He has helped attract many news acts and events to St. James and believes that a diverse, thriving arts and culture scene is hugely important for the island.
“These events aren’t particularly commercially viable, but are so important to the community,” said Mr Bisson, referring to recent gaming events and a sports bike exhibition.
“It’s really rewarding and seeing people doing what they love is great.”
While St. James enjoyed a relatively successful 2020, with a focus on the local music scene, the uncertainty of 2021 saw the charity suffer greatly.
“In 2021, with this partial opening, what we had was this huge lack of consumer confidence and we also had confidence issues from across the water.
“Some of the acts that we were booking to come over were having difficulties in coming over. And we had a lot of cancellations from acts who either couldn’t be bothered or found it too difficult.”
Pictured: St. James is in another busy period hosting events, although the pandemic continues to have an effect on its programme.
The experience has left Mr Bisson wishing for more understanding from the States.
“I think the States are in a very tough position with the hospitality sector, but I think they need to see the hospitality sector as more than just hotels.
“There’s a lot of us getting impacted out here. In December we put on events, but because consumers were so scared no-one came to them.”
St. James’ historic building is owned by the States and rented at a peppercorn rate to the charity which manages the venue. The charity receives a grant which is equivalent to about 10% of its turnover. But it needs £20,000 every month just to break even.
“The problem we’ve got is that we only have three-and-a-half full-time staff to run the events, so there’s only ‘x’ number of hours a week we can operate.
“It’s not just about telling the public to go and support [charities]. It’s about the States recognising that if you want to have a place where the orchestras can go and play then you have to look at it as part of the mix in a more holistic way.”
Pictured: “All the people we bring over here love the vibe,” said Jon Bisson, Executive Director of St. James.
Mr Bisson said that hosting gigs and other musical and cultural events increases Guernsey’s attractiveness to larger UK acts.
“When we first got in Milton Jones [a UK comedian who performed last year], we could just about afford him. He was the only one who would come.
“He went back and said ‘I’ve stayed in this fantastic hotel, I had a great time, they’re a really good bunch of people’. Then we had a bunch of comedians coming to us at a reduced fee.”
Despite his concerns, Mr Bisson said that 2022 has started well and the future of live entertainment in Guernsey looks bright.
“We’ve seen consumer confidence increase quite dramatically in early January and we have three really big events lined up with big UK acts coming over.”
You can check out all St James has to offer HERE.