If you hear cheers coming from theaters, concert halls and movie theaters, they aren’t necessarily for the shows: The joy is over the financial help now flooding into Central Florida’s battered entertainment industry — nearly $57 million worth.
The federal government’s Small Business Administration has started announcing recipients of its Shuttered Venue Operators Grants — including $10 million for Orlando’s Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts and $7.6 million for the nearby Amway Center.
“It really was our lifeline,” said Quinn Roberts of Theater West End in Sanford. “That’s how we get to keep going.”
The grant program, which is authorized to disburse more than $16 billion nationwide, grew out of the “Save Our Stages” campaign waged by entertainment organizations across the country after COVID-19 left venues empty for months.
“We were the first to close and the last to reopen,” said Shalisa James, president of Orlando-based Entertainment Central, a talent-representative agency that specializes in singing groups and other performers for theme parks, cruise ships and performing-arts center tours. “We were the most deeply affected — we can’t do takeout.”
Because the grants are based on lost revenue, they paint a picture of how vital the entertainment sector is to Central Florida’s economy. Each grant was equal to 45% of an organization’s gross earned revenue in 2019, up to the maximum of $10 million. That means, at the Dr. Phillips Center alone, revenue was upward of $22 million that year.
Things would soon look very different.
“The pandemic has nearly eliminated our industry, impacting jobs, economic stimulation and civic vitality,” wrote arts center spokeswoman Jacklyne Ramos. “The ‘Save our Stages’ initiative, which we championed with our national peers and elected officials, created successful legislation to assist in our industry’s recovery.”
A diverse business
The grants also showcase the diversity of Central Florida’s entertainment businesses — from small nonprofits to tourist attractions, from pulsating nightclubs to sedate museums, from agencies that provide performers for conventions and trade shows to homegrown comedian Carrot Top.
Among the grants awarded to tourist attractions: $2.8 million to Dinner Theater Entertainment, which runs the Pirates Dinner Adventure on International Drive; about $983,000 to Sleuths Mystery Dinner Theater, a fellow I-Drive venue; and $1.7 million to the company behind the still-closed Jellyrolls dueling-piano bar at Walt Disney World.
The Central Florida Fair received $1.9 million, and two local nightclubs each received seven-figure amounts: $1.7 million for the owners of Gilt, on Bennett Road east of downtown, and $1.2 million for the owners of The Beacham, on Orange Avenue downtown.
The roughly $1 million for Orlando-based Carrot Top Inc. helped keep people employed, spokesman Michael Kolk said.
“As you know, the pandemic totally shut off the revenue stream for entertainment venues like the one for Carrot Top Inc. that relied on ticket sales for live performances as their source of revenue,” wrote Kolk. “Unfortunately, the pandemic did not shut off the expense stream of the company related to certain fixed costs and more importantly the salaries and benefits for the 7-10 employees of the company.”
Native Central Floridian Scott Thompson, who achieved fame as comedian Carrot Top, operates his own venue in Las Vegas’s Luxor Hotel.
Chance to stabilize
James’s talent-representative business, which received $1.5 million, also has national reach through its touring shows.
“We were losing sleep,” she said of the stress of the past 16 months, as more than $2 million in contracts were canceled and Central Entertainment went three months without a single inquiry.
The company dipped into savings and took on jobs at a financial loss to continue to pay its employees for any work that could be found.
“We wanted to be on the side of putting people to work,” said James, who would accept gigs at a sixth of the usual price. “We just wanted to keep the artists busy.”
The grant will stabilize the company’s finances, making up for the 2020 losses, and better position Central Entertainment for the future, James said. She plans to hire business-development staff, who will help expand new revenue streams found in online work during the pandemic, and provide cost-of-living raises to employees.
“The game plan is to keep doing what we’re doing,” James said. “But now we can pay for it.”
The Dr. Phillips Center’s $10 million will be spent on expenses “primarily related to the maintenance of the center,” Ramos said. The money will not be used for capital investment, such as the completion of Steinmetz Hall, because “our priority is to stabilize the operations of the organization.”
Smaller organizations are also trying to stabilize.
At Theater West End, which received about $177,000, half will go toward paying rent and other bills as pandemic “grace periods” end, while half will keep staff employed, Roberts said.
SAK Comedy Lab, which saw revenue fall 70%, will spend most of its $480,000 on payroll and rent, executive director Chris Dinger said. He thinks there will be enough money to also replenish the organization’s reserves — which have been 80% depleted.
“Thanks to PPP [the federal Payroll Protection Program] and SVOG, we have a very solid outlook,” he said.
Other notable cultural institutions receiving funding include $2.7 million for Orlando Science Center, $1.4 million for Orlando Ballet, about $208,000 to the Winter Park Playhouse, roughly $136,000 for Opera Orlando and between $600,000 and $670,000 for multiple groups, including Orlando Shakes, Orlando Repertory Theatre, the Garden Theatre in Winter Garden and the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, through its Plaza Live Foundation.
Missed out
Because of the program’s strict criteria, not everyone who needed help could get it.
Enzian Theater in Maitland didn’t qualify because of a technicality — its seating is movable, not fixed to the floor as required.
“We consider our movable seating an asset; it has enabled us to more effectively socially distance moviegoing parties comfortably,” said Janie Pope, Enzian’s director of development and public relations. “To be ineligible because Enzian’s seating is not fixed was a blow. As a nonprofit cinema, during this time of extreme flux for the moviegoing industry, we could have really used this funding.”
By comparison, Touchstar Cinemas, which operates the Southchase 7 on South Orange Blossom Trail, received $4.6 million. The owner of the West Orange Cinema in Ocoee was granted about $703,000.
Others seeking funds encountered their own stumbling blocks.
A private Facebook group of more than 2,000 members nationwide features posts about complications, website crashes, payment delays, denials and appeals, although messages of award approvals are greeted with cheers.
“I will probably have nightmares about that for the rest of my life,” said Roberts of Theater West End about the precision application process.
Funding received is authorized only for specific uses, such as mortgage payments, payroll, administrative expenses and in limited ways, for advertising and capital expenditures related to live productions.
The city of Orlando, for example, will use its Amway Center money to “offset expense items like arena utilities and other operational expenses,” wrote Kirk Wingerson of Orlando Venues. The Amway Center was the only city-run venue to qualify for a grant.
Beyond the practical uses, many entertainment leaders found the grant provided a much-needed and long-awaited emotional boost, a light at the end of a 16-month tunnel.
“We hope the arts center will be alive and thriving by the end of the year with artists, guests, colleagues and students as we begin the long road to economic stability,” wrote Ramos, the arts-center spokeswoman.
“It certainly was a surreal feeling to be approved,” said Dinger of SAK. “It was a major relief.”
Find me on Twitter @matt_on_arts or email me at mpalm@orlandosentinel.com. Want more theater and arts news and reviews? Go to orlandosentinel.com/arts. For more fun things, follow @fun.things.orlando on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
