ELORA – Attendance may have been down compared to pre-COVID years, the Elora Festival’s return to in-person concerts is being deemed a success.
“It was definitely wonderful to have live music in Elora and Fergus again,” said Laura Adlers, Elora Festival executive director, referencing the festival’s shift to a pre-recorded online format in 2020 and 2021.
While Adlers said she feels people are seeking cultural events and live performances after a tough two years, she acknowledged audiences appeared to be in the range of 25 to 40 per cent smaller than in previous years.
“We have been checking in with all of our colleagues and other classical music festivals across the province and they’re all seeing the same thing,” Adlers said. “There is some hesitancy for people to return to live concerts and through the hardship of the pandemic I think we’ve seen some change.”
With that said, Adlers said she believed a new audience has begun to show up with the rapid growth of population in the region.
Part of this impact she said would likely be due to some new components to the festival.
A big one was holding occasional free concerts in Downtown Elora’s greenspace to introduce people who may not be familiar with the Elora Festival.
“They were very well attended, we had about 60 to 70 people every time at those concerts,” Adlers said.
The festival also expanded to include a few performances at Fergus churches and held more of them at the Gambrel Barn which allowed for more airflow to make people feel safer attending the concert.
“We requested that people remain masked in the concert halls and the majority of our patrons did which really was for the safety of our artists, volunteers, staff and fellow patrons,” Adlers said.
Two years on, COVID still loomed over the event as Adlers said organizers were hoping illness wouldn’t result in any concert cancellations. Ultimately, just one concert had to be cancelled over the multi-week festival.
With the last concert wrapping up on July 24, planning for next year is already underway and Adlers said the successful new additions will be returning.
The Elora Singers are also recording an album and have announced a fall/winter season.
Overall, Adlers said she and the whole organization are grateful for the support from the community and funding given from the government, the local community foundation and sponsors.
“This is a very precarious time for arts organizations across the province,” Adlers said. “Of all times during the pandemic this is sort of the time where we’ll see, we’re able to gauge audience behaviour and whether people will come back and how ready they are to come back. So this is a very telling time for the cultural sector.”
