Group pushes for new performing arts centre

A new non-profit organization has launched a campaign to lobby for the creation of a new Performing Arts Centre in downtown Kelowna by 2026.

“We know the community is ready to dream big,” said Patricia Ainslie, founding president of Citizens for a New Performing Arts Centre in Kelowna. “We are confident that, with the support of businesses and individuals throughout the Central Okanagan, these dreams will give life to a vibrant showpiece in Kelowna’s cultural district.”

Known informally as “Friends of KPAC,” the volunteer organization is advancing a plan to replace the 850-seat Kelowna Community Theatre (KCT) with a new complex that would better meet the needs of performers and audiences alike. A new centre would offer more seating, spacious lobbies, better acoustics and other modern technologies, and vital amenities for the artists who will perform there.

“The KCT will always enjoy a warm spot in our hearts,” noted Ainslie, an author, art curator and historian. “But, after almost 60 years of service, our community needs and deserves more.”

Friends of KPAC recently began working with Kelowna’s municipal government to sketch out a process for the development of a new performing arts centre over the next five years, in a way that would not interrupt the operation of the community theatre during the construction phase.

At the same time, the group is enlisting the performing arts community and other stakeholders to foster broad-based and sustained business and public support for the initiative.

After a year of planning and preliminary outreach, the organization used its inaugural general meeting Tuesday night to launch its website.

“Directors also agreed that a key focus for the year ahead will be to build supportive alliances with the many businesses and other interest groups that would benefit directly from the dynamism that the new facility would spur in Kelowna’s central core,” Ainslie added.