Seattle arts groups are laying off staff. What do arts lovers lose?

About 100 staffers at Seattle's Crocodile. At least 20% of Seattle International Film Festival's staff. About a dozen 5th Avenue Theatre Company employees.

The list goes on.

In the past six months, some of Seattle's biggest arts organizations have laid off employees amid financial troubles attributed to rising costs, attendance swings and lagging subscriptions.

If anyone thought the cultural sector was rid of its postpandemic woes, they've had to adjust their perspective: So far, 2026 has seemed like one long aftershock.

About 250 local arts workers have been laid off between October and April - which only reflects publicly announced job cuts.

That number represents a fraction of all King County museum and performing arts jobs. But the cuts impact real people and may have long-term trickle-down effects for Seattle arts lovers and the sector at large.

Arts leaders say this is one symptom of a broader financial Catch-22 for arts organizations: Costs are careening out of control, but the nonprofit model - which has long relied on subscriptions, grants and donations to produce and stage labor-intensive creative works like theater shows and symphonies - hasn't fundamentally changed.

And that has led to tough conversations and difficult decisions.

"It's not just about pandemic recovery or downtown recovery. It's also a real reckoning for organizations," said Kate Nagle-Caraluzzo, executive director of Town Hall Seattle. She's also co-chair of the Arts and Culture CEO Roundtable, a group of local arts leaders that meets monthly to discuss issues facing the sector.

"There's been a lot of leadership transition over the last five to seven years. Regionwide, we're really grappling with how many arts and culture institutions can be sustained in the city and in the region."

Trickle-down effects

On a personal level, these layoffs bring grief and financial instability. The loss of a job you trained and worked your whole life for.

For audiences and artists, the results will vary.

When the Crocodile's Here-After and Madame Lou's closed late last year, fledgling bands and comedians lost two launchpads in a city where those are already vanishingly rare. Fans lost two places to see both up-and-coming acts and touring artists from around the world.

With SIFF's downsized staff, cinema buffs can expect less extracurricular programming and its film festival showing on fewer screens than usual.

The 5th Avenue Theatre already is producing fewer local shows with local talent. Executive and Artistic Director Bill Berry warned in March that The 5th may have to rely more heavily on touring shows if its current fundraising campaign isn't successful.

"To create things that are for Seattle, by Seattle, that's what's at risk, Berry said at the time.

On a sectorwide level, it can be difficult to say what the short-term and long-term effects will be.

Layoffs at other theaters threaten the entire community's artist pool, said Adam Immerwahr, the artistic director of Issaquah's and Everett's Village Theatre. He likened live theater to grapes: "They thrive in clusters."

"The ecology of theater in our community must be healthy for any of our theaters to thrive," he said. "You can't make a living as an actor in Seattle if there aren't a lot of theaters hiring actors. Nor can you make a living as a percussionist for theater or a spotlight operator or a lighting designer, any other position."

In the long term, he worries that artists could leave town or take day jobs that would preclude them from professional theater work that requires daytime rehearsals, for example.

Michael Greer, president and CEO of statewide arts advocacy and grant-making nonprofit ArtsFund, said laid-off arts workers will likely struggle to immediately find new work, similar to tech workers in Seattle.

"The arts sector doesn't have the ability to absorb new employment in a short period of time," he said. "It will be difficult in the short term."

Local theater artist Shana Bestock said there are artistic impacts, too.

Before being laid off in March, she worked as an artistic associate at Union Arts Center, where she focused on education programs, collaborated with community partners, worked on season planning and led the nonprofit's new works program. That full-time job allowed Bestock to take risks as leader of Penguin Productions, a small theater nonprofit serving youth in the Seattle area, without the expectation of a monetary return.

"Without that full-time job, my relationship to my small org shifts," she said. "Am I able to give it the kind of time? Do I need it to make me money?

"I think there's a lot of folks who similarly look at the other ways in which they contribute to our arts ecosystem with the loss of that stability."

She's not sure what's next for her. There are gigs, sure. Do these pay for gas and groceries? Maybe. Do these include health care? Likely not.

Bestock says "stability" is the word we should focus on.

"How can we plan seasons that are forward-looking in an exciting way," she said, "and not like, ‘Oh my god, if we fail at this season, we're done.' How can we stabilize so that we can really move forward?"

What's the problem?

Most organizations point to one culprit familiar to anyone living in Seattle: rising costs.

Expenses for just about everything - from wages to concession supplies to set materials - are rising faster than revenue. And even as single-ticket sales have risen, exceeding prepandemic numbers for some groups, Greer said arts organizations can't keep up.

"Even when demand is strong, and people are coming back into theaters and spaces, the cost of delivering that work, especially around staffing, has increased significantly," he said.

"People are in theaters and coming to performances, it's just that the cost of putting on performances is greater. It's always been greater than ticket price, and philanthropy (has traditionally made) up the difference. As costs increase, the delta between ticket price and actual cost is getting greater, putting more strain on organizations and philanthropy."

The slow recovery of subscriptions is making things worse, creating financial pressure that single-ticket sales can't compensate for. For many organizations, especially those in the performing arts, subscriptions remain the biggest missing piece.

In early March, The 5th announced it was laying people off and launched a fundraising push, pointing to the lack of a stable cash flow due to lagging subscriptions. While The 5th's subscriptions are up from previous years, numbers are still about half of where they were prepandemic.

Even at Village Theatre, which has seen 20% year-over-year subscription growth this year and is adding jobs, subscription numbers trail a pre-COVID tally by about 28%.

"Those subscription bases are, of course, central," said Immerwahr. "They save you marketing costs because you don't have to try to sell all those tickets. They sort of guarantee you a baseline that can also then spread word-of-mouth. And, of course, they just lock in a lot of sales."

Midsize to larger organizations that have historically relied on subscriptions to help finance expensive, labor-intensive performances are especially at risk right now.

Smaller organizations can sometimes adapt by relying more on volunteers or contract labor, but large organizations with fixed staffing costs don't have that flexibility, said Bestock, whose position was recently cut amid financial strain at Union Arts Center (formed when ACT Contemporary Theatre and Seattle Shakespeare Company merged last year).

King County's major new grant program, Doors Open, has been especially helpful for smaller organizations, Bestock said.

"There has been a huge, beautiful influx of cash that, to some of the larger theaters, was helpful but not transformative - and to the smaller theaters was game-changing and has allowed for a tremendous vitality of work to exist," Bestock said.

Multiple larger organizations have had to use this funding, as well as philanthropic contributions, to fill gaps in their operating budgets rather than as booster money to create new work or do essential long-term planning.

According to ArtsFund data, fundraising from private donors, corporations and foundations, rather than from ticket sales, now makes up about 7% more of organizational budgets compared with prepandemic figures.

Whether those donations have risen in recent years depends on which organizations you ask; philanthropic funds are down for some, up for others and stable for the rest.

Regardless, arts leaders across the board agree: It's not enough to meet a rising need.

"Philanthropy is doing what it can to keep up. But these are huge numbers - just our grantees alone need $600 million of contributed revenue annually," ArtsFund's Greer said. "A 10% shift means $60 million every year of additional philanthropic revenue to maintain current budgets."

What do people want?

A separate but related question is plaguing arts leaders right now: What do audiences want?

Cultural and generational shifts took place during the pandemic. Evolving with them has not been straightforward.

"We're still trying to understand shifting tastes and preferences - testing, retesting, recalibrating," Greer said. "Organizations need time to reassess what their communities want, and that time is directly related to financial runway."

For Immerwahr, the route to success at Village Theatre involves investing in "artistic excellence" and carefully polling its audience and selecting shows that support both subscription retention and single-ticket sales. He's also monitoring demographic shifts in what audiences consider "classic" productions, which are the kind of blockbusters that can help anchor season subscriptions.

"So now 'Grease' maybe is the classic that 'Camelot' would have been 15 years ago," Immerwahr said.

The strategy seems to be working.

While still operating with a deficit from the pandemic, Immerwahr said the theater is exceeding budget expectations and anticipates becoming cash flow positive within a few years, thanks to record-breaking single-ticket sales and subscriber-base growth.

And the theater is bucking the trend: It will be adding jobs within administrative and marketing departments in the next few months and has added jobs in the prop shop, paint shop and wig staffing over the past couple of years.

A Seattle Times analysis of recent layoffs in the arts sector in the city shows that scores of full-time and part-time jobs have been cut since October.

* Oct. 30, 2025: Seattle music venue The Crocodile announces the closure of its two smaller music venues, cutting 100 jobs.

* Jan. 6, 2026: The Seattle International Film Festival lays off three admin staffers after broader layoffs in the summer of 2025.

* Jan. 23, 2026: With the abrupt closures of Seattle and Chicago shows by Seattle-founded Teatro ZinZanni, 90 operational staffers and two dozen performers are out of work.

* Jan. 30, 2026: Tacoma Arts Live announces it is up for sale. Most of its 17 full-time staffers and about 16 part-time employees are expected to either resign before the end of June or get laid off before then.

* March 6, 2026: The 5th Avenue Theatre Company announces the elimination of about 14 out of 55 staff positions amid cash flow problems.

* March 7, 2026: Pacific Science Center lays off nine staff members, reducing staff from 171 to 162 as PacSci prepares to sell a chunk of its property.

* Mid-March 2026: Union Arts Center, formed from the 2025 merger of ACT Contemporary Theatre and Seattle Shakespeare Company, eliminates two roles amid restructuring.

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"Look, nobody knows what's going on with people wanting to attend live events. Certain live events are doing very well, certain live events are not," said Josef Krebs, a longtime local arts consultant. "Some organizations are very successful, others are not."

Krebs argued arts organizations are in a difficult position these days. They're not just competing with other arts organizations; they're competing with TV shows people can watch at home. With dining. Movies. Travel. Social media. Live music.

"There's so much competition for people's time. You have to give people not just a medium good time, but a really big, good time. People need to figure out what their audiences want and give it to them. Not bad, pablum art sold like frozen vegetables."

Nagle-Caraluzzo, of Town Hall and the Arts and Culture CEO Roundtable, sees the local arts scene at an existential crossroads.

Even the organizations that are doing well are having trouble keeping pace with the growth of their expenses, she said.

Groups are also reckoning with what they're offering right now and what their organizations are at their hearts, she said. Catering to evolving, younger audiences is a constantly shifting puzzle.

"A lot of orgs are looking at mission and value and, ‘Are we shifting our programming? Are we finding new audiences? Do we still have people to serve?' "

So local arts leaders are discussing creative solutions to survive: mergers. Shared programming. A "fundamental change to the nonprofit model.

These are tough but necessary conversations, Nagle-Caraluzzo said.

"We can't continue to see organizations roll away."

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This coverage is partially underwritten by the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust. The funder plays no role in editorial decision-making, and The Seattle Times maintains editorial control over this and all its coverage.

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