Attendance dropped to 65,501 from 104,156 last year with 79 fewer performances.
At the 2019/20 Annual General Meeting held today, Deb Harvey, Executive Director, announced an operating deficit of $65,348 for the 2019/20 season. This announcement marks the Grand's first deficit in 21 years, and comes as a direct result of COVID-19 and the mandated shutdown of the theatre on March 13, 2020.
"While the year end result of a deficit is disappointing, this deficit would have been substantially higher without our $504,753 insurance claim to June 30. When negotiating our insurance last November, we added performance disruption coverage to our policy, unaware at the time, of what this would mean for us and our ability to financially recover from COVID-19 shutdown," noted Deb Harvey Executive Director.
During the shortened 2019/20 season, the Grand was on an exciting path of World and North American premieres, unique community partnerships, and a national tour of an award-winning production.
"Artistically and creatively, there is no question that we were on an amazing trajectory," stated Dennis Garnhum, Artistic Director. "The most difficult part of these last 6 months has been the loss of work for our dedicated employees and artists. We are theatre people and by nature that means we are creative, optimistic and resilient and we have much to look forward to in the coming months and years, not the least of which is the work we are doing internally with our Anti-Oppression Committee. In spite the obstacles before us, we continue to investigate what it means to be World Curious and London Proud."
The AGM was held by Zoom and attended online by members of the Grand's Board of Directors, donors, sponsors, volunteers, community members and staff.
Led by Season Sponsor, BMO Financial Group, sponsors, donors and community supporters generated $1.1M (19% of revenue) in contributions for the 2019/20 season, demonstrating the continued exceptional support of our patrons. The theatre noted and thanked the 2000 patrons who, at the point of shutdown, donated the value of their tickets back to the theatre to assist in offsetting the loss in revenue. Of this group, 850 were first time donors.
The Grand Theatre gratefully acknowledges the support of our government funders such as the City of London, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Canada Council for the Arts. In the 2019/20 season, this support accounted for 17% of total revenue.
In fiscal year 2019/20 and in response to COVID-19, federal government funding increased by $358,330 through Canadian Employment Wage Subsidy ($270,330) funding and $88,000 in special COVID-19 Emergency Support from the Canada Council.
With overall revenues down by 22% due to the premature closing of the theatre, government funding increased as a percentage of overall revenues to 23%. The Grand remains grateful to its government partners and for the continued support of its many sponsors, community partners, and donors.
At the AGM, the Grand thanked retiring Board members E.B. Smith, Susan Nickle and Bruce Barran for their years of service and passion for the theatre. Chris Jackman ended his term as President, moving to Past President and Anita Shah was unanimously and enthusiastically approved as the new Board President. New Board members elected were Amira Moussa, Alexis Gordon, Jennifer Ho, Jen Slay, Richard McKenzie and Sherry Liu.
"I am not going to lie. This was a tough year for our bottom line, and the first time in my tenure that we have posted a deficit. But the Grand is much more than a balance sheet. This COVID year has impacted everyone in different ways. We continue to wish our community good health in these coming months and as a theatre we thank the front line workers for their contributions to our great city of London," stated Deb Harvey. "We will be back. We promise you that. We are making room - literally and figuratively - in our building, in our programming, in our staffing and volunteering. We can't wait to open our doors again and welcome you back. One thing I know for sure - we will never take the privilege of gathering together for granted again."
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