Patrick Taylor is staring at a potential nightmare: Thanks to the G20 summit, the cost of mounting the TD Toronto Jazz Festival is at least $80,000 above normal, and he fears the coming security crackdown could keep scores of paying patrons from his venues.
Mr. Taylor, the festival’s executive producer, has the unenviable task of launching the same weekend the world leaders come to town. His is just one of several cultural attractions dotted around the summit’s security zone, and he and other organizers are feeling besieged.
Many of the jazz festival’s venues are within a stone’s throw of the traffic diversion zone for the June 26-27 summit and its attendant hassles, protests and fears of violence. Though Mr. Taylor stresses “it’s business as usual” as far as programming goes, behind the scenes it’s a different story. As the host of a primarily “walk-up event,” Mr. Taylor’s financial outlook is uncertain.
“My concern is, will it affect ticket sales? Because the message that we’re hearing from the mayor is ‘don't come downtown.’ And yet we’re saying we’re open for business: please come!” Mr. Taylor said.
To make matters worse, the Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel, which has given the jazz festival preferred rates for the past decade, is being monopolized by the G20. As a result, Mr. Taylor’s artists are scattered across seven other hotels at premium prices, incurring costs the festival expects to swallow.
“Our hotel [bill] at this stage – and I hope it doesn’t get any worse – is $80,000 more than we’ve ever spent,” Mr. Taylor said.
The festival’s very tight $3.3-million budget has grown accordingly and if it fails to garner $1-million in ticket sales, it could face a substantial deficit.
Klaus Schuller, executive director of The Second City, thinks public messaging urging people to avoid the downtown core “will probably have a pretty dramatic effect.” Because his theatre sits just outside the planned security barriers, he has rescheduled training workshops and will market heavily downtown, especially to neighbouring condos.
But because Second City sells three-quarters of its tickets in the 72 hours before each show, just how much potential patrons are avoiding the summit will not be clear until it begins, and Mr. Schuller dreads the result: When his 300-seat theatre had to close for a single Saturday due to roof damage last summer, Second City lost $35,000.
“Friday and Saturday nights are the bread and butter of any theatre company. It’s the difference between breaking even and being in the red,” he said.
If his six-weekend shows sell poorly, Mr. Schuller plans to try to claim compensation from the federal government, but he worries any such program may be scuttled by the size of the collective losses.
“I think [the effect] will actually reverberate in the couple of weeks before and after the conference, a general feeling that now is not a good time to be in downtown Toronto,” he said.
The Luminato Festival, which ends June 20, is hoping he’s wrong. General manager Clyde Wagner expects the festival’s closing weekend to be “the final breath of fresh air for the city” before the clampdown starts. Festival and city officials are even “very strongly exploring” the idea of adding a Canadian artwork to their lineup, which would remain in the restricted zone through the summit for the delegates to see, according to Janice Price, Luminato’s CEO.
Whatever they decide, one thing is certain, said Mirvish communications director John Karastamatis: “We don’t cancel performances. Ever. The show must go on.”
