Omicron settings deal cruel blow to creatives
Monday, 31 January 2022
Verity Johnson is an Auckland-based business owner, writer and columnist.
OPINION: I performed in two shows on the weekend. It was “business as usual” for us between the four, red velvet-lined walls of the stage I perform on.
Well, it’s business as usual if we usually did the show on a frozen lake, while a Bond villain machine-gunned the ice, and an ominous soundtrack screeched away in the background like someone putting a piano through a wood chipper.
Walking to work, I felt a suffocating, squeezing sensation around my ribs, which had nothing to do with the bubblegum pink corset I MC in.
When I got there, the manager was straightening tablecloths compulsively. We’d already had cancellations. We all sighed, grimly unsurprised, and the owner started blasting his “screw-it-it’s-the-apocalypse” playlist. Uncertainty clung to the air and climbed up your nose, like the stench of Red Bull and Lynx Africa that wafts out of the boys’ changing rooms.
**READ MORE:
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* Young, vaccinated and over the Covid-19 pandemic
**
Because, despite what the Government wants to blithely repeat, this is not business as usual for the arts, events and hospitality. And especially not for small businesses like ours which cross all three. There is no “usual” any more.
It’s not just the fact that it feels vaguely sacrilegious even being open. Like we’re rubbing up against our sparkly version of the Hippocratic oath. We exist to spray you with magic like an overly enthusiastic Fairy Godmother.
But being here is also a risk to you, in the same way being in any indoor venue where you take off your masks to drink is. And yet we need to work, and we need to spread joy and escapism more than ever right now.
So what do you say? Would you like a side of potential dread with your programme, madame? Some popcorn perhaps? It comes pre-salted with the tears of my late night terror!
And there is a lot of late night crying on the kitchen floor for entertainers right now. All work’s off, cancelled or postponed, and no one wants to schedule anything. Industry heavyweights came out last week to outline how catastrophic this is; we’ve cancelled our busiest time of year, we’re all contractors without salaries, and even if we keep running then audiences likely will stop coming out while community cases climb.
Oh, and the real jaw breaking punch in the face; there’s no wage subsidy at red.
No, the Government blithely announced, there’s no targeted industry support. Despite the fact that some businesses can operate in red relatively easily. Whereas for industries like ours, it’s like being kicked to the floor and someone jumping on your face while wearing stilettos.
It really gets the Zorb of Doom rolling through your head. We’re all now looking for other jobs – but the indifference stings. Oh you’re artists, society shrugs, go work in a supermarket for a bit.
And sure, we will. We’re not proud. But you can’t shake the feeling that the Government wouldn’t be so blasé if this was affecting civil servants in the same way. But civil servants contribute to the running of the country! I can hear you say. Yes, and the arts contribute to the running of humanity.
So if you’ve ever had your grief held in the strong arms of poetry. Or your nightmares about dying soothed by the ancient wisdom of philosophers. Or staggered through the deserts of heartbreak and drunk from the oasis of music … Then please, consider signing this petition on change.org calling for the wage subsidy for businesses who can’t operate under red.
We’re an essential service to humanity, lighthouses who guide you through the stormy, terrifying waters of living with sparkling clarity. In short, we’re exactly what you need right now.