Theatres and concert halls, many of which are charities, were brought to a halt almost overnight by the first coronavirus lockdown in March 2020. Flagship venues including the Royal Opera House, the Royal Albert Hall, the National Theatre, the Royal Festival Hall, the Birmingham Symphony Hall and the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester closed their doors for months. The orchestras and theatre groups that would have performed in them – many of them also charities – were suddenly deprived of most of their work. It was a desperate time for both institutions and individual artists and performers: they were the first to be shut down and feared they would be the last to restart normal activities.

In July the DCMS announced a £1.5 billion fund to support culture, heritage and the arts, of which £500 million in grants and £270 million in loans were distributed to arts organisations by the Arts Council. A five-stage ‘roadmap’ was drawn up for a gradual return to live performance, but this was halted at stage two during the second lockdown in November: rehearsals and training were allowed, as were performances for broadcast and recording purposes, but no live audiences were permitted. Many charitable venues found alternative ways of reaching audiences: the National Theatre broadcast videos of past productions and asked for donations from people who watched them, and the Royal Albert Hall arranged a two-week programme of Promenade concerts without an audience and made them available on BBC television. Glyndebourne Opera performed in the open air in the summer. But it was going to be a long time before normal levels of activity and income were restored.

Arts charities divide into three rough groups. The first is the kind of organisation mentioned above: national or regional arts charities, often with some public funding, that provide art for art's sake and fulfil their main charitable purpose of ‘the advancement of arts, culture, heritage and science’ by providing high-quality cultural events to audiences from far and wide. Below this, a second layer consists of local arts charities that usually have additional purposes, including education, community development and the advancement of health.