marketing support for Wisconsin's tourism industry…

These investments are being funded by the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA) and will be administered by the Wisconsin Department of Administration and the Department of Revenue.

Breakdown of @GovEvers plan to direct $140 million in ARPA money to state tourism and entertainment entities: pic.twitter.com/fSCc0UuKxz

— A.J. Bayatpour (@AJBayatpour) June 24, 2021

The lodging funds are also a reminder that even though the Dells and Door County may be seeing a rebound in business from leisure travelers and aren’t able to hire enough people to meet the demand, the convention business and other work-related travel is still way down, which means many hotels are still in need of help.

So even as COVID fades as a health barrier and as a barrier to some types of discretionary spending, a lot of the travel and entertainment industries are still in a significant hole. So if we want a large number of these spending options to be available to us in Wisconsin and the US for the 2nd half of 2021 and beyond, we need to support these places, both with our private dollars, and also with some public ones in the near term.