The Stratford Festival ended 2024 with a million-dollar deficit as audience attendance fell short of expectations, underscoring the challenges many arts organizations still face even years after reopening from the COVID-19 shutdown.
At its annual general meeting on Thursday, the repertory theatre company announced a $1.1-million operational shortfall for the previous season. The festival also reported a drop in ticket sales, with 430,000 seats sold in 2024, down from 443,000 in 2023.
“For us to have a shortfall is a wake-up call,” said Anita Gaffney, executive director of the Stratford Festival, in a phone interview. “As we’re coming out of the pandemic, we don’t have a lot of runway to learn about how audiences are coming back. And we were a bit more optimistic than what we realized.”
Gaffney said she still feels good about where the festival is at, though acknowledged the organization’s post-pandemic recovery will take longer than expected.
Before the COVID-19 shutdown, the Stratford Festival typically sold 460,000 to 500,000 tickets each season. When the company returned to indoor programming in 2022, its leaders predicted it would take roughly four years for audience attendance to return to pre-pandemic levels. Now, Gaffney said she expects it may take until 2028 for ticket sales to fully rebound.
Across the country, arts organizations both large and small have faced a turbulent recovery since reopening their doors from the pandemic. Theatre companies, in particular, experienced financial pressures on multiple fronts: audiences were slow to return to in-person programming, while inflation significantly drove up production costs. Not-for-profit organizations like the Stratford Festival have also witnessed a decline in revenue from individual and corporate donors, forcing many to tighten their budgets.
Last year, the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake reported a $5.7-million operating deficit for its 2023 season, the largest in its history. The repertory theatre company, however, witnessed a turnaround of its fortunes in 2024 and recently posted a $768,000 surplus earlier this month.
At Stratford, Gaffney said sales are looking strong for the upcoming 11-show season, up 17 per cent compared to the same time last year. “We hope to take advantage of Canadians staying in the country this year and also want to reach out to American visitors,” she added.
Performances for the upcoming season are set to begin later this month and run through early November. Later this year, the festival is expected to announce a successor for artistic director Antoni Cimolino, whose tenure ends next season after 13 years at the helm of the organization.
