Faced with anemic attendance in its halls, the City of Quebec is launching a campaign to encourage attendance at the performing arts in the capital. His wish: to offer broadcasters what August 12 is for booksellers and Quebec literature.
The drop in attendance is in the millions. In 2019, 1.2 million spectators filled the performance halls in Quebec. The pandemic fades but the public still does not return. In 2020, only 250,000 people attended a show in the nation’s capital.
The average attendance in the region was 511 people per show in 2019. Last year, attendance had dropped, peaking at 160 spectators.
The closing of the rooms is in question, specifies Christian Robitaille, president of Culture Capitale-Nationale and Chaudière-Appalaches. However, despite the abandonment of sanitary measures, empty seats remain too numerous for the taste of the cultural sector and Mayor Bruno Marchand.
“It can’t work, believes the chosen one. And it’s not true that we don’t have a responsibility, as a city, to support our artists and our performance halls”. A poet in his spare time, the mayor compared art to “a cement between our stones which makes [Québec] such a rich city and culture. »
To breathe life into presenters, the City is launching the “On sort ensemble” campaign, which will make it possible, for two days in November, to offer an additional ticket with the purchase of a seat in one of the 11 participating theatres. To finance this promotion, Quebec is drawing $207,000 from an envelope of five million granted by the Quebec government to relaunch the city center damaged by the pandemic.
The objective of the campaign, according to the new minister responsible for the Capitale-Nationale, Jonatan Julien, is to “reactivate the habits” of the public by encouraging them to reconnect with art.
Eleven broadcasters are opening their doors to promotion. On the theater side: First act, Le Périscope, Le Trident, La Bordée and Le Diamant. As for music: the Palais Montcalm, L’Impérial, the Violons du Roy, the Opéra de Québec, the Orchester symphonique and the Petit Champlain.
On November 23 and 24, any purchase of show tickets will allow you to obtain an additional one, courtesy of the City. “Promotion is always the number of tickets purchased, plus one,” said Minister Julien.
The public will receive the promotional code necessary to qualify for the offer by subscribing to the QuébecSpectacles newsletter, the digital cultural showcase developed by Culture Capitale-Nationale and Chaudière-Appalaches.
For the moment, the offer includes 64 shows, but the list “will continue to evolve” until then. “It will work on a first-come, first-served basis,” explains Christian Robitaille.
“A bit like August 12 when we buy Quebec books, we would like November 23 and 24, concludes Mr. Robitaille, to become special times to buy tickets in the greater Quebec City region.”