Funding cuts force arts organizations to get creative about raising money
B.C. arts organizations are being forced to think creatively about how to raise money as they grapple with provincial government cuts to B.C. Arts Council and gambling grants.
The Vancouver International Jazz Festival, which launched June 25, is bracing for a $100,000 drop in B.C. government funding resulting from a reduction to those grants. According to festival director Fatima Amarshi, the $700,000 in total government grants that it expects next year will be half of what it reaped in 2009.
It’s in this climate that the Arts Club Theatre Company is trying new ways to raise money.
That the company is hurting is clear from the way that it works a spiel about Premier Gordon Campbell’s hypocrisy into its production ofThe 25th Annual Putnum County Spelling Bee, which is now showing at the Arts Club Theatre on Granville Island.
An actor reflects on how Campbell opposed gambling 10 years ago and now supports a large Las Vegas-style casino development near B.C. Place.
If gambling is expanding in B.C., she wonders, why are gaming grants to arts organizations being cut?
Among the Arts Club’s revenue-raising ploys: hosting cocktail parties with the cast of future productions.
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