BarrieToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected]. Please include your daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following letter is in response to a story titled 'City eyes three new task forces focused on housing, downtown market, and the arts' published on March 9.
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Mayor Jeff Lehman needs to consider some stats before offering $15 million to a performing arts venue in Barrie.
There is always room for improvement in this city, but its key demographics and statistics show we are nowhere near what it takes to foster serious performing arts in this community.
According to a report written by Hill Strategies Research Inc., the average income for attendees of Canadian performing arts events stood at $80,000 or more. In 1998, 9.1 million people attended performing arts events in this country; rather a small number for a country averaging a population of 35 million.
Given that sports are rather popular, one safely assumes more citizens would want to attend a hockey or baseball game than the Canadian Opera Company’s latest adaptation of Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata.
Townfolio also reports that most of our citizens fall slightly above the low-income category; this must be read in light of Hill Strategies observation that “Canadians with incomes of $80,000 or more are 1.8 times more likely to attend a performance than those who have incomes between $20,000 and $39,999.”
Attendees of performing arts tend to hold at least a bachelor’s degree and “55.7 per cent” of the survey’s respondents reported holding basic degrees or higher.
Simply put, the idea of pursuing serious performing arts ventures in Barrie is absurd because Townfolio found only 19,500 residents hold a bachelor's degree or higher. Complex forms of entertainment typically inspire those with more complex levels of education to seek them out.
In order to attract better venues, the city would have to attract a different resident capable of paying for them. How can this be without a better library, better stores, and better neighbourhoods?
Christopher Mansour
Barrie
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