ottawa centre – Sabrina Nemis

Ottawa Fringe Festival announces best-ever ticket sales in 2015

2015-10-05 20.20.59 — Kevin Waghorn (left), managing director, and Patrick Gauthier, festival director, announce final numbers from this year’s Ottawa Fringe Festival and plans for the upcoming 20th year in 2016.

“We don’t say there’s something for everyone at the Fringe Festival; we say there’s something for you,” said Patrick Gauthier, festival director.

On Monday, Gauthier announced this year saw the best festival attendance ever with 13,700 ticket sales. This puts the festival in a good place to go into their 20th season next year.

The Ottawa Fringe Festival is part of a worldwide theatre movement that allows any artist to submit a proposal for a show. The shows are chosen by lottery rather than by quality of content or notoriety of the theatre company. If their plays are not chosen, artists can also apply to “bring your own venue,” also called a BYOV.

“If you’re an artist and you have no money and no one knows you, then Fringe gives you that very rare and vital opportunity to express yourself in a public setting,” said Meagan McDonald, a University of Ottawa master’s student who showed Ophelia’s Flowers in 2014 as a BYOV.

Unlike other arts and culture events that suffer from poor attendance and ticket sales, Fringe has been extremely successful. They had 56 companies performing 373 showings this year with 40 sold-out shows. This year there’s even a Fringe Encore performance Oct 8-10 showcasing two popular shows from past festivals, including I Think My Boyfriend Should Have an Accent, which sold out all seven of its performances in June.

Large arts and culture-related events in Ottawa have had their share of troubles with profitability, including most recently, the Neat in the Woods festival in September; Capital Pride declaring bankruptcy last year and being run this year with help from the Bank Street BIA; and the University of Ottawa chapter of Her Campus, a female-focused online student publication, taking over Ottawa Fashion Week after ticket sales didn’t meet the event’s expenses.

The Ottawa Fringe Festival is also non-profit and ticket revenues go to the artists putting on the shows. The festival is largely volunteer-run and takes care of marketing, promotion and ticket vending for the artists.

The biggest challenge facing the Ottawa Fringe Festival in 2016 is the redevelopment of Arts Court. The project will expand the current building to include a 250-seat screening room, a 120-seat theatre, condos and some classroom space for the University of Ottawa.

It’s expected to be completed by 2017, but for now the construction will mean fewer venues, and therefore fewer shows. Gauthier said it’s hard to know for certain what state the building will be in next summer since they haven’t been given a construction schedule.

“(It’s a) whole demilitarized construction zone we are living in right now,” he said.

The lottery for the festival opened on the same day as the announcement, allowing artists to submit proposals in hopes of getting a spot at an Arts Court venue—these are set up with sound and lighting boards.

The unknown hasn’t put artists off from applying: the Black Sheep Theatre company, who have been involved in every year of Ottawa’s Fringe Festival, will be coming back, as will McDonald.

“I had a really good experience,” said McDonald. “So good that we’re actually applying again for this year.”

There is a waitlist of nearly 10,000 people in Ottawa for subsidized housing and many stay on that list for more than five years, according to the City of Ottawa.

“I’ve got something like one project a week that we’re not able to do because funding or the economic circumstances don’t support it, said Ray Sullivan, executive director of the Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation (CCOC). The non-profit affordable housing organization hasn’t been able to develop any new homes this year due to decreased funding by the Conservative government.

In Centretown, in the Ottawa Centre riding, 35 per cent of tenant households are spending more than 30 per cent of their total income on housing, according to the 2011 National Housing Survey; The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Canada’s national housing agency, sets affordable housing as a shelter that doesn’t cost more than 30 per cent of household income.

“We’ve knocked on 70,000 doors and I go to affordable housing and social housing that is literally falling down,” said Catherine McKenna, the Liberal candidate in Ottawa Centre.

On June 19, McKenna released a statement calling for a national housing strategy, well in advance of the Liberal Party of Canada’s housing platform, Affordable Housing for Canadians was released on Sept. 9.

Both Sullivan of CCOC and Simone Thibault, executive director of the Centretown Community Health Centre (CCHC), a non-profit health and social service organization, said a national strategy for housing is essential.

“It’s important to maintain what stock we do have, it’s precious to people who need to access it,” said Thibault. She identified two important affordable housing issues in Centretown: maintenance of older buildings and a mix of housing in the area, including high-, middle- and low-income units.

“It’s not just a case of social housing, but affordability of housing right across the spectrum,” said Sullivan, adding that a national housing strategy should address the affordability and accessibility of both tenancy and home ownership.

As a party, the Liberals have also adopted a policy recommendation to create an affordable national housing strategy, although it has not been directly included in their election platform.

While the NDP has not yet released a housing platform, party leader Tom Mulcair has promised to commit $5 billion to housing and other municipality infrastructure, according to the Toronto Star. Paul Dewar Ottawa Centre NDP incumbent has been active in supporting organizations involved in providing affordable housing in Centretown, like CCOC and CCHC.

“He’s actually a former CCOC tenant,” said Sullivan, “so he understands what we’re doing and the importance of affordable housing.”

Paul Dewar did not respond by press time.