A report to the Waitaki District Council’s community services committee appealed to councillors to promote shows.
"Attendances to these large touring shows are very low and we run the risk of these promoters not wanting to return if these numbers don’t grow," the report states.
"Concern has been expressed by the promoters regarding the South Island overall, and while we spend a lot of time promoting their shows with our audiences and receiving positive feedback and excellent reviews, this is not translating to improved ticket sales."
At the meeting, Cr Jim Hopkins expressed concern if the suggestion was for the opera house — with that level of ratepayer funding annually — to become a show promoter.
"There is no way we should be investing opera house money in promoting shows," he said at the June 7 meeting.
This week, he said he did not raise the ratepayers’ annual contribution to the opera house "as a matter of controversy".
"I genuinely support the opera house. I would love to see as many shows come to town as possible," he said.
"There are things I think we could be thinking about and working on — all I was saying was there’s a given amount of money being spent. That’s enough; let’s not add to the total."
Council community services group manager Dr Thunes Cloete said the yearly costs for ratepayers were "a whole-business cost", which covered maintenance, depreciation, insurance, staffing, "everything".
The opera house was expected to be partially ratepayer funded and the council agreed during the 2015-25 long term plan discussions that the user contribution to the opera house would be between 20% and 40%.
"To date, the contribution is 31%," he said.
The opera house’s business plan had a target to reduce the ratepayers’ contribution from the current 69% to 60%, he said.
The cost of promoting shows was a "very small" part of the opera house’s expenses.
The opera house had, he said, been running a programme to attract audiences in the long term that offered a "test drive" to local organisations and businesses in the hope that some first-time attendees would return.
Waitaki Mayor Gary Kircher said he would not be surprised if the costs to run the Opera House came as a surprise to some ratepayers, but he backed its value to the community.
"For me, I have been involved right through the redevelopment and obviously since then. It still remains there is some real economic as well as social and cultural value to having an opera house.
"We still haven’t realised that ‘conference and meeting market’, which is about people from outside coming here and spending two or three days here, seeing the district, spending money — hopefully, seeing enough that they want to come back again."
At the June 7 meeting, Cr Guy Percival said he would not make a comment at the meeting, but said "there’s lots of things I could say about the opera house".
This week, he said he understood "major promoters" had already signalled they would not return to Oamaru due to low ticket sales, and when he questioned council officers about expenses at the opera house, including staffing costs, he was "just stonewalled".
"You don’t have to mothball the building, but you can have it very low staffed, have it maintained, and have it kept well ... and do the odd show.
"I just don’t see how we can keep pouring that money into it."
Cr Jeremy Holding asked for a workshop to consider how "to get more bums in seats" earlier this month and while no workshop had been planned, this week Cr Holding backed the opera house and encouraged more people to "use the space", including the cafe.
"The public hasn’t completely embraced ownership of it, in my opinion," he said.
"Essentially, it is our town hall."
