With tight finances, MusicNL has made the decision to scale back MusicNL Week and keep it in St. John’s.
That means a loss to the City of Corner Brook.
The provincial music industry association had been slated to host its annual conference, showcase and awards show gala in the west coast city this month.
David Smallwood is the board chair and CEO of the Rotary Arts Centre in Corner Brook. He’s also a member of MusicNL’s interim board.
Smallwood said he doesn’t dispute not having the event in Corner Brook is a loss.
“It would have been wonderful,” said Smallwood, who chaired the host committee that organized the 2009 East Coast Music Awards in Corner Brook.
MusicNL Week events would have taken place at a number of venues, including the Rotary Arts Centre, the arts and culture centre, locations on Broadway and some of the new microbreweries in the city.
“All of us would have had extra revenue because of that," said Smallwood. "And people come and they spend money in hotels. All of that would have been quite an important contributor to the economic situation.”
Outside of economics, the event would have provided people with an opportunity to see some great performances from both established and up-and-coming artists from around the province. For some of those artists, it would have been their first opportunity to perform in the Corner Brook area.
MusicNL currently has a debt of about $200,000. A recent posting on the MusicNL website by the interim board attributes deficit to budget overruns on various projects over a number of years, with no emphasis on debt recovery.
With the situation as it is, taking MusicNL Week outside of St. John’s would add a huge cost the organization simply cannot afford.
Smallwood said travel expenses for event staff and board members, most of whom live in St. John’s, would be too much.
The plan now is to hold some kind of event in St. John’s. It won’t be MusicNL Week, but likely something like MusicNL Weekend, said Smallwood.
The most important feature of it — the awards — will go ahead.
“Everything else is a wonderful add on to that, but is a cost and it doesn’t necessarily add to the benefit of the musicians,” he said.
Smallwood said
Without the unfortunate changes, Smallwood said the event would not happen at all.
“It was that or nothing,” he said.
He suspects that the event will make a return to Corner Brook and other parts of the province in the future.
“It just can’t happen this year.”
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