What the pandemic is costing our companies

Australian dance companies began the year with huge optimism. It looked like the worst of the pandemic was over and performances could return to the stage. Unhappily this has not been the case, with the Delta strain wreaking havoc on plans and different parts of the country shutting down at different times. If anything, the present unpredictability of lockdowns and border closures have made this year more challenging than the last.

 The Australian Ballet began the year with a performance at the Margaret Court Arena at the Melbourne Tennis Centre, in an innovative bid to overcome the audience number restrictions in theatres, but even that season was cut short by a lockdown in February. The company's Sydney season went ahead, but in Melbourne another lockdown put an end to seasons of New York Dialects as well as the premier of its major new work, Anna Karenina, which finally opened in Adelaide. Altogether 25 performances were cancelled, resulting in a “very, very significant” box office impact of $4.1 million, in the words of the company's Executive Director, Libby Christie.

 “This year is harder than last year,” she says. “Last year we couldn't perform at all, so we could limit the costs associated with creating, planning, rehearsing new productions. This year is much harder because we're trying to perform, we're rehearsing, creating new productions, in some cases even bumping them into theatres, only to find we can't perform. So we're spending all that money but not generating box office to cover it.”

 As she points out, the Australian Ballet is “a large company that tours to four states around the country” and has “a very high turnover of over $70 million, with 60% of our annual income at least coming from box office”. “We normally have very high occupancy – 85% to 89% of each performance - so that box office is important to sustaining every area of the company.

“Most importantly, we have a large, highly skilled workforce, over 280 employees, including 80 dancers in our main ensemble with another small number in our education program. These are permanent employees who have very short careers – we can't redeploy them elsewhere and we can't afford to lose them.

“So with a high dependence on box office income and average high permanent wages bill, with a very specialised and very precious workforce, we want to be preparing and getting our productions up, but we have these huge risks of sudden shutdowns or not being able to fill the theatres. It's a very challenging situation.”

 Sydney Dance Company is in a similar “challenging situation”. Like the Australian Ballet, it is a touring company, so is affected by the varying situations in different states. The company had to cancel performances in four regional NSW centres and Hobart through June and July, and has postponed August tours to Darwin and Alice Springs. In addition, the company's hugely successful public class program, which forms a large part of its overall income, has also been subject to the same shutdowns.

 Executive Director Anne Dunn says the company has taken a hit of $1.1 to $1.2 million. “That's assuming the Melbourne season (opening August 18) goes ahead and, in the best case scenario, if we can do our second Sydney season, beginning September 7, at 50% capacity.”

 SDC can take advantage of the NSW Performing Arts Covid Support Package, put in place at the start of the current lockdown, which is available to eligible organisations performing in specified venues. This is a percentage amount based on ticket sales and paid to the company per performance, and takes into account the government-mandated venue seating capacities and length of lockdowns. While Dunn says this income guarantee “is a really helpful incentive to keep the industry ticking over and moving”, it doesn't help with touring. “One of the things we find particularly challenging is that the package is really geared around supporting people in NSW.  As a touring company, crossing borders, we find we fall between the gaps.

“A more holistic look at touring going forward would be helpful because until it’s resolved it’s going to keep the entire industry really constrained, because we are a pretty mobile industry. A commonality around border quarantines and exemptions, things like that.”

 Smaller, project-based companies don't have the same overheads as their bigger counterparts, but nonetheless are suffering. Force Majeure, based at Carriageworks in Sydney, has two full-time staff, two-part-time staff and two associate artists on casual two-year contracts. “Fortunately, we have had no productions fall during this lockdown period, so we have had no shows cancelled,” explains Executive Director Colm O'Callaghan. “As a small-to-medium organisation, we rely less on ticketing revenue than our major organisation colleagues, and so we are less affected with our seasons if we’re lucky enough to not have a show clash with a lockdown.”

 Nonetheless, lockdowns stymie the development process of work and consequently can delay presentation timelines. Force Majeure had to cancel one important development workshop in June, depriving four dancers of a week's employment, and “we will likely have to cancel or shift some programming in September,” he says. Nor does the company qualify for business support, as it can't demonstrate that it lost the required 30% of its income over that time. “For arts organisations whose performance outcomes and income occurs at different times annually, year to year, the metric for financial assistance can feel arbitrary. Comparing July/August 2021 turnover to 2019 may not reflect the financial losses experienced by arts organisations. There should be a different metric, for example a greater number of months, for arts organisations to demonstrate damaging losses of income as a result of COVID,” he says.

When audiences can get into theatres, the reception has been overwhelmingly enthusiastic. Libby Christie: “In Adelaide, we performed to full houses every night, it was so exciting, we had standing ovations, which I'd like to think was for the quality of the performance, but I also think that audiences were just so happy to be back.

“The audience is there, they want to see us, we must do everything we can to protect these companies, they're true national assets, and the country is the richer for having them. So let's do everything we can to keep performing and to keep our artists together.”

- KAREN VAN ULZEN

Since this article was written, SDC has postponed the Melbourne season of Impermanence.

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