BANFF – The Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity is investigating ways to generate additional revenue, including more festivals, conferences or summits run by the internationally-renowned post-secondary institution.
With the COVID-19 pandemic hitting hard the Banff Centre financially, including the loss of money-making third party conferences, and dwindling government grants in recent years, officials say they need to diversify ways to generate revenue to support the educational and training programs.
Officials say there are no plans to privatize or commercialize the Banff Centre and point to the long-standing Mountain Film and Book Festival and the Banff International String Quartet Competition as examples of successful Banff Centre-run events.
“We will be creating more programs of that nature and stature,” said Janice Price, president and CEO of the Banff Centre during a recent presentation to Banff town council.
“We will continue to generate entrepreneurial revenue as part of our balanced funding model, but Banff Centre will remain a public post-secondary institution and registered charity.”
The Banff Centre will continue to use its campus facilities to convene summits, conferences, meetings and public presentations that encourage creativity and the global exchange of ideas.
Price said the centre will also create seasonal programming or events, such as music or dance festivals, for example, to generate revenue through event ticket sales and attracting corporate partners and donors.
“It’s clear that we do need to grow and diversify our revenue if we’re going to continue to provide the financial support that we do to deliver the education and training programs that are at the centre of our mission,” she said.
“Locally, this means that we will need to create, and are excited to create, reliable and dependable seasonal programming events, which like the Mountain Film and Book Festival, can draw significant numbers of new visitors into the Banff economy particularly during the shoulder seasons.”
Price told Banff town council that The Banff Centre will work with the local community, businesses and Town of Banff on this.
“Our thinking on this programming is still at an early stage, but we are looking forward to further discussions with you and with the community in due course about that programming,” she said.
The vision for The Banff Centre, which will celebrate its 90th anniversary in 2023, is laid out in its newest strategic plan, called Strategic Pathways, which was released in April last year.
The centre’s financial model includes funding from individual donors, private sector contributions, government grants, and own-sourced entrepreneurial revenue-generating activities.
Adam Waterous, chairman of the Banff Centre’s board of governors, said the institution’s annual budget prior to the COVID-19 pandemic was in the $74 million range, with approximately $16 million a year coming from the provincial government – the lowest of any post secondary institution in Alberta.
“We were getting about 20 per cent of our total budget from the province,” he said. “We were able to fund 80 per cent of our annual budget effectively from sole source revenue, which is exceptionally high … most other post secondaries, more than half is dependent on receiving provincial funding.”
Waterous said the share that the province has been contributing to the Banff Centre’s overall budget “has been in decline on a percentage basis for a very long time.”
“That’s why there’s a great focus in our strategic plan to grow revenues to effectively help replace the amount of funding from government, that shortfall, that we’ve had historically,” he said.
On top of that, much of the Banff Centre's revenues comes from conferences.
Within one week of the pandemic being declared, 100 per cent of the Banff Centre bookings for meetings and conferences disappeared from the books and that established revenue source dried up.
“During COVID, Banff Centre has had a double whammy; one is, of course, that the nature of the conference business across North America, across the world is down, but we’ve actually been prohibited from having people on campus as a post secondary institution,” said Waterous.
“It’s been tough for us, and the good news is most of the time, outside of a pandemic, being so self-reliant for revenue is a very unusual strength, very powerful strength and something that we’re keen to build on.”
Before the COVID-19 pandemic struck in early 2020, the Banff Centre was the third largest employer in Banff and the Bow Valley.
All the programs and services offered at the Banff Centre were hit. Live audience performances were suspended and residencies and conferences were cancelled. The Indigenous leadership program and Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival, for example, devised alternative methods of delivering programs.
Price said the institution’s main activities were simultaneously hit hard by the pandemic like many other arts, education and conference operations.
“It was the perfect storm for our activities,” she said. “We did, unfortunately, have to lay off a great many staff.”
Initially, about 400 staff would be temporarily laid off, but by June 2020, there was an announcement that 280 staff would be permanently laid off as a result of the public health restrictions and the unfolding economic crisis.
Price said social distancing requirements under public health rules also led to many of the Banff Centre’s activities going online.
“The uncertainty that then resulted from numerous waves of COVID meant that we have only slowly and tentatively been able to bring back some staff ... over the last few months,” said Price.
“Ultimately, this latest sweep of COVID has meant that we have moved once more to mostly online programming, but we are recruiting for a full suite of on-campus programs here at Banff Centre for this spring.”
The Banff Centre planned two major infrastructure projects ahead of the pandemic that went ahead – $7.1 million in renovations to the Eric Harvie Theatre to turn it into the new Jenny Belzberg Theatre and improvements to the Sally Borden pool and fitness centre.
