State officials announced this week that after nearly a year of being shutdown, arts and entertainment venues in New York City can begin reopening at 33% capacity on April 2nd, with an indoor max of 100-150 attendees. Capacity for indoor events will be limited to 100 people no matter the venue size, unless that venue can administer COVID-19 tests to all attendees, in which case the limit is increased to 150 people.

If tests are administered for an outdoor venue, that number will rise from 200 to 500 attendees.

The announcement was a surprise to some in the arts sector, many of whom have spent months lobbying the state to loosen restrictions for their industry, as it had been for restaurants and other establishments.

"It seems almost out of nowhere," Kambri Crews, owner of Q.E.D. Astoria (which hosts live comedy performances, classes, and political action events) told Gothamist.

As of Thursday, the city's seven day positivity rate is still above 6%, while it was below 1.5% last August. This week a former advisor for President Biden’s COVID-19 transition team told us that Governor Andrew Cuomo’s decision to relax public health restrictions is coming too soon, noting the new variants spreading across the country.

"Venues are being reopened now indoors when numbers are still more than four times higher than in the summer, when we asked [to reopen] outdoors," Crews said. "This tells me the governor isn't operating with science or metrics as a guide." (It was only a few weeks ago that Cuomo said during a press conference, "When I say ‘experts’ in air quotes, it sounds like I’m saying I don’t really trust the experts. Because I don’t.")

And so, just because it is now possible for venues to resume live shows and other programming, it doesn't mean every place feels equipped to reopen yet, with some choosing to take a wait-and-see approach for now.

"Obviously any news about a path forward, even a limited capacity one, is great considering where we were just over a month ago," said Dennis Dennehy, spokesperson for AEG Presents and Bowery Presents, which manages bookings at Forest Hills Stadium, Terminal 5, Webster Hall, Brooklyn Steel, Music Hall of Williamsburg and more. "That said, we remain focused as of right now on fully reopening when we can do shows at 100% capacity. It just doesn’t make sense for us to do anything with limited capacity."

While he left open the possibility that some individual artists might decide to eat their losses to do a couple of one-off shows at big venues, he said it ultimately wasn't efficient for them to be back until they can play to full houses.

This is a sentiment shared by Stephen Schwarz, general manager of Brooklyn Bowl in Williamsburg, which has the capacity to fit just under 1,000 people. "We're excited to hear that indoor music venues are able to host shows, I think it's a step in the right direction, but for us, it would be very challenging to do it at the reduced capacity," he told Gothamist.

Schwarz said he plans on observing the rest of the industry to see what best practices emerge in the coming months, pointing to the complexity of the check-in process for audiences in the immediate future, when not everyone is vaccinated yet.

"We're still very concerned about health and safety of our guests, musicians and staff," he said. "We're only doing webcasts and video shoots right now, and we're doing testing for everyone beforehand or on site. But it's really very challenging when you open that up to the public. Trying to make sure everyone has the right test within the right time frame, and has proof on the way in, I imagine it would be challenging checking people in."

Doreen Cugno, president & CEO of The St. George Theater on Staten Island, said Cuomo's announcement this week was a total surprise. While she called it a step in the right direction, and was happy for smaller venues, it doesn't do much for venues like St. George, which has canceled or postponed 130 shows since closing on March 12th, 2020. With 1,900 seats, they could barely get to 5% capacity under the current rules; anything less than 50% capacity is financially untenable for them.

And even if the state increased capacity to allow for more than 100-150 attendees, Cugno isn't sure they would be ready to open yet. "If they told us we could open today with 50% capacity, my question would be: is the community ready? Are people ready to sit in an indoor venue with large capacity?"

Instead, she told us, "I really foresee us opening in the fall when the majority of folks are vaccinated, rates are going down, and people are feeling more comfortable to go out. I don't think now is the right time for a large venue such as ours to open with the state we're in. I wish! I'm just being realistic."

For mid-level capacity venues like Bowery Ballroom and Mercury Lounge, things are complicated by the social distancing guidelines: owner Michael Swier told the Times that "given that social distancing is still part of the metric, it brings us back down to an approximate 20 percent capacity, which is untenable."

Blue Note, the beloved jazz club in Greenwich Village, similarly said that they couldn't justify reopening with just 66 seats available for a show. The Joyce Theater, a dance performance venue in Chelsea, also isn't sure if it makes financial sense to open up until capacity levels are increased.

Caroline Hirsch, owner of comedy venue Carolines on Broadway, told Gothamist they won't be reopening yet. The current rules do "not work financially for most at a reduced capacity given the expenses and capital to run a business in NYC," she said. "There is still so much uncertainty, but we are at least on [the state's] radar."

There are some venues that plan to put on shows more immediately: Michael Dorf, owner of City Winery, told Gothamist, “We plan to open April 2nd with nightly concerts for 100 very lucky audience members. This will be in our new venue, seated and distance controlled between parties, so it is done as safely as possible. We will be using Clear HealthPass along with our ticketing program to foster the safest environment possible.”

Lincoln Center and the Glimmerglass Festival have announced plans to host outdoor shows in the coming months; NY PopsUp producers Scott Rudin and Jane Rosenthal told the Times that they expect there will be some pop-up programs inside Broadway theaters and non profit venues like the Apollo Theater, St. Anne's Warehouse, the Shed and more. At this time, however, Broadway plays and musicals likely won't resume until the fall at the earliest.

As for Q.E.D. Astoria, owner Kambri Crews said they plan to put on shows in their outdoor area for now weather-permitting; if the weather is bad out, they may try to bring shows inside, but she prefers keeping events outside as long as possible until people, including her staff, can get vaccinated.

"A place like Q.E.D. is small enough to begin with that between that and our bookshop and classes and things, it's doable for us, especially if I don't pay myself," Crews said, noting that they could only have 25 people indoors at 33% capacity. "For a large theater, I don't know exactly what the overhead is, but I can't imagine it's easy to break even, let alone make a profit at that rate."

State Senator Michael Gianaris, who worked with Crews and others to come up with a proposal to safely reopen late last summer, said he too was caught by surprise by this week's sudden announcement.

"This whole experience has been very arbitrary," he told Gothamist, noting that the arts reopening plan has languished on the governor's desk for months after getting cleared by various other state agencies. "It's a good thing there some path to some level of activity now, but there's no reason why the plan that we put forward is not actually being implemented, because it's well thought out, safe for the public, and helps businesses continue to operate in a successful manner."

"There's a lot of distractions right now," he added. "But I intend to continue to stress that the plan we submitted is a better model for saving the businesses."