WASHINGTON — What will the future post-pandemic look like? It seems like everyone is speculating about what the potential “new normal” will be.
Who would have a better than average idea on future possibilities? A futurist.
If you had no idea what a futurist is, they are consultants who advise businesses on potential future outcomes. In D.C., the Foresight Alliance specializes in forecasting future markets for clients
“We tell our clients there is no one singular future there are a whole range of futures,” said Christopher Kent, one of the founders of the Foresight Alliance.
Kent explained that when forecasting into the future after the coronavirus, it’s important to look for certain trends.
“Those permanent changes are ones that are accelerating trends that we already saw underway," Kent said.
To get a better idea of what we might experience we asked Kent to look at a few industries.
Restaurants
“In the short term, it’ll be hard to get people into restaurants,” he said.
Long term, he pointed out there’s been a trend away from “dining-in” for years.
“You see the rise of Door Dash, Grub Hub, Uber Eats that were all eating into 'dine-in' at restaurant experience,” he said.
In D.C., we’ve started to see restaurants like the legendary Sushi Taro will reopen only as a take-out restaurant.
Remember when dinner used to be followed by a movie?
Movie Theaters
“I think we are going to see the long-term decline of theaters,” he said.
Last month, Universal Studios released the “Trolls World Tour” on streaming service and it was a huge success. Kent said the straight-to-streaming could be more than just pandemic trend.
“The studio and theaters used to split the revenues about 50/50,” he said. “But by releasing straight-to-streaming it’s an 80/20 split in favor of the studios.”
We covered movie theaters. What about another major public space, like stadiums?
Sporting Events
“It’s hard to tell with sports events,” he said.
According to Kent, long term trends of attending live sports events don’t have a helpful past indicator to see what could be next.
“Sporting events numbers bounce up and down every year,” Kent explained.
It’s an unpredictable future. But, the past can tell us some things about what’s next.