Sask. arts industry reflects on cultural impact of pandemic 5 years after it began
‘People are being just more careful with the money that they have’: Broadway Theatre exec
COVID-19 took a toll on the arts that still lingers five years after the pandemic began, according to organizations across Saskatchewan.
The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic on March 11, 2020. Lenore Maier, executive director of the Broadway Theatre in Saskatoon, said it's been a "tumultuous" and "unpredictable" environment for the live events industry ever since.
With a 430-seat capacity, the soft cedar performance space hosts everything from films to music to comedy. Maier said it's getting harder to tell how many of those seats are going to be filled.
She used a specific comedy show as an example. It did well at the theatre, but when it came back later, it got half as many attendees.
"I think it's an indicator that people are being just more careful with the money that they have," Maier said.
"When, you know, the average consumer wants to take in some music or pay for groceries, sometimes the groceries come in first place, as they should."
Maier said the community owned and operated theatre had to shut down and lay-off staff when the pandemic hit.
It wasn't until relief funding came through from federal and provincial governments that the theatre was able to get back on its feet.
Once live events started up again, that "life-saver" funding dried up. Maier said it left organizations like the Broadway to fend for themselves in a new environment, with no supports.
Maier said there should be more long term public investment in the arts.
In the meantime, the theatre has learned to do more with less.
"I think that it's certainly at a point now where we can't continue to keep, kind of, cutting the fat away," she said.
"There's really not much left [other] than just bones at this point."
Jazz festival 'just coming back'
Just about everything has changed for the Saskatchewan Jazz Festival, according to its executive director Shannon Josdal, who said the organization is "just coming back."
The annual Saskatoon event has a new staff, location and business model.
"The staff that left at the beginning of COVID and the staff that brought the organization back out of COVID are two completely different groups of people," Josdal said.
For nearly 30 years the festival was primarily based at the Delta Bessborough Hotel, but it has now moved to Victoria Park in the King George neighbourhood.
Another big change, Josdal said, is the way the festival sells tickets.
"We used to have a public facing office that you could come and visit. We don't do that anymore. We use the Broadway."
Other changes include shuttle buses to make accessibility easier and small pop-up shows at local businesses to create more of a presence in communities.
"It has taken a long time to come back. I would say we're just starting now, five years out, to see that comeback, to see the organization grow," the executive director said.
"We're absolutely still seeing the repercussions of the pandemic, not just in music, but in all cultural organizations."
Like Maier, Josdal pointed to economic realities like the rising cost of living. She said the jazz fest's free 2023 Canada Day show had a record attendance of about 5,000 people, but it took the organization until 2024 to sell out a ticketed event.
Josdal stressed the importance of the industry, citing recent data released by the Canadian Live Music Association that indicates the combined impact of love music operation and associated tourism spending in 2023 contributed more than $10 billion to the county's GDP.
Young people entering the workforce
When the pandemic struck, Regina's Globe Theatre had just announced about $45 million in renovations over the course of three years. Five years later, the construction is still underway.
Jennifer Brewin, the Globe's artistic director, said the pandemic changed everything, including supply chains, costs and expenses.
Similar to the Broadway Theatre and Saskatchewan Jazz Festival, the Globe also had a staffing turnover — something Brewin said was due to people wanting more security.
"A lot of our senior people and middle management people, our mid-level artists and administrators and producers, they moved on to other things."
While Brewin said the industry as a whole lost many people, it didn't lose the young people coming out of theatre school.
"All these young people had to step up into these positions that they, you know, were probably five to 10 years away from stepping into, but they had to learn really, really fast."
Brewin said she believes audiences are starting to come back now, especially as an alternative to "endless streaming and endless scrolling."
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With files from Pier-Olivier Nadeau