Stratford braces for virus fallout
Community’s economy heavily linked to annual festival that’s been put on hold
It seems only yesterday that Canada’s Stratford Festival began hiring summer help for its upcoming season.
The Western Hemisphere’s largest theatrical event was seeking a variety of temporary employees: bartenders, call-centre agents, culinary staff, ushers, gardeners and parking lot attendants, all of them necessary in ensuring the success of an ambitious 14-show season whose operating budget now exceeds $60 million and which, at its peak, employs more than 1,000 people.
But a few days later, on March 13, everything began to change. The festival announced cancellation of 15 April previews as coronavirus continued its spread. And last Friday it announced further cancellations to the end of May — a move that effectively cancels a gala season launching scheduled for the final week of that month.
Similar shutdowns are happening across Canada, forcing the country’s performing arts sector — both commercial entities such as Toronto’s powerful Mirvish Productions, and non-profit institutions like Stratford — into crisis mode.
The threat to the artistic community is substantial: it may even prove catastrophic for some particularly vulnerable organizations. But there is also a larger economic impact that may too easily be overlooked as we try to assess the price that a crisis of this nature exacts.
The 67-year-old Stratford Festival is a microcosm of the wider issues at stake everywhere. It drives the region’s tourist economy during its seven-month season, and even a five per cent shortfall in its projected revenues can lead to a seven-figure deficit.
A new facility is ready to join the festival’s family of theatres. The reborn Tom Patterson Theatre, an intimate, state-of-the art playhouse named after the festival’s founder, was to highlight of the summer season’s late May launching. Now, everything is on hold.
The festival has a capable administration and a powerful board. But senior officials are clear-eyed about the current situation. The May shutdown affects not only performances but the rehearsals which began earlier this year and have been continuing in the midst of a growing crisis. The festival has now moved to protect an acting company that was set to top the 140 mark before the season would end in November. Its suspension of rehearsals is an acknowledgment of the reality that social distancing is not compatible with the needs of the rehearsal process.
Artistic director Antoni Cimolino recently said that, in preparation for a landmark season, he has “watched our staff, artists and crew come together as never before. It is tragic to call even a temporary halt to their beautiful work, but the situation is beyond our control.”
Executive director Anita Gaffney said that the festival had explored every possible scenario in an effort to avoid the shutdown — “but we simply can’t go on with no revenue coming in. Fortunately our discussions with government have led to an extension of employment insurance benefit to workers who have previously not qualified.”
Both Cimolino and Gaffney have vivid memories of the 2003 SARS crisis which affected tourism in Ontario and confronted the festival with a potential sea of red ink. But as the SARS threat receded, a marketing blitz, bolstered by $400,000 in special SARS recovery funding, saw it end its season with a $300,000 surplus. Niagara-on-the-Lake’s Shaw Festival, which has also cancelled early performances this spring, was less fortunate 17 years ago — it incurred a $3-million deficit.
Cimolino, Stratford’s executive director at the time, was acquiring first-hand knowledge of the domino effect that a major health crisis could have. He recognized
Our hope is that the worst will pass and we will be able to launch our season to healthy and eager audiences soon.
that a crippling shortfall in festival revenues was only the beginning. “These things don’t happen alone,” he told Postmedia back then. “Reduced audiences mean less marketing revenue, less theatre store earnings, fewer donations. It happens across the board.” And beyond that there was the impact on the community — on hotels and motels, bed and breakfasts, restaurants and local merchants.
Such was the situation in an earlier decade. Today, thanks to the coronavirus, the implications are far more ominous. A recent Conference Board of Canada Economic Impact study tells it all. For every festival ticket purchased an average $278 is spent in the local community.
Or at least that’s what should be happening in the best of possible worlds with an arts institution that can half a million theatregoers from Canada and abroad over a seven-month season.
Gaffney has been blunt in saying the cancellation of performances would “have a multimillion-dollar impact on our organization and the wider tourism economy — however we believe it is the responsible thing to do.”
But she’s also managing to think positively: the festival is in a holding pattern until it can resume preparations for the 2020 season.
“Our hope is that the worst will pass and we will be able to launch our season to healthy and eager audiences soon.”