Luminato makes a bold bet on its future
“The Hearn is the future of Toronto,” says Jorn Weisbrodt.
That point will be made in the most dramatic way possible next June when the Luminato Festival transforms the gigantic decommissioned generating plant in the Port Lands into a massive — albeit temporary — arts centre.
To celebrate the 10th edition of the city’s annual arts festival, which will also be Weisbrodt’s last hurrah as artistic director, all the ticketed performances in the 2016 festival lineup will take place at the Hearn instead of existing theatres and music halls downtown.
And the festival hub featuring free concerts previously staged at David Pecaut Square will also get a spiffy new home: the newly renovated Union Station.
If the Hearn represents Toronto’s future, according to Weisbrodt, the reborn Union Station is the city’s front door.
This year’s Luminato was a test case, when the Hearn was used, as is, for a fundraising gala and for two raucous nights featuring Poland’s Unsound Festival.
That gave Weisbrodt the appetite to go much further. So for 2016 the festival, with a couple of high-end partners, will transform this dusty and abandoned old power plant into a public art centre. And he was able to win the support of key members of Luminato’s team: its new CEO, Anthony Sargent, and executive producer Clyde Wagner.
Working with the prestigious international theatre and acoustics consultants Charcoal blue and the adventurous Toronto architecture firm Partisans, Luminato will build a 1,500-seat theatre, a 2,000-seat music hall and a huge art gallery — as well as restaurants, bars, lobbies and washrooms.
For now, what’s being planned are temporary venues — but I think it’s safe to predict this is just the first step to creating a permanent home for Luminato at the Hearn.
No one at Luminato is prepared to say how much this will cost. “I don’t know yet,” Weisbrodt told me.
Wagner also declined to estimate the cost. But both make clear that the festival will stay within its normal budget. (Its 2015 budget was $10.5 million.)
I’d say it’s safe to assume even temporary digs, built in a matter of weeks, are likely to cost close to $1 million. But the festival will also save at least half of that by not renting the Sony Centre, the Elgin or the St. Lawrence Centre; by controlling its own ticket sales; and by increased revenues from food and beverage sales.
“The Hearn is an anchor,” says Wagner, “and there is a lot of attention being paid to the Port Lands.”
In fact, Luminato’s bold move is part of a trend, as demonstrated by the Pan Am Games, and by the city’s recent call for proposals to develop several sites on the eastern waterfront, including the Hearn.
“There’s a huge amount of work involved in building even a tempo- rary multi-arts cultural institution,” notes Weisbrodt. “It’s really quite unprecedented. Everyone on our staff is so energized because of that. We know we are doing something very special for the city, and now that we’ve announced it we feel confident more people will want to be part of it.
Translation: This project will spark sponsorship deals, donor pledges, higher ticket revenue and increased funding from all levels of government, especially the city.
Here is the ultimate long-term takeaway: What we experience as temporary at Luminato in 2016 could be taken as a draft for something great and permanent in the future — the transformation of the Hearn into a massive, signature cultural centre for the city.
And that would represent the dream the festival’s founders had a decade ago, of making the city a full partner in the creation of a renowned multi-arts festival that would boost Toronto as one of the world’s great cultural centres. mknelman@thestar.ca