Kanata Theatre To Join Day of Visibility for Live Event Community
The Ron Maslin Playhouse will shine red the evening of September 22
(Kanata, September 21, 2020) – Live Event Community, an organization formed to support Canadian live event workers who’ve lost their livelihoods due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, is organizing a Day of Visibility on Tuesday, September 22nd, 2020 and Kanata Theatre’s Ron Maslin Playhouse will be taking part.
One hour after sundown from coast-to-coast, hundreds of venues and buildings will light their exteriors red to raise awareness for an industry that is still dark – and will be one of the last to recover. Throughout the evening, images and video will be shared across social media using the hashtags #LightUpLive to boost visibility.
The goal of this movement is to ensure the government acknowledges that the live event industry has been uniquely impacted by the effects of COVID-19, and that it will continue to offer financial support for live event workers and companies throughout the supply chain until large gatherings are once again deemed safe and the industry comes back to life.
“While Kanata Theatre is an all-volunteer organization, we fully support the Live Event campaign,” said Cameron Bishop, Director of Publicity for Kanata Theatre, “It’s critical that our arts and culture organizations are supported – be they community theatres like ours or larger scale professional theatres and live event venues. We often don’t realize what we have until it’s gone – and #LightUpLive is, we hope, a reminder to Canadians nationwide and their representatives that we need to do whatever is necessary to ensure these venues and these workers are sustained so that when COVID has ended, we can resume the great shows and events that entertain patrons of all ages”.
Kanata Theatre has never been a recipient of government funding programs.
The then-City of Kanata received funding from the Canada-Ontario Infrastructure Fund in the mid-1990s and used that funding, along with substantial funding raised by Kanata Theatre, to build the Ron Maslin Playhouse which opened in 1996. Funding programs available as part of the emergency COVID response are targeted towards organizations that have employees – for example, the federal Emergency Support for Cultural, Heritage and Sports Organization’s (ESCHSO) criteria does not have any provisions for organizations, like Kanata Theatre, that are 100% volunteer run.
“We are fortunate at Kanata Theatre to have financial reserves,” added Bishop, “That said, supports from the provincial and federal governments would greatly assist all-volunteer community theatres in offsetting both some of the impacts of having to suspend this current season and trying to determine the path forward post-COVID”.
The Day of Visibility for the Live Event Community will run Tuesday 22 September from an hour after sundown, coast to coast. Follow along at https://lightuplive.ca.
Interested media are invited to the Ron Maslin Playhouse located at 1 Ron Maslin Way in Kanata to take photos or do a video hit anytime after 845pm/9pm on Tuesday, September 22, 2020.
