Reopening the Performing Arts - PARAS
Lead Participant:
CHARCOALBLUE LLP
Abstract
This project - PARAS - creates a unique and data-led approach to quantifying audience accommodation and experience in arts and entertainment venues to enable all facilities to have confidence in reopening.
Getting venues safely reopened with public and performer health protected and financial sustainability assured requires careful planning.
A critical part of that planning is working out how many seats can be sold, how the auditorium will work in a compliant way with those seats, what the yield might be and therefore how much money is available to create a production and provide an adequate surplus/profit to reward the investment and risk.
To reopen venues -- it has to be worthwhile to the operator and exciting for audiences. PARAS will give them that confidence.
Juggling these parameters is something every theatre producer does and is expert at when all seats are available.
But without being able to calculate auditorium capacities readily, without being able to be confident of compliant safety in operation, without a way of quantifying the impact these will on audience experience and without a way to adjust those parameters as public health guidance changes (e.g. 2m social distancing reducing to 1m+) -- it is highly challenging for operators to assess the feasibility of their production or venue. It is no longer instinctive. And therefore inaction is easier than reopening. Awaiting a vaccine appears to be the only route to a return to profitable operation.
A data-led approach is therefore required to unlock this uncertainty and to demonstrate a route back to profitable operation, albeit on adjusted terms.
PARAS (the Performing Arts Reopening Algorithmic Strategy) will provide a means to model this rapidly at low or no cost in 2D; or with additional functionality and fine tuning of parameters in 3D. It will contribute significantly to venues being able to open sustainably as soon as possible.
It will create a unique and data-led approach to quantifying audience experience in arts and entertainment venues which will allow informed decisions on the impact of social distancing and future infection control measures to be made dynamically, to maximise both quality of audience experience and quantity of audience able to attend.
The code writing and auditorium algorithms are innovation that will enable the broadest access to the necessary expertise and will build upon Charcoalblue's experience not only in venue reconfiguration, but also in automated room design and guidance for video conference and collaboration spaces.
As far as we are aware, there is no such facility being offered anywhere else in the world.
Getting venues safely reopened with public and performer health protected and financial sustainability assured requires careful planning.
A critical part of that planning is working out how many seats can be sold, how the auditorium will work in a compliant way with those seats, what the yield might be and therefore how much money is available to create a production and provide an adequate surplus/profit to reward the investment and risk.
To reopen venues -- it has to be worthwhile to the operator and exciting for audiences. PARAS will give them that confidence.
Juggling these parameters is something every theatre producer does and is expert at when all seats are available.
But without being able to calculate auditorium capacities readily, without being able to be confident of compliant safety in operation, without a way of quantifying the impact these will on audience experience and without a way to adjust those parameters as public health guidance changes (e.g. 2m social distancing reducing to 1m+) -- it is highly challenging for operators to assess the feasibility of their production or venue. It is no longer instinctive. And therefore inaction is easier than reopening. Awaiting a vaccine appears to be the only route to a return to profitable operation.
A data-led approach is therefore required to unlock this uncertainty and to demonstrate a route back to profitable operation, albeit on adjusted terms.
PARAS (the Performing Arts Reopening Algorithmic Strategy) will provide a means to model this rapidly at low or no cost in 2D; or with additional functionality and fine tuning of parameters in 3D. It will contribute significantly to venues being able to open sustainably as soon as possible.
It will create a unique and data-led approach to quantifying audience experience in arts and entertainment venues which will allow informed decisions on the impact of social distancing and future infection control measures to be made dynamically, to maximise both quality of audience experience and quantity of audience able to attend.
The code writing and auditorium algorithms are innovation that will enable the broadest access to the necessary expertise and will build upon Charcoalblue's experience not only in venue reconfiguration, but also in automated room design and guidance for video conference and collaboration spaces.
As far as we are aware, there is no such facility being offered anywhere else in the world.
Lead Participant | Project Cost | Grant Offer |
|---|---|---|
Participant |
||
| CHARCOALBLUE LLP |
People |
ORCID iD |
| Andy Hayles (Project Manager) |