Shaw Festival reports operating deficit amid other festivals’ financial woes

NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE, Ont. — A popular southern Ontario theatre festival is the latest to speak up about its financial woes, joining several other high profile arts organizations trying to navigate unprecedented fiscal challenges. 

The Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake ended the 2023 season with an operating deficit of $5.7 million, despite seeing its largest-ever level of operating revenue and its best-ever fundraising year.

“The Shaw was not immune to the issues that plagued the theatre and tourism industries throughout the pandemic and through 2023,” treasurer Greg Prince wrote in a statement. 

“The continued unpredictability of external forces like wildfires, COVID surges, inflation and issues with the foundation at our Royal George Theatre meant that what was originally planned as a small deficit expanded beyond our ability to mitigate in a single year.”

But the festival said this year is looking more promising, with early 2024 sales indicators well ahead of year-to-date budget targets and plans in place to retire debt quickly thanks to some operational streamlining moves, Prince wrote.

“It would be hard to call a year in which we posted an operating deficit one I feel entirely good about; however, the changes we have implemented for 2024 offer an excellent chance to start repaying that investment quickly,” executive director Tim Jennings wrote in the festival’s press release.

Word of the deficit comes after the company that runs the Just for Laughs comedy festival cancelled its events this year in Montreal and Toronto amid restructuring.

Court documents show Groupe Juste pour rire Inc. owes nearly $22.5 million to creditors.

Hot Docs, which is Canada’s largest documentary film festival, also recently said it faces financial pressures that have put its future in jeopardy.

“Like many not-for-profit arts organizations, the pandemic closure severely disrupted Hot Docs operations and its impacts are still being felt,” the festival wrote in a Friday appeal to supporters.

“We are currently facing a significant operational deficit that threatens our long-term sustainability.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 9, 2024.

The Canadian Press