It’s no secret in the arts community that post-pandemic it has been difficult to attract new audience members to live performances across the city.

Getting more people into seats, and getting them more regularly to consider live performances as part of their cultural mix is at the heart of new funding for eight of Calgary’s major performance companies.

PrariesCan, through the Prairie Performing Arts Initiative, has invested $8.36 million into both Calgary and Edmonton companies, with $5.4 of that funding going towards supporting Calgary.

Calgary Skyview MP George Chahal said that the mandate of PrairiesCan was to diversify and support the local economy, which includes the performing arts sector.

“The arts sector has struggled over a number of years. To make sure—with Covid and beyond—to make sure we’re getting Calgarians back into our arts facilities, I think this funding and sustainability of these organizations is critical.”

The funding will provide $750,000 each to the Alberta Ballet, Alberta Theatre Projects, Calgary Opera, Calgary Philharmonic, and Theatre Calgary, along with $642,186 to Vertigo Theatre, $539,000 to One Yellow Rabbit, and $484,853 to Decidedly Jazz.

Steve Schroeder, Interim Executive Director for Theatre Calgary, said that the PrairiesCan funding was the single largest source of public funding that the company has received in its history, and was also an overall massive boost to the arts in Alberta.

“Our federal arts funding is demonstrably lower, on a per-capita basis, than other parts of the country. This is something that we’re really glad the federal government has been beginning to hear the message on,”

He said that on a per-capita basis, the Canada Council for the Arts funds arts in B.C., Ontario, and Quebec about 60 per cent more than in the prairies.

The PrairiesCan funding, he said, helps to even out that funding gap.

Supportive funding years in the making, and providing years of support

The funding itself took several years to come about for Albertans.

Sue Elliott, General Director and CEO for Calgary Opera, said that the funding had taken two years of discussions between a coalition of arts organizations across Alberta and PrairiesCan to achieve.

“We had, all the way along, asked for operational funding because the the rationale for this was that we needed more runway operationally to recover from the pandemic and shift our business models to match the current context in what audiences were looking for,” Elliott said.

However, because PrairiesCan is not legislatively able to provide operational funding, the cash was provided as project based funding for the arts organizations to ultimately provide funding that would allow for more sustainability going forward.

“We could not be more grateful for this investment in our future, and so now we’re part way through the process of making sure contribution agreements have been signed with the government, and then getting into the specifics of the because the money will be disbursed on an annual basis,” said Elliott.

Part of the funding was retroactive to the Government of Canada’s Budget 2024, and will be used to reimburse projects that are underway.

Elliott said that for Calgary Opera it means hiring subject matter experts in communications, marketing, and technology.

“This funding is work that it would be very difficult for me to find individual or foundation support to accomplish,” she said.

A part of the technology upgrades, Calgary Opera will be working on a more efficient and easier to use ticket purchasing system to address the friction that prevents potential opera visitors from completing their purchases.

“One of the things that we know, data shows that if there are any hiccups in the ticket buying purchase online, that we get very high rates of abandoned shopping carts. And so it’s really, really important for Calgary Opera to improve and to make more efficient the way in which people buy tickets online,” Elliott said.

Alberta Theatre Projects (ATP) will also be using the federal funding to hire and bring in expertise the company has been unable to afford before.

Peita Luit, Executive Director for ATP, said that the $750,000 over three years for an organization that has an annual operating budget of just $3 million, is a huge amount of support—especially on the company’s 50th anniversary year.

“We have big plans for the next 50 years, and a big part of this funding [PrairiesCan] is investing in the sustainability of our organization. They want to see this and we want to see, obviously, this money going towards things that are going to mean that we’re around for a long time, and I think that’s important to our audiences as well,” Luit said.

“I keep meeting subscribers who’ve subscribed for like 30 to 40 years, and they’re very excited about what we’re doing already, and want that legacy to continue.”

Sustainability at the heart of funding from PrariesCan

She said that the funding will be used to support the efforts for lobby activations pre-and-post show, to keep audience members engaged and wanting to return to an ATP production. The funding will also be used to support digital marketing outreach, to meet new potential audience members in a way the company hasn’t been able to before.

“Because I think a lot of people don’t think of themselves as a theater people, we want to really welcome people in and make it super fun to come. It’s not like stodgy and how people might think traditionally, if you’ve gone to the theatre,” Luit said.

For Theatre Calgary (TC), the funding will also be used to continue the work that the company has been doing with their Theatre for All project, to introduce Calgarians to the theatre in an affordable way.

Schroeder said that the funding comes in year two of a three year effort by TC and would allow for that work to be deepened.

“Since introducing Theater for All being based around a very accessible ticket price—It was $39 for every seat last year, $45 this year, and then it’ll be $49 next year— that’s significantly lower than you’re going to pay for most premium, large scale arts, performing arts events anywhere in Canada,” he said.

“That strategy is is really paying off for us. Our audiences have been growing, have been rebounding since we adopted that strategy.”

Schroeder said that approximately 60 per cent of Theatre for All purchasers have been first time visitors to Theatre Calgary. In turn, he said, there was a hope that those same visitors would turn into regular attendees or even seasonal subscribers.

“We need to fall be able to follow up with them and encourage them to become repeat attendees. So that’s part of what the funding is helping us do, is to develop those strategies and execute them,” he said.

“Similarly, the other thing the funding is really focused on is helping us build new strategies for reaching philanthropists—new philanthropists, and new and increased individual giving.”