Just How Many Arts Lovers Are There In PG

By Ben Meisner

We are often told that the bastion of culture in BC is in the lower mainland. If you want to be where the culture is you need to live in that region.

That all sounds well and good except when you see that the Ballet BC laid off most of its staff this week. That includes the 17 dancers and  office staff.

The ballet company needed to sell 7,000 tickets in order to keep the doors open, they have sold 2,000 so far. Now those sales are taking place in a population base of about 3 ½ million people. The company further said as they dumped their staff that ticket sales from earlier shows have been down.

So what does that do for a region like PG where we have, let’s fudge the figures a bit and say we have, 100,000 people to draw from?

We are looking to spend upwards of 60 million on a new Performing Arts Center.  The business case so far indicates that we will have enough bodies to fill the seats. You immediately wonder who put together the business case because unless the facility caters to a much wider audience than the,”Arts”. What is that case built on?

There have been mumblings that without a Performing Arts Center the professionals such as doctors, University Profs, and educated others will pass on locating in PG.

Those comments in my world are simply rubbish. Oh to be sure there may be some Doc’s who like the Arts , but my experience in this city,  and I can say I do know a lot of them, is that they tend to be more of the average ordinary folk that want to live in PG because of the life style. The Arts don’t tend to be the crowning glory as to why they have located here. Similarly there is a case to be made using the Professionals of the lower mainland and their large numbers that BC ballet should be awash in money, they are not.

Prince George got a university because of some very hard work by a lot of people who are ordinary folks in every sense of the word.  As a matter of fact some of the same people who are pushing the Arts Center did not support the creation of UNBC that is a matter of record. Former Premier Bill Vander Zalm can attest to that. The medical facility came into being as a result of some very hard work by some people that I know are not the Arts type. It is these same people who see the same need for a Cancer facility and they are leading the charge either in front or behind the scene.

The case for a Performing Arts Center needs to be on its merit alone, trying to sugar coat it into something that it is not will only further alienate the people who will pay for it.

I’m Meisner and that’s one man’s opinion.   

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