Growing the audiences will benefit everyone

Ican’t help but notice that representatives of the Victoria Symphony keep repeating that the Royal and McPherson Theatres Society (itself a not-for-profit) had a $500,000 surplus last year. To manipulate numbers in this way is deliberately misleading.

Even an unsophisticated reader of financial statements will see that this “surplus” relates almost entirely to the capital fund of the theatres and not the operations of the Royal and McPherson Theatres Society.

The society does not own the theatres, but due to the funding that has been fixed for 20 year by the municipal owners (Saanich, Victoria and Oak Bay), surcharges on ticket sales are collected for the explicit purpose of maintaining and improving the theatres. These funds are restricted in their use and not available for the operations of the society.

Unless the symphony representatives would also like to rationalize to readers how they can claim the symphony is impoverished while its foundation sits on $10 million, the comments are plainly hypocritical.

The symphony receives more than $1.2 million each year in government grants for its annual operations, including more than $400,000 from the Capital Regional District and the City of Victoria. Together with the other two groups that will be most affected by these changes to scheduling at the Royal Theatre, they receive more than 30 per cent of the total CRD arts operating grants available.

With these funds, they inarguably add a lot to the community. But why should they continue to double-dip by having significantly discounted access to the Royal Theatre when the theatres society is clearly in need of an update to its own government funding?

These decisions by the RMTS are intended to increase the number of performance nights available at the Royal Theatre and to broaden attendance by offering more diversity. If the symphony were to think not only of themselves but of the arts community as a whole, symphony representatives would not be so shortsighted in their comments and they would support these changes.

Theatres and arts groups have a symbiotic relationship. Neither does well without the other. Growing audiences will only serve to benefit arts groups and residents of the CRD in the long run.