Ontario arts leader suggests pausing food, drink sales over COVID capacity limits

TORONTO — As Ontario prepares to introduce new COVID-19 capacity limits at large indoor venues, one Canadian arts leader hopes the province might entertain a different idea: temporarily stopping food and beverage sales at all live events.

Mervon Mehta, executive director of performing arts at Toronto’s Royal Conservatory, is asking provincial leaders to consider ways to keep capacity at current levels rather than introduce rules that would directly erode ticket sales.

He says one option could be to mandate that all venues _ no matter their size _ require audiences to remain seated and refrain from eating or drinking at a performance.

Mehta presented his alternative to capacity limits in a letter sent Thursday to Lisa MacLeod, Ontario’s minister of tourism, culture and sport, while outlining some concerns with the government’s current treatment of venues, such as live theatres and performing arts centres.

“They’re not considering people that go into seated theatres, whether it’s us or the Toronto Symphony or the ballet or the opera or a theatre to see ‘Come From Away’ and people are sitting in their seats,” he explained in an interview.

“They’re not talking; they’re not drinking; they’re not eating. They have their masks on and they’re following all the guidelines.”

Mehta suggested the alternative for all entertainment spaces, however it’s unlikely to find support among sports venues and movie theatres, where revenues rely on copious snack and drink sales.

Mehta’s approach is starkly different from Premier Doug Ford’s plan to combat the fast-spreading Omicron variant by placing 50 per cent capacity limits on venues that hold 1,000 or more people.

But it would address the question of how to to scale back events already sold at full capacity and faced with postponement, refunds or telling half their ticketholders they no longer have seats.

“Tickets were sold out for many concerts,” he said.

“The ballet has ‘the ‘Nutcracker’… the Toronto Symphony has concerts. How do they decide which of their 2,000 people can come and which of their 2,000 people can’t?”

“It’s a logistical nightmare,” he added.

Koerner Hall, home base for the Toronto Conservatory, can seat 1,100 people which means it would only be allowed 550 people under the new rules, Mehta said.

While revenue would plummet at the concession stand, he said it would be “nowhere near the loss of revenue from a 50 per cent drop in ticket sales.”

“If I don’t sell concessions at a concert, I probably lose $1,000 in revenue, but if I can’t sell 50 per cent of the house, I lose $30,000 to $40,000,” he added.

Eliminating food and drinks is unlikely to sit well with multiplex operators who rely on concession sales for most of their movie business, since a large percentage of ticket sales are passed on to the film’s distributor.

And it also might not curry favour with sports arenas bolstered by revenues from beer and pizza.

“For the Leafs and Raptors, is there a difference between selling 10,000 seats and everyone having their mask off, yelling, screaming and drinking, or selling 20,000 seats with everyone masked?” Mehta said.

“I would assume they’d rather have the revenue of a full house.”

Mehta said he recognizes the province won’t heel turn on the rules, but he hopes to open a conversation over the coming weeks to better lay out venue expectations for 2022.

“It can’t be a one-size fits all for everybody,” he added.