The Curtain Will Rise Again

Time to Read: 5 minutes

When uncertainty prevails, our brains tend to shift control to the area of our brain where emotions, such as anxiety or fear, rule. We can overcome this by determining what we can control, exploring new ways to make our isolated realities more bearable, and reminding ourselves of our core purpose.

Arts Commons’ core purpose is to serve the community. And what we can control is how we react to this situation. We started with the closing of our doors. But that was just the beginning....

Taking care of our artists:

As most artists suddenly find themselves out of paid work, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting cancellations of exhibits and performances, many are asking how we can support them. Arts institutions like Arts Commons exist to provide artists with paid opportunities to connect with community by exhibiting work or performing, as well as opportunities for professional development that they would likely have to pay for elsewhere. By supporting the arts organizations that support the artists, we ensure the artistic community as a whole, and the individual artists within that community, have a future. That’s for the long term.

In the short term, we are exploring opportunities to hire local artists for virtual programming. We also took the decision to pay all of our Alberta-based artists and arts educators that we contracted to the end of the season, whether they end up performing, teaching, and exhibiting – or not. This initiative is projected to cost over $50K. This is only possible due to the generosity of almost 200 ticket holders who donated their tickets for cancelled performances, and with the assistance of a grant of $20,000.00 from the Rozsa Foundation. We are beyond grateful for this support. We know that many of these artists do not have the safety nets offered by company benefits or government programs, and so it’s up to all of us to do our part to support them. It is the artists that will help us get through this, after all.

Taking care of our employees:

Arts Commons prioritized caring for our part time and casual employees whose jobs are tied directly to scheduled performances. After the venues were closed, the decision was made to pay all casual staff for one week of scheduled shifts and to provide 65 of these staff members who face the most significant impact by this situation with access to our Employee & Family Assistance Program (EFAP).

As time went on, we realized that this crisis was not going to be short-lived. Looking further into the future, Arts Commons’ primary operational goal became to retain staff and keep them whole, limiting the impact of this trying situation, and ensuring our workforce is ready to hit the ground running when we are able to open our doors again.

On March 29, 2020, the Canadian Government announced the unprecedented 75% Wage Subsidy Program, encouraging qualifying businesses to keep their staff employed. With this initiative, we could now could keep all salaried staff while cutting our own expenses. As of April 2, 2020, all salaried staff were notified that they would stay fully employed, at least until the Wage Subsidy Program terminated on June 6, 2020.

Assuming that this crisis would not end by the program end date, and work would eventually start to run out, Arts Commons looked at new ways to keep employees whole. Temporary layoffs mean that an affected employee would only be earning up to 55% of their salary, to a maximum of $537/week, on Employment Insurance. Arts Commons researched available options, applied, and received approval for the Government of Canada's Supplemental Unemployment Benefit (“SUB”) Program, which allows employers to provide supplemental payments to an employee to top-up their Employment Insurance benefits, up to 95%. Come June, if this crisis has not resolved, we are comforted knowing that we are able to care for our employees and provide them with financial stability through this difficult time.

Supporting our Resident Companies:

Imagine Calgary without the celebration of local talent from Alberta Theatre Projects, the beautiful sound of the symphony provided by the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, the social justice conversations that Downstage enables, the wide variety of music programming from Arts Commons Presents, the one-of-a-kind High Performance Rodeo put on for the past 33 years by One Yellow Rabbit, or the world-class productions of Theatre Calgary. We want to see a future with all resident companies continuing to do amazing work in the facility that is Arts Commons. Effective April 1st, Arts Commons is waiving all venue occupancy fees through to August 31st which means that Resident Companies will pay anywhere from 70 to 89% less each month. While this results in a loss of over $487K to Arts Commons' revenues, this helps our resident companies have some certainty around their own expenses for the coming months.

But how can Arts Commons take care of artists, resident companies, and staff, when we are looking at a potential $3.2M hit to our own revenues?

Firstly, Arts Commons was able to cut expenses by $2.1M since the venues had to be closed. Secondly, by fully utilizing both government employment subsidy programs, Arts Commons is able to save 42% of budgeted labour costs.

And thirdly, we could not do any of the above without community collaboration and the continued support and generosity of our patrons, sponsors, and donors. We are beyond grateful for the patience and understanding that our patrons have exhibited as we navigate this new world, and we are overwhelmed by the generosity that our community has demonstrated.

We thank everyone that made the decision to donate directly to Arts Commons or our resident companies, or who chose to convert their tickets for cancelled performances to a donation or a gift certificate, in lieu of a refund. As Margaret Mead said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

To date, we have converted over $19K of refunds into donations and over $20K into gift cards. This money that YOU, our supporters, are infusing back into our organization is helping us support the most vulnerable members of our community and ensuring that the curtain will in fact rise again.