The Shaw Festival has reported a large operating surplus just one year after recording the biggest deficit in its history.
At Friday’s annual meeting, treasurer Greg Prince announced that the festival reached $39-million in operating revenue in 2024, for an operating surplus of $768,000.
Prince credited the turnaround to a 40-per-cent year-over-year increase in revenues from ticket sales, as well as an all-time high in donations from individuals of $11.93-million.
“Though we continued to face challenges at our Royal George Theatre, resulting in us suffering lost performances due to persistent infrastructure issues there, we were nonetheless able to remain under budget on 2024 expenses overall,” he said in a statement.
The Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., festival also reported a $492,000 accounting deficit, which Prince attributed to “the impact of amortization charges relative to capital assets.”
By the numbers, 2024 was the most successful season since before the pandemic, though the festival has yet to reach prepandemic attendance numbers. In 2019, it reported attendance of 267,413, the highest since its 50th anniversary season in 2011. Last year, approximately 240,000 people attended the festival, a 14-per-cent increase over 2023.
The Shaw isn’t the only theatre in Ontario to show signs of recovery. In November, Canadian Stage in Toronto eliminated its 37-year deficit, reporting a small surplus of $289,749. Soulpepper Theatre Company said it also expects to retire its deficit in the next four years.
That said, the Stratford Festival is expected to report a “considerable” deficit for 2024, according to remarks from artistic director Antoni Cimolino at a Stratford community meeting in January. (After its 2023 season, the festival reported a surplus of $404,000, but it has not yet shared its 2024 attendance numbers and financial reports.)
In a statement, Shaw Festival board chair Ian Joseph said artistic director Tim Carroll, executive director Tim Jennings and associate artistic director Kimberley Rampersad should be “very proud” of the “outstanding work” that went into the 2024 season, which included 817 performances of 14 separate productions.
According to Carroll, Lerner and Loewe’s My Fair Lady “sold like hotcakes” and served as an anchor production for the rest of the season.
Looking ahead, the Shaw Festival will close the Royal George Theatre on Dec. 21 to begin renovations. Construction is also under way on the Shaw Artists’ Village, which will include housing, educational facilities and a new wardrobe department. Prince said both projects will usher in a new era of growth for the festival.