Box office expenditure at theatre events in Italy 2019-2020, by month

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic hit the theatre sector in Italy hard in 2020. At the beginning of March 2020, as the country adopted a national lockdown to limit the spread of the virus, theatres and similar cultural venues had to stay close to the public. As a result, the expenditure at the box office in this sector stood at 542 thousand euros that month, dropping from nearly 18 million euros in February 2020. As the lockdown was eased in May, the box office spending gradually rose during the summer, reaching around 3.5 million euros in September 2020. However, due to a rise in COVID-19 infections, new emergency restrictions came into action in October, causing another significant drop in spending.