“People took their refunds and didn’t all rebook”

Tuesday 23 April 2019

Fears have been raised over the future of one of summer’s biggest musical events, and the financial impact on the orchestra behind it, after Fort Regent repeated its advice to organisers, “not to expect their events to go ahead."

The Jersey Symphony Orchestra, which holds its flagship summer concert at the Fort in August, suffered a ‘massive loss’ in ticket sales for its Easter concert on Saturday, having been turned out of Fort Regent’s Gloucester Hall at short notice.

Although the Easter concert was rescued when it was moved to St Michael’s school gym at short notice, ticket sales were more than 50% down on last year’s concert at the Fort. And final sales were less than even this year’s advance bookings for the Fort, which had to be refunded when the Gloucester Hall was closed down. 

Only 222 people paid to attend the Saturday evening concert compared with 484 for the orchestra’s 2018 Easter concert at Fort Regent, Alison Stewart, Chair of the orchestra’s Players Committee, told Express.

Pictured: A previous JSO concert at the Fort.

“Our Easter concert audience tends to be pushing 500 so we were well under half what we would hope for and we were also selling all tickets at £25,” she said. This is less than the premium ticket price at the Fort.

Now there are fears for the JSO’s summer concert, the largest event in the orchestra’s calendar, which attracts between 700 and 800 people, scheduled to take place on Saturday 3 August.

At Saturday evening’s concert Richard Thomas, President of the Jersey Symphony Orchestra, appeared optimistic about the prospects of the orchestra returning to the Fort in August when he spoke to the audience before the second half of the concert.

But the Fort was unable to offer any reassurance that the work currently taking place to maintain public access to the Fort was likely to be completed in time for the summer concert.

“The sensible and prudent advice to anyone organising an event is to not to expect it to go ahead at the Fort – and Fort Regent staff continue to work with and assist the organisers of every event, and with other venues, to try to find alternatives, although there can be no guarantee that alternatives will be found,” a spokesperson said.

Pictured: Gustavo Surjik, soloist for the violin concerto, during the recent Easter concert, which had to be relocated to St Michael's. 

Although the concert at St Michael’s was judged by many to have been a great success artistically, the venue failed to attract concert-goers in numbers. Nearly 80 seats remained unoccupied in the gym - the capacity of which was just 300.

“It certainly had a huge impact on attendance”, Mrs Stewart said, adding that the orchestra faced many additional costs, including changing advertising, posters, and transforming the school gym into a temporary concert venue.

Final figures for the financial outcome of the concert are not available but it seems unlikely that the summer concert with its popular programme – this year it will be a prom concert of English music including Elgar – could be viable in a smaller venue like St Michael’s.

Fort Regent’s sudden closure for safety reasons has resulted in an emergency programme of works to keep the building open for day-to-day activities. The spokesperson explained that six electricians were working 12-hour days to install compliant emergency lighting. Other works required include the fitting of smoke detection and fire alarm systems and the compartmentation of event space and escape routes.

“Being one department has enabled the work to be coordinated with greater efficiency, and GHE [Growth, Housing and Environment] officers are working to keep the Fort open for day-to-day activities through an evolving action plan,” the spokesperson said. However, they were unable to provide any reassurance about the viability of the concert on 3 August.

Mrs Stewart said that the JSO currently had no alternative venue for the summer concert if the Fort was not available.

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