Good morning, and thanks for the opportunity to speak about cultural hubs in Canada.
Brick and Mortar is a small business that runs arts hubs in Toronto. Vikki and I run four spaces that are available to artists, community groups, and companies to rent. We serve dozens of groups every day and have a client base of over a thousand. We rent out the space on an hourly, daily, or weekly basis. We offer basic equipment and the support needed for a variety of arts uses, all at cost, with no long-term commitments. We have commercial leases or partnership agreements in every building where we work. We cover the cost of the rent, property tax, insurance, and utilities, and stock the spaces with the basic necessities.
To us, arts hubs are spaces that provide whatever enterprising artists need in order to use their skills to create their own employment. We provide do-it-yourself resources for them to take the first step towards start-up companies. Because we are the venue where these budding creators are taking their first plunge into entrepreneurship, we are also the place where they experience their first challenges or failures.
We opened the spaces because we believed that a lack of space was the main challenge facing artists. We have discovered that although the cost of space is a problem to artists, this is really more a symptom of a bigger problem. Even when we are able to offer space for free, it doesn't guarantee the type of success artists need, nor does it lead to sustainable employment. Creators need more from us than just space. If nobody comes to buy their tickets, their art, or their services, they are still not succeeding, no matter how cheaply we can provide the space, and many of them have no idea where to start. In order to imagine how an arts hub like Brick and Mortar could flourish, we must instead imagine how our artists could flourish. Our vibrancy is really just a reflection of the community that we're trying to serve.
In order to be successful, we need successful clients who can come back to us to produce over and over again. Our biggest challenge is an inability to retain our customers. This isn't because they go elsewhere to other hubs. It's because they quit entirely and leave the industry. They face overwhelming barriers that they don't have the training or resources to overcome. While we do work with some established companies like Stratford or Shaw, the bulk of our clients work on a project-by-project basis. They are very vulnerable clientele, which leaves us vulnerable in our attempts to cater to them rather than the larger, better-funded groups.
We recognize that not all artists are interested in starting a business, but the ones who come knocking on our doors are, even if they don't quite see it that way yet. A desire to create on their own, take control over their own careers, and earn income from their craft leads them to our doors. They require more support to bridge the gap to start thinking of themselves as entrepreneurs.
We believe the Government of Canada can help foster this new developing ecosystem. We think the most dire need is training at the intersection point between art and entrepreneurship. Every company and artist we have worked with talks about the lack of any kind of education in the fields of marketing, finance, or administration as it applies directly to the arts. Even though it has become culturally accepted that self-producing is the first step to getting started in the arts industry, none of our college training programs prepare students for this reality. We need programming that learns from the innovative start-ups in the private sector and applies it in the arts sector. Funding would be well spent in the creation of courses to offer business training to artists who want to start companies.
Within hubs themselves, funding is needed to administer training, workshops, and mentorship programs that can guide artists on how to use our spaces effectively. Rather than grants that offer artists one-time funding for projects, we would love to see a focus on company development and sustainability like the type of start-up grants offered to entrepreneurs in other fields. Hubs managers like us could also benefit from more business management training opportunities. After all, we're really just learning through trial and error too.