Ballarat Performing Arts Centre (BPAC) will receive three years of operational funding from the City of Ballarat, allowing it to pay staff and run as a professional venue for the first time in its history.
The exact funding figure is unknown, but earlier this year BPAC embarked on a fundraising appeal to secure their Neil Street grounds for close to $2 million.
Who? BPAC is a not-for-profit organisation for performing arts, offering facilities to local creatives to do anything from practice their French to host improvisational workshops or put on an entire theatre show in one of two of the city’s repurposed 1860s churches.
BPAC first acquired the lease to the unique grounds in 2023. The buildings were previously owned by the Uniting Church.
🗣️: “This building was really a catalyst for everyone to talk to each other, which was very needed,” BPAC General Manager Beth Lamont told the Brolga.
What’s new? BPAC and the City of Ballarat are officially embarking on a strategic partnership to bolster the arts in Ballarat, as part of the Creative City Strategy.
Lamont described it as key “operational funding”.
“It means we can pay our staff. It’s then a professional venue, which is what we always wanted it to be,” Lamont said.
“This cannot be done just with volunteers, that’s for sure.”
The precise amount will be revealed at the next council meeting on August 26.
BPAC was formed in 2023, and prior to its existence Lamont said the performing arts community was “quite siloed”.
“Everyone was trying to do their own thing, but all having the same barriers,” she said.
⛪ The space: Built in the 1860s during the gold rush - like much of the heritage city - the spaces that BPAC occupy are subject to heritage overlay guidelines from the city that restrict what future construction can be done on the buildings.
Original brickwork, ornate columns and stained-glass windows remain throughout the facility.
🎭 The purpose: Lamont said BPAC wants to help creatives get started, and meet other people in the industry.
“I think that’s how the arts need to work,” she told the Brolga. “You meet people, have conversations and things grow from that. BPAC can be the place for that.”