Performing Arts sets a record for the number of tickets sold at a Members Only event

By Pepper Parr

May 29th, 2026

BURLINGTON, ON

It was a Members Only night – the turnout was impressive.

There may have been 15, could have been 20, empty seats – the Main Theatre will hold 750 people.

It was an over-50 crowd for the most part.

People gathered during the Intermission to chat with friends. They had come to learn about the new season and to be entertained. It wasn’t until after the Intermission that they saw a great performer lift them out of their seats.

People who had come to hear what the 2026-27 Season was going to look like and to place their orders once they had looked at what was scheduled.

The Season has some exceptional events – what wasn’t exceptional was the presentation done by Executive Director Sara Palmieri and Annie Wilson, BPAC Director of Programming and Marketing.

They took turns explaining what was planned – I got the feeling they were selling me something rather than telling me what was being presented with some vim and vigour.

There was nothing that moved the audience, nothing funny, nothing that resulted in an immediate burst of applause.

The one live performance by Brooks and Bowskill before the intermission wasn’t all that good.

During the intermission, I button-holed a few people and asked what they thought of what they had heard.  “I was not blown away by any of it so far” was the first response I got. Another woman who brought her father to BPAC events often said there wasn’t something that she knew she had to see or something the knew her Dad would like.

That is not to say that there weren’t performances that looked to me as really interesting that I personally would like to see.

Pareidolia – not to be missed.

Pareidolia is not to be missed, and Modern Biology  is not a high school presentation.  Just incredible is the best way to describe that production

I saw this Members Only event as the way BPAC management was saying Thank You to the at least 700 people who are paid-up members.

I thought the event was an occasion when BPAC was going to Wow! their membership.  Instead, the two women leading the event chatted back and forth.

The audience wasn’t dead – it was the presentation that was limp and on life support until some of the performers were on the stage.

Being a Master of Ceremonies requires a certain skill set – people who can read an audience and pull them in.  They make it an occasion for you, and you leave with some energy and enthusiasm.

Shakura S’Aida told the audience she expected to see them when she returned in February.

Shakura S’Aida was on stage during the second half of the evening.  She was the kind of performer who wasn’t prepared to let the audience sit on their hands.  She had them clapping to her vocals and at one point on their feet, moving their hips the way white people don’t usually move their hips.

Several community greats will be back.  Sara Harmer and Totering Bipod doing “Sometimes it Snows in April.

There will be a Very Charlie Brown Christmas Concert – but no Nutcracker Suite this season.

The presentations were wrapped up by two Indigenous women, Kate Dickson and Shannon Thunderbird, sisters who were informative and very funny.

WhiteEagle Stonefish

They wove the Indigenous story into their explanation of what BPAC was about.  The evening had opened with WhiteEagle Stonefish speaking, for a little too long, I thought, about the land we live on and our responsibility to preserve what we have been given.

Couples went over the program schedule and chose what they wanted to attend, and placed their orders before going home.

With the presentations complete, people gathered in that huge open space outside the theatre  to enjoy a nice selection of hors d’oeuvres.

My ride home was due to pick me up at 9:30 – the line-up at the cash bar was still there.

And there were people at the two box offices placing their orders.

Sara Palmieri told me this morning that they didn’t close the place down until 10:30 and that a record had been set for the number of tickets sold on the Members Only occasion.

A good sign for certain.

Just Wow them next time – this is show business.