SAN ANGELO, Texas — From restaurant owners to event venues, there is a COVID-19 story to be shared. COVID hit West Texas businesses hard.
Unemployment numbers also soared during this time, but those numbers are improving. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, jobless claims have dropped from 92,000 to 498,000 in the last week.
Angelo Civic Theatre is one of the oldest community theatres in the Lone Star State. Historically, according to ACT staff, the theatre has fought through world wars, the Great Depression, and now, a global pandemic.
"Especially the performing arts was tough because we couldn't do the house sizes couldn't be as big and we had to social distance, and it's hard to get the box office where it needs to be so you can do the performances you need to so. So, it was thought. Not just for us, but all of the performing arts," Brent Jenkins, Angelo Civic Theatre artistic director, said.
With lockdown in full effect back in March 2020, and live venue and theatres closing, venues such as the Expo Center of Taylor County closed their doors also. However, owners quickly thought on their feet and got creative.
"I think it's giving everybody with venue rentals or concerts. We've had to think on our feet and find a different way to do business, and I think that it's been a positive thing with an unfortunate situation," Expo Center executive vice president and general manager Rochelle Johnson said.
The Expo Center was able to dip into its rainy day fund. However, Angelo Civic Theatre was fighting to stay afloat even with the help of a Paycheck Protection Program loan. The theatre had to continue to pay operating costs, including gas, electric, and water bills.
The theatre was able to help with payroll payments for all of its staff despite this growing pain.
"We just figured out a way, and we made a lot of reservations. While we had a lot of downtimes, we did a lot of remodeling and repainting and trying to spruce the place up added onto how to keep everybody safe," Jenkins said.
The Expo Center received its first PPP loan in April 2020. It experienced a decrease of $550,000 because its Western Heritage Classic and other events had to be canceled. The Western Heritage Classis is an annual event and fundraiser for the Expo Center and costs a great deal to the expo's bottom line of making a significant portion of its money for the year.
The West Texas Fair & Rodeo was held at 50% capacity, which also resulted in a loss.
"We closed down all of our party rentals and the majority of the activities that were not livestock-related agreement. We did continue to have horse shows and cattle shows during the pandemic because those are outside and spread apart by nature," Johnson said.
Angelo Civic Theatre experienced a 30%-40% decrease, compared to 2019 because of the lack of shows.
"We had to cancel our season. We had a whole season. We had a show going on when that hit, which finally came off in March of this year. Again, with the limited house size. It really bit into our income," Jenkins said.
He said only time would tell if moving forward with reopening is a wise move or not.
"I'm watching the vaccination rate, which is very important to all people who do live performance venues, but we're consciously optimistic to see what if anything came out of the rodeo because that was a huge number of people," Jenkins said.
The Western Heritage Classic is from May 6 - May 9 in Abilene.
Angelo Civic Theatre's production of "Smokey Joe's Café" will run June 11-27.
