The toll Victoria's first coronavirus lockdown has taken on the state's arts and entertainment venues has been laid bare, with visitor numbers down by their millions.
A series of annual reports tabled in state parliament on Thursday showed attendance figures plummeted for the National Gallery of Victoria, Arts Centre and Melbourne Museum after they were shut down in mid-March as the pandemic hit.
NGV visitors fell from 2,936,480 to 2,072,968 over the 2019-20 financial year, with the gallery's surplus dropping from $5.7 million to $2.5 million.
The Melbourne Arts Centre's attendance was similarly down by more than a million - falling from 3,355,000 in 2018-19 to 2,234,000 in 2019-20 - as events decreased from 2475 to 1438.
In its financial overview, the Victorian Arts Centre Trust said it had been "significantly impacted" by the pandemic.
"Ordinarily, up to 80 per cent of revenues are self-generated and are reliant on an open and thriving arts centre," it said.
"As a result of the loss of more than a quarter of the year's trading, trading revenues are 26.9 per cent below F2019 levels, at $51.3 million."
Citing the impacts of COVID-19, the centre recorded an operating loss of $2.2 million.
Venues under the banner of Museums Victoria - Australia's largest public museum group - shed about 1,280,000 visitors year on year.
Melbourne Museum (1,106,169 to 754,309), Scienceworks (506,342 to 369,194), IMAX (224,903 to 170,199) and the Immigration Museum (135,372 to 85,621) were all impacted.
Museums Victoria posted an annual net deficit of $34.16 million, with $33.5 million in depreciation expenses.
The Melbourne Recital Centre also welcomed about 60,000 fewer visitors, putting on only 384 events in 2019-20 compared to 601 in the previous financial year.
Victoria's State Library, meanwhile, was on track to meet its visitation target of 2,250,000 until the shutdown dropped it to 1,654,715, about 236,000 below what it was in 2018-19.
One of Victoria's few major venues to dodge the bulk of the COVID-19 fallout was the Australian Centre for the Moving Image Director, which was closed in May last year as part of a $40 million renewal project.
ACMI director and chief executive Katrina Sedgwick said the timing was "fortunate".
"The trauma many of our peers have been facing due to the abrupt closures of cultural institutions has not impacted us in the same way," she wrote.
Ms Sedgwick said the pandemic had wrought a "devastating impact" on the creative industries, particularly the arts sector.
"So much of what we do is about gathering people together in a shared space to explore ideas and share stories," she wrote.
"It will take many years for the sector to recover."
Australian Associated Press
