Industry infrastructure

Improve the use of existing infrastructure (venues, technology, equipment) to enhance audience experiences, build the sector, and address industry needs

There’s no show without a stage.

What if more live music venues close their doors? What if festivals can’t operate due to poor or failing infrastructure? What if policy and regulatory frameworks don’t keep pace with rising rents, gentrification of neighbourhoods, or changing cities? It’s not just live music that suffers. These factors affect the entire social and cultural fabric of our communities, and the quality of life we have come to enjoy and expect in Ontario.

Live music spaces are incubators, social hubs, and gathering places for all kinds of artists and people. They are small businesses, community organizations and, in many cases especially where festivals are concerned, they are cornerstone, decades-old institutions with legacies that continue to impact upon generations of Ontarians. Live music spaces are just as important to our neighbourhoods and cities as libraries and other cultural institutions. Industry and government must understand and internalize the critical importance of “the stage.”

Challenges facing live music venues

Live music venues across the province face similar financial and social pressures. Rising rents, neighbourhood gentrification, and changing cities are factors that often combine to make historically significant and successful music venues struggle, and prevent new ones from thriving. The many challenges faced by live music venues can lead to reduced attendance and lower revenues. Noise or other complaints from as few as one person can conspire to shut out music festivals from public spaces. Rising costs can lead to the sale and outright loss of historical music spaces.^{footnote 5[5]}

Music venues often come into conflict with neighbours who say “not in my backyard,” opening the door to regulatory barriers and creating other challenges. They also struggle to retrofit their physical infrastructure and make other updates, which can be costly but are ultimately necessary to keep the venue operational on a professional level.

Consultation respondents suggested that existing assets, such as government-owned venues and stages, could be better used to support the live music sector. Respondents reported that these venues are often programmed in competition with private-sector venues. At the same time, publicly-owned venues often suffer from obsolete infrastructure, and could support the industry and surrounding businesses more effectively if they were better supported and utilized.

The all-ages market is underserved

The results of our consultation indicate that audience demand for all-ages shows in Ontario is currently underserved. A primary reason for this is that the typical business model relies on alcohol sales to cover costs and generate profit for the live music presentation, which results in events marketed to and/or restricted to adults.

All-ages shows provide established artists with more opportunities to perform. They also give emerging artists, and the promoters and producers of tomorrow, the opportunity to learn and hone their skills in front of live audiences. Very importantly, they ingrain a love of live music, and the live music experience, in the hearts and minds of the young people who are tomorrow’s audiences.

Expanding Ontario’s live music venue inventory

Public spaces, such as libraries, community centres and schools represent an untapped resource with the potential to significantly expand Ontario’s live music venue infrastructure. This infrastructure exists in nearly every community across Ontario. If workable policies for off-hours use were developed, these spaces could be used for the presentation of all-ages events and other performances.

These public spaces are even more critical to live music in rural, francophone, and minority communities across the province. Not all of these communities have dedicated music venues, but they frequently have public spaces that could be used to address this gap.

The Ontario Festival of Small Halls actively works to capitalize on these underused spaces in partnership with local partners. The Festival brings artists into all manner of spaces, converting them into temporary venues in small towns across Ontario.