By Laura MacLean
Despite the constant chatter about economic hardships continuing through 2009, programming for the Huntsville Festival of the Arts promises to remain exciting for the upcoming season.
“We’re moving ahead with the awareness that there will be economic challenges and the festival wants to program with that in mind,” said festival general manager Rob Saunders. “But we will not give up our goal to bring in top-notch, challenging and rewarding entertainment.”
Saunders stated that last year’s festival programming was “aggressive” with a total of 30 shows offered in July and August. He said that, over the years, the festival has had seasons with more programming than others but, so far, planning remains solid for 2009.
“We will redo the annual Jazz Festival on the long weekend in August,” said Saunders. “In the end, we’re not going to not do programming we think makes sense to do. We’re just saying, ‘Let’s be sensible.’ If we’ve got a good act, and it makes sense to produce the artist, we’ll book that artist. We’re underwriting the Wizard of Oz in the spring, and we’ll be doing nine shows of that, which is a fairly aggressive call on our part. We debated doing six but we stuck with nine to make sure it’s out there and available.”
Saunders went on to say that while everyone is feeling the hit of a poor economy the festival is not above the realities of the market. There won’t be any cutbacks in programming, but the committee is not ignorant of the fact that there are economic issues out there.
“If we don’t sell tickets, we feel the pain,” he said. “We know consumers only have so much money. We had our most sellouts last year and the largest ticket sales ever. There were some shows with a smaller audience but 14 sellouts is still pretty good. Compared to other theatres in our area, our programming is the most broad-based and aggressive. The theatre has given us lots of opportunity for a variety of entertainment, so it’s important we don’t take it for granted.”
Karin Terziano, general manager of the Algonquin Theatre, indicated that, because the theatre primarily rents to users as opposed to doing its own programming, her concern is that all renters will be cutting back.
“The poor economy is affecting what people have to spend on tickets,” she said, adding that there are fewer shows scheduled than last year but nothing that could significantly affect theatre profits. “Our programming is done from January to June and we’re not far off from last year at that period. One of the big differences this year is that, last year, we had four plays in that period. This year, only one play has been scheduled for that period, but we will be open for business, and it won’t seem any different to the public.”
To view upcoming programming visit www.algonquintheatre.ca.
