Newcastle art organisations have expressed concern over rising prices to hire City of Newcastle venues, saying the costs will prevent groups from staging local performances.
Numerous Hunter artists and organisations say it is becoming increasingly difficult to afford City of Newcastle venues - or find other places with the same capacity in the city.
City of Newcastle's venue hire fees have recently increased with the change of financial year.
The daily cost to hire Civic Theatre between Wednesday and Saturday is the higher of either 11.5 per cent of the net box office, or $3516 for charities and not-for-profits and $5022 for commercial or private hire - a rise of about 14 per cent since 2019/20.
Newcastle Writers Festival director Rosemarie Milsom says part of the issue is additional expenses on top of the venue hire. For example the organisation has to pay for council ushers despite having volunteers willing to do the work.
Council staffing fees are charged at a minimum of four hours and have increased this year due to "increased operating costs" and a change of award.
A penalty rate now applies for Saturdays and the penalty rate for Sundays and public holidays is now 200 per cent.
The change means staffing costs for a Saturday have increased by 37 per cent since last year, and by 76 per cent since 2019/20.
The City of Newcastle says it is "proud to have worked with the United Services Union to significantly increase the pay and conditions of our venues staff".
"Civic Theatre staff were previously paid under a live entertainment award," a City of Newcastle spokesperson said.
"In January this year, we ensured that our staff are now paid an hourly rate consistent with that of other council employees.
"We understand that this caused an increase in our venue hire fees, however we firmly believe that our first priority is to ensure our theatre staff are fairly paid for the work that they do."
The council also requires tickets to be sold through its own service, which charges a booking fee. Additional costs are applied for sound equipment, security and St John's Ambulance, while City of Newcastle also takes a 12 per cent cut of merchandise or programs sold.
The City of Newcastle spokesperson said the council employed its own staff and required St John's Ambulance to be on standby as it was "responsible for the safety of patrons and their experience".
The council displays its fees and charges publicly but the full itemised costs for hiring a venue aren't known until after the event. Newcastle Writers Festival was charged more than $10,000 for its 2023 opening night event with Grace Tame.
"The festival appreciates City of Newcastle venues are operating in a challenging economic environment, but the increasing cost of hiring fees means it's untenable for not-for-profit community and cultural organisations to afford to use these community assets," Ms Milsom said.
"The festival has a history of using City of Newcastle venues but looking ahead, we need to prioritise our sustainability as we continue to rebuild our revenue after the devastating impact of COVID.
"It will not be possible for us to hire the Civic Theatre or City Hall for events."
City of Newcastle Drama Association president Shane Bransdon completed a PHD on the ecology of the theatre industry.
His said most of theatre companies in Newcastle could not afford to hire Civic Theatre.
"One of the biggest expenses for any theatre company is their venue and in particular with regards to the Civic, the cost of labour that has increased because the council changed the award that the staff were on," he said.
"There are a lot of requirements when you have the theatre, you have to have a minimum number of staff there. Someone just at the stage door, for example to sign people in. So it is a struggle for everyone financially.
"It's also not easy for theatre companies to raise their ticket price one or two dollars because when you hire the venue, there's a per ticket fee that they charge you.
"That per ticket fee is not a percentage. It's in brackets, for example our CONDA awards, we might charge $50 for the ticket. We would not be able to charge $51 because that would push us into a higher bracket for that ticketing fee, which would increase it by several dollars per person."
Hunter Drama founder Daniel Stoddart said venue hire costs were a challenge.
"Civic Theatre venue hire is expensive and easily our biggest cost," he said. "The costs continue to increase, forcing us as producer to increase our ticket prices."
The council said it understood some community groups would prefer Civic Theatre to charge a lower venue hire rate, but the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) "has a clear position on competitive neutrality".
"This effectively says that councils cannot provide a commercial service that is already provided by the private sector, at a rate that is significantly less than their competitors," the spokesperson said.
"Civic Theatre and Fort Scratchley Function Centre are commercial operations which cost many millions of dollars annually to operate and maintain. We deliberately do not seek to make a profit in our venue hire rates. Instead we set our prices at a rate that only offsets our costs."
Lack of venues
Ms Milsom said it also pointed to the "bigger issue of a lack of event venues in Newcastle".
"The alternatives are often heavily booked though if you can get in, at least they allow you to manage the ticketing yourself, which means audiences pay a smaller ticketing fee and it boosts revenue as other platforms do not charge the event organiser as much," she said.
Mr Stoddart, who also owns The Very Popular Theatre Company, said it was "very difficult to find a venue to produce our shows in Newcastle".
"Especially, given our body of product annually," he said.
"Across all of our businesses we use the Civic precinct venues 15 weeks of the year.
"This means these council owned venues are our primary workplace for 29 per cent of the year.
"Hunter Drama stages up to six shows a year and Very Popular Theatre Company stages up to four shows in any given year.
"Because there are so many amateur community theatre groups it makes it very difficult to get a booking in these monopolised venues.
"There are no alternatives, and as such all of the companies squabble for the 52 weeks of the year.
"It will be wonderful when the Victoria Theatre opens and interesting to see if this will alleviate some of the pressure on venues like the Civic Playhouse."
Dr Bransdon agreed that the Victoria Theatre could fill a gap for larger venues in Newcastle when it is up and running after renovation.
Possible solutions
Mr Stoddart said his experience with hiring Civic Theatre had been "very mixed".
"I have personally seen the Civic Theatre venues go through seven managers and each of them have approached the way they support my company very differently," he said.
"There have been times when we, as the primary client of the venue, have felt extremely valued, supported and appreciated...and there have sadly been times when we have felt the opposite."
The founder said he understood that Civic Theatre "is a business with their own challenges and obligations".
"The challenges for us arise when the Civic's challenges clash with our own with very little regard or opportunity to work through these challenges together," he said.
"Many other venues around the country work closely with their main local producer.
"For example, Riverside Theatre in Parramatta partner with Packemin Productions to present an annual season of musicals in their venue.
"We would love to work closer with Civic, to investigate strategies for reducing costs for us as producers whilst still enabling the venue to operate to the standard it needs to, all while improving the customer and audience experience.
"For example, offering producers a percentage of the bar takings, which is common practice in many major live entertainment venues all over the world."
Dr Bransdon has several ideas to make venue hire more feasible, particularly for smaller organisations.
"From my conversations with people, perhaps those brackets could be reviewed just to allow room for those increase of costs and things because we literally can't put our ticket up one dollar," he said.
"My research also looked at government funding and there's very thin funding that comes to Newcastle. It's the age-old story, the federal government consider us metropolitan. So we often miss out on a lot of those grants because they go to Sydney-based things and then the state government consider us regional.
"Probably my biggest suggestion would be that more people get involved when the consultation happens for these things."
The City of Newcastle spokesperson said fees and charges were put on public exhibition for comment each year before being adopted by council.
"We received no comments from the Newcastle Writers Festival, or any community theatre groups concerned at the proposed fees and charges," the spokesperson said.
"Council does put out their fees and charges for consultation across the board," Mr Bransdon. "If you're not on the mailing list, you probably wouldn't get that information but it's my understanding that they do have a window of consultation and everyone needs to get involved at that point in time."
The council said it "proudly supports" arts and culture through grants and sponsorship for individuals, groups, and organisations to "deliver cultural projects and events that benefit the community".
"We are also committed to supporting local artists and organisations through flagship events such as New Annual to provide a high-profile platform to showcase their talents," the spokesperson said.
