After a year of selling tickets to individual shows, Tour de Fort will primarily be selling passports for the ‘22-’23 season. Passport sales will begin at the May 5 show featuring Juno Award winners Whitehorse.
Tour de Fort board president Charles Fisher said it’s been a rocky season, which was partially anticipated given that COVID-19 stopped passports from being sold this year.
“It’s been up and down,” Fisher said. “We started out with the first two shows in November that were really good. The first show (Middle Raged) we were at half capacity in the theatre, but we got a good crowd for that. Then Chantel Kreviazuk sold out, which was fantastic.”
The schedule was interrupted in January when performance venues were shut down due to a new wave of COVID-19.
Originally scheduled for mid-January, the double bill of Drftr (Drifter) and Sleepy Jean got pushed to March 4. With the addition of the Molly Johnson make-up show from the spring 2020 lineup, there were several concerts over a short period of time.
“We ended up doing three shows in 19 days,” Fisher said. “Which obviously wasn’t the plan. It wasn’t ideal and our attendance wasn’t great for any of those shows and it wasn’t great for the last one we did, which was Avery Raquel so that was a bit disappointing.”
Fisher wants to remind people that Tour de Fort is a non-profit organization that depends on ticket sales as a stream of revenue to bring great acts to the District every year.
“This isn’t about making a profit,” said Fisher. “It’s about making sure that we can get the money to continue what we’re doing.”
Fisher said normally, passport sales help cover costs, but this year, ticket sales have taken a hit. Fisher said Tour de Fort gets their funding in three ways — grants, sponsorships, and ticket sales.
“We do really, really well with sponsors,” Fisher said. “We did lose a few, but we got a few new ones. We’re really happy about the support that we’ve gotten from the community in terms of sponsorships.”
Tickets are on sale for the final show where the ‘22-’23 lineup will be announced and passports will go on sale. Passports will sell for $125; giving access to six shows during Tour de Fort’s next season and can be shared with others if the original purchaser doesn’t want to go to a particular show.
Fisher said he is hopeful the final show of the season can draw a good crowd. Whitehorse is performing the final show on May 5.
“They’re gonna be fantastic,” said Fisher.
Fisher said he will soon be announcing the series for next year.
“It’s going to be a really great lineup and people are going to be excited about it,” said Fisher.
