Hopes of ‘best ever panto’ sunk by Covid

Cinderella was on course to be Perth Theatre’s “best ever panto” until Omicron reared its head. Horsecross Arts Ltd’s chief executive revealed the theatre had lost a six-figure sum in income from ticket sales as a result.

Nick Williams was presenting an update to Perth and Kinross Council’s scrutiny committee and told councillors: “In so many ways it was on course to be our best ever panto.

“We had outstanding press and audience responses from all who saw Cinderella.

“If we had the sales we were projecting we would have hit, that would have reached £240,000, which is a financial target exceeded by 9%.

“We started to lose performances first of all in the school performances through the first part of December as Omicron started to rear its head and prevalence of the virus started to again sweep through schools and staff.

“Further performances then ended up being cancelled because of Covid in the latter half of the run.

“We lost 25 performances and had a panto ticket income loss of £121,000.

“It was the perfect storm in terms of the restrictions imposed on Boxing Day, which meant it wasn’t viable to run the panto any longer.

“A one-metre distancing rule gives us a capacity of just over 100 in theatre.

“Unfortunately, we took the very sad decision to

end the show on Christmas Eve.”

He said Perth Concert Hall fared better over Christmas only losing a “handful of performances”.

Mr Williams added: “The

deviation of the rules in Scotland from England had caused a number of tours coming up from England to postpone or cancel.”

This has resulted in “a number of events” within

the current brochure now not going ahead in February and March.

Mr Williams said some have been rescheduled to April/may and some by a full year.

LOST OUT: Perth Theatre suffered a panto ticket income loss of £121,000 due to Covid.