Facebook and Agis – the Italian General Entertainment Association join forces, on the eve of World Theater Day on March 27, in a project to support the Italian cultural system, to encourage the recovery of the entertainment sector among the hardest hit by the crisis. to the Covid-19 pandemic. Theaters, cultural institutions and small and medium-sized enterprises in the culture sector have suffered from the prolonged suspension of live performances. Theater, opera, music and dance – according to Agis data – recorded a 76.7% decline in receipts in 2020, with a loss of approximately 583 million euros compared to the previous year. A higher decline, which is close to 80%, was also seen on the front of admissions, which went from almost 31 million people in 2019 to 6.2 million in 2020 mainly linked to outdoor shows in the summer season. The Facebook project in collaboration with Agis, in light of the current crisis, aims to give concrete support to this sector by providing numerous materials and digital tools to support digitization and recovery. It starts immediately with a section dedicated to culture within the online hub of #piccolegrandimprese – the broadest program promoted by Facebook to support the recovery of Italian SMEs.
In this section, various training materials and continuously updated on-demand video training will be made available, thanks to the contribution of partners such as Cultura Italia and PA Social. Furthermore, from the second part of April, the “Facebook Culture Open Days” will start, free webinars broadcast live from the Binario F Facebook page, with support and live-chat with Facebook experts and partners, designed to help businesses. to seize all the opportunities offered by digital. In addition to the training aspect, the project also includes an economic support program for the digitization of some operators in the live entertainment sector with the aim of helping them to create online events and monetize them, to concretely support them in the recovery. More information on this program and how to apply will be announced in the coming months. There are several tools that Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp make available to cultural companies, able to help give oxygen to these realities and to attribute value to all the work and commitment lavished in the artistic performances most appreciated by the public. Among these, the possibility of organizing and monetizing a live online event on Facebook, with the Paid Online Events tool, as done by the San Carlo Theater in Naples, which inaugurated the opera season by broadcasting the first of the Cavalleria Rusticana by Pietro Mascagni, making the event accessible to all at a price of just over 1 euro and reaching over 34,000 people from 80 countries.
Among the other possibilities offered by Facebook, moreover, that of launching fundraisers and donations in favor of a specific operator in the prose or dance music sector, or to use instant messaging tools such as WhatsApp and Messenger for a more direct contact. with their audience. “Aware that the culture sector, the flagship of our country, is going through a particularly delicate moment that risks compromising the sustainability of numerous theatrical institutions, we have decided to develop a project to help small and large companies to seize the opportunities offered. from digital – said Luca Colombo, Country Director of Facebook Italy – Facebook, together with a prestigious partner such as Agis, is therefore committed to concretely support the digital transformation of entertainment companies, a sector that brings together over 1,200 companies in Italy, through training and consultancy activities and free tools to manage paid events online “. “I am very proud of this partnership and of the fact that it sees us alongside a company known all over the world as Facebook – underlines Carlo Fontana, president of Agis – I believe this is a project with enormous potential, which comes at an extremely difficult time for the world of entertainment and which represents, waiting for a return to normalcy, a unique opportunity to support all our operators. We know that streaming can never replace the magic of a live show. But being able to increase the digital skills of our associates, promoting their work on the platform thanks to the generous support of Facebook, and supporting them concretely through a prize for their productions is undoubtedly, at this stage, an extremely important and innovative signal “.