AUDIENCE

Mark Pullinger finds that, while venues' staff may be masked themselves, they're not requiring patrons to have face coverings or proof of vaccination (to be clear, they're following the lead of Boris Johnson's government), and he looks with envy at safety measures in Europe and New York. - Bachtrack

Then you're more likely to fall prey to manipulative tactics. To put it plainly, crowds aren't always wise. - NiemanLab

A very 2021 question - and the risk doesn't run one way. - The New York Times

It comes after Disney's successful theatrical release this month of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. - BBC

There's plenty of demand for seats from theatregoers within England, but the audience for midweek afternoon shows is almost entirely tourists from abroad, of whom (thanks to COVID) there are still very few. - The Guardian

Dream it and you can do it, or at least you can pretend to lift your own Oscar at the long-awaited museum. - Los Angeles Times

And it's not likely to change anytime soon. - The Atlantic

Online festival screenings have attracted large and enthusiastic new audiences for independent and artist-led film. The hybrid edition of Sundance 2021 reached an audience 2.7 times larger than the 2020 edition in Utah, with over 600,000 audience views. - Hyperallergic

"A large community of TikTok users have carved out a corner called 'BookTok'. BookTok influencers are predominantly teenagers and young women, … (and) when a book catches on among users (a common hashtag on BookTok videos is #TikTokMade­Me­ReadIt), the real-world results can be impressive." - Publishers Weekly

The phenomenon of self-publishing is often linked to online book production methods. However, there is a much richer history of self-publishing that goes further back than its digital counterpart. - The Conversation

Fear of COVID, to be more precise. "Even before you realise what you have done, anxious sideways looks will have been exchanged, the seeds of doubt sown. Coughing has become the equivalent of randomly shouting 'fire' in a theatre – a gesture guaranteed to provoke fear." - The Guardian

We were lucky to have access to livestreams from across the world in 2020. But: "Although the streamed productions I later saw live had flashes of revelation, those moments were few and far between in what was, on balance, limited by the medium: the subjective and inevitably narrow perspective of the camera, the engineered flattening of sound." - The...

The first Asian-led Marvel film "has been transformed into an unwilling test case for the future of box office blockbusters, fans' commitment to the increasingly bloated Marvel universe, and superhero movies in general." - CBC

A three-month trial at one of Belgium's largest hospitals involves selected mental health patients getting free visits — by prescription only! — to five of the capital's public art institutions." - Artnet

As of Sept. 1, any adult in Texas may carry a gun in public, concealed or not, without any license. Private businesses and venues may still ban guns and use metal detectors, but staffers worry that communicating this to some patrons will be, er, challenging. - KERA (Dallas)