Image via http://arts.sa.gov.au/queens-theatre/
A series of articles by Richard Watts in ArtsHub earlier this year, exploring some of the key issues facing Adelaide’s performing arts sector, highlighted the dire lack of city-based venues accessible to independent and small-to-medium makers and presenters.
For many years the state government-owned, Arts SA-managed and heritage-listed Queen’s Theatre has been identified by artists and arts organisations as a venue that could help fill this gap. Discussions about Queen’s have gone as far as a group of artists producing a business plan for Arts SA that outlined modelling and costings for turning Queen’s into a curated, contemporary performance space, and some real consideration within Arts SA about how the venue could be tendered out to artists or arts organisations.
Curious about the current hire rates for Queen’s, which is marketed as a basic but beautiful performance, art and event venue, I asked Arts SA for the last two years of figures (which they happily supplied). The statistics are startling and depressing.
For the periods of 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 Queen’s has been dark for 65.9% of the time. Non-arts hires (corporate, community and markets) make up 15% of usage. Artistic hires (theatre, dance, music, visual art and film) make up the remaining 19.1%. Within the artistic hires, use of Queen’s Theatre by the Adelaide Festival makes up 44% of the sub-total (or 8.4% of the overall breakdown). In this year of 2013-2014, there were zero hires for theatre or dance outside of the Adelaide Festival; and only 2.5% fell into this category for 2012-2013.
How is it that such a coveted venue, in the middle of the CBD, can be so drastically under utilised? Putting aside the issues with the venue, what does it say about the state of performance-making in South Australia, what does it say about when and how local and national work is presented here?
Queen’s Theatre is basically a shell. It is expensive to use as absolutely everything needs to be brought in; it is very affected by weather; its heritage status limits some of the ways the space can be used. More recently, private urban development projects on both sides of the property have also impacted on the site.
However none of these types of issues has prevented the redevelopment of similar buildings in other cities into thriving arts venues.
It doesn’t matter how many times it is pointed out that the Adelaide Festival Centre car park upgrade, or any of the even larger recreation/infrastructure/tourism related developments currently underway in Adelaide, come from other portfolios or that moreover ‘the State has no money’. The fact remains: for a relatively modest investment the South Australian Government could create a whole new life for Queen’s and in doing so make a critically needed investment in a broad community of multidisciplinary artists and their audiences. Queen’s can be a (albeit much smaller) version of venues such as Arts House’s Meat Market, Carriageworks and Brisbane Powerhouse. Really, with an iota of vision, it actually can.
This is the nub of the issue – it is not simply a matter of space. It highlights the huge gap between the Adelaide Festival Centre on the one hand, and the rest of the performing arts sector on the other. Adelaide lacks the kind of ecology seen in other states, where second and third tier companies (with their own venues, notably), and companies with different artistic and curatorial interests, provide a greater breadth of opportunity and experience for both artists and audiences. I suspect this has just as much to do with the low use of Queen’s as the difficulties with the venue itself.
South Australia needs a new development and presentation organisation that can support, produce and present contemporary performance and art, can work with local artists and can engage with a network of like-minded organisations around the country. This is the type of organisation that could and should call Queen’s home.
Putting aside the huge possibilities with Queen’s, even an investment into items such as portable seating bank, staging and floor plus some basic technical stock, would make it far more usable. Currently to afford Queen’s artists and small organisations need to compete for larger or additional grants (often from Arts SA, therefore simply paying money back into the government pool through the hire rates). Similarly, artist after artist hire venue and technical gear over and over again in order to use Queen’s (well theoretically, when it is being used!) It is such a waste of money.
As a starting point, Arts SA should consider a series of small strategies that could include:
• Reducing the hire rates for independents and small organisations;
• Investing in the facilities;
• Exploring new strategies for activating (or even better, curating) the building, in public dialogue with the independent and small-to-medium sector in South Australia.
However, ultimately, without a serious look at the funding priorities and arts ecology in the state, it’s difficult to imagine how the gorgeous old Queen’s can be made new.
Emma Webb is Creative Producer of Vitalstatistix, South Australia.
vitalstatistix.com.au