Hello, everyone.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Members of the committee, thank you for including us in this study.
My name is Jon Weisz and I am the founder and executive director of Scènes de musique alternatives du Québec, or SMAQ. The association was founded in 2018 and today brings together more than sixty independent performance facilities throughout Quebec.
Independent performance facilities have a central role in the music ecosystem because they can accommodate the major transformations in the way culture is available. Today, more than 80% of live, professional music performances in Quebec take place in independent facilities. They are the laboratories of artistic innovation. For the public, they also play a major role in discoverability, as they introduce artists from Quebec and Canada in person. These venues also contribute to the vitality of local economies by attracting audiences to neighbourhoods, to municipalities and to regions. Today, more than 75% of artists' income is from touring. Independent performance facilities are therefore essential for their financial stability and for the development of their careers in the long term.
The first challenge that independent performance facilities face is chronic underfunding. The current envelope for halls in Quebec is a thin one indeed: one-third of what goes to venues in the rest of Canada.
Our first recommendation, therefore, is for the government to bring the amount of permanent funding for producers and for performance spaces to $10 million.
An investment of that kind would protect our cultural sovereignty. Without strong infrastructure to host our homegrown artists, Canada increases its dependency on foreign content, platforms and companies, mostly American, to shape our collective imagination and our access to music.
The second challenge is the precarious situation with the facilities. In Quebec, around 70% of independent performance facilities are leased. This makes them directly vulnerable to increased rental costs and to real estate sales, speculation and changes in use. Each time a lease is renewed, a number of tenants are anticipating increases of between 25% and 50%. In the last three years, other operating costs have increased by about 40%.
Our second recommendation, therefore, is for the federal government to support collective models of venue security that would establish independent performance facilities on a long-term basis.
The third challenge for independent performance facilities is the growing concentration in the market for live events.
Internationally, players like Live Nation and Ticketmaster have been strengthening their position through evermore aggressive vertical integration. This has fragmented, not to say dismantled, a number of cultural ecosystems.
In Quebec, the concentration took a specific form in 2019 when Live Nation Entertainment acquired 49% of Evenko. Today, this conglomerate controls a critical mass of major performance venues and festivals in Quebec. Therefore, half the profits from those events, supported by millions of dollars in public money, go off to Los Angeles.
While the huge integrated groups make record profits quarter after quarter, independent production continues to operate in an ecosystem that is growing evermore precarious.
Our recommendation, therefore, is that the federal government institute a solidarity fee on ticket sales for major events. To be specific, this would be a modest contribution on tickets for major concerts attracting a large audience. The fee would be paid into a fund for independent performance facilities.
A measure of that kind would recognize the artistic research and development role of those facilities. They are where the first risks are taken with emerging artists and new projects.
In conclusion, support for independent performance facilities is support for our cultural sovereignty. Investment in a strong network of independent venues protects our ability to bring our stories to life and to produce them for the public to discover.
Thank you for your attention. I look forward to your questions and am ready to answer them in either official language.