The state’s peak music body says financial strain caused by the COVID-19 pandemic meant it had to make about half its staff redundant.
Regional officer Nigel Bird, who has worked at West Australian Music for almost two decades, was among those who took a voluntary redundancy.
The organisation’s industry development officer, its administration officer and regional assistant also chose to leave.
The voluntary redundancies leave the organisation with 4.8 full time equivalent staff, reduced from 8.2.
WAM said it had continued to weather cancellations of flagship events and loss of income sources due to the pandemic.
“This has brought new and weighty challenges in securing a sustainable future for the organisation, our programs, and the legacy of all who’ve engaged with WAM across our 35 years,” the organisation said.
According to its most recent annual report, it had one of its best financial years in 2021, earning $2.2 million, up from $1.4 million in 2020 and $663,263 in the first six months of 2019.
The annual report said this was due to several one-off funding grants.
The news comes after a survey released by the Chamber of Arts and Culture of WA last week found small to medium-sized organisations in the state were under financial pressure due to capacity restrictions and low consumer confidence because of the pandemic in early 2022.
Organisations reported more than $4.4 million in box office sales has been lost by the arts sector in 2022 and $10.9 million was at risk if things didn’t improve before August 2022.
It found 61 per cent of organisations in the small to medium bracket would not be viable in a year’s time, even if programming returned to 100 per cent capacity and consumer sentiment improved.
If programming continued to be plagued by cancellations due to COVID-19 restrictions for the next six months, the survey found 75 per cent of all arts organisations in WA would not be viable.
