With less than a month to go before the Stars and Thunder festival opens in Timmins, plenty of tickets still need to be sold if there's any hope of reaching a break-even point.
This week at city hall, Councillor Rick Dubeau had an item placed on the agenda to get an update on numbers surrounding the festival.
As it stands, Mayor Steve Black has been giving a report at the first meeting of each month.
"A couple of weeks ago I had asked if we could have an update, just because the festival is getting so much closer. I am getting a lot of questions in the community," said Dubeau.
Mayor Steve Black said he could provide answers for specific questions.
"Where are we with expenses? What's the cost for insurance, for liability, for cancellation insurances? Where are we with expenditures, where are we with sales?" asked Dubeau.
Black replied that the expenditures were still 'approximately at $4.3 million', as was last reported to council. Regarding revenues he said he didn't have the exact number on hand.
"But we're still approximately around a million dollars from break even, maybe slightly less. In terms of total ticket numbers that translates to, its probably in the three to four thousand tickets that we need to sell prior to the festival, of the all-week variety. Obviously if you sell the early day, $35 dollar tickets it doesn't get you there in the same numbers."
In terms of what policing and security costs are, Black said the price tag is currently at $335,000.
"If we see an increase in ticket sales as we approach, it could get as high as $355,000 I believe," he said.
Mayor Steve Black will be giving one more pre-festival update before the event kicks off on June 24. Andrew Autio for TimminsToday A number of local and regional musical acts have been announced as openers for each day's concert sets.
A complete and detailed festival schedule is expected to be released this week. It is subject to change, but Black provided an estimated times for the events.
On weekends, the gates will open at noon, with entertainment to begin roughly at 2 p.m.
During weekdays, gates will open at 2 p.m., with entertainment beginning at 4 p.m.
Headliners are expected to hit the stage at 8:30 p.m. each night.
The international team fireworks shows will begin at 10:30 p.m. each night.
Dubeau thanked Black for the information, but inquired again regarding insurance costs.
"I believe most of the general insurance is covered under our current policies, perhaps with some small add-ons. The cancellation insurance, they're just updating the full list of contracts for all the artists, and then they should have a price for the cancellation insurance, hopefully before we get back on the June 6 update," replied Black.
Concerning the ticket sale crunch, Councillor Noella Rinaldo asked Black if there was still the possibility of cutting single-day ticket sales.
"Where there's a cutoff date, and then from that point on you have to buy a week pass. Is that still something that we're looking at?" she said.
Black said they weren't looking at cutting off individual day tickets, and he believes there are under 1,000 single day tickets remaining for the Canada Day show featuring festival headliner Keith Urban.
"The issue becomes if the larger portion just wants to come out for the Canada Day show. Once that limit has sold out, then people wanting to attend that day would be left with the option of buying an all-week pass if they wanted to gain access for the Saturday. With under 1,000 tickets remaining for Canada Day, that's still an aspect that we think is possible, and we may get to that point, but we don't have any intention of cutting off sales. We'll sell a ticket to whoever wants to buy a ticket for the festival," said Black.
Black will be making his final pre-festival update at the next council meeting scheduled for June 6.
