“These past few months… patrons are once again filling up the rows of concert halls and theaters,” writes Michael Andor Brodeur in Saturday’s (7/23) Washington Post. But “the rich, thick, glossy, palm-filling printed programs of pre-pandemic days have become harder and harder to find…. Digital programs are increasingly sprouting up as the heir apparent to the printed programs…. The [Bethesda-based National] Philharmonic was spending roughly $20,000 a year … on printing programs for its concerts…. When the pandemic hit, priorities changed.… The digital program, meanwhile, offered a level of flexibility…. ‘If there’s any mistake [or] a last-minute change … we can do that literally moments before the concert starts,’ [President and CEO Jim] Kelly says…. [At] the Kennedy Center, … Eileen Andrews, the arts center’s vice president of public relations, says … the calculation behind their full-scale migration to digital programs over the past two years … was about [reducing] ‘the total amount of paper consumption’ … For the fall season, the Kennedy Center will produce limited runs of streamlined printed programs… But the center intends to refine and improve its digital program platform.… Similarly … the National Philharmonic will limit its output of printed programs.”
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