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Life-size cutouts to fill theatre’s audience in Vernon

Performing arts centre takes inspiration from home-run idea in televised sports
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Fans and cardboard cutouts of celebrities fill the stands at Sahlen Field before a baseball game between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Miami Marlins in Buffalo, N.Y., Tuesday, June 1, 2021. (AP Photo/Adrian Kraus)

Vernonites can fill the seats at this live performance venue, sort of.

Borrowing a page from the sports world, the Vernon and District Performing Arts Centre (VDPAC) is inviting residents and businesses to take a seat with its Audience Cut-Outs promotion.

“I’m a huge baseball fan,” VDPAC’s executive director Jim Harding said. “I saw what the Blue Jays and other pro sports teams did last summer and thought: why couldn’t we do that?”

Centre staff looked at the idea last fall but the promotion was put on hold as COVID-19 regulations continued to change rapidly.

Harding said the with the province’s four-step Restart Plan, full stage shows and concerts could return by late-fall, so it was the right time to revisit this idea. At least until full-capacity shows can make a comeback.

Now, patrons of VDPAC can get their life-size, full-colour photo — from the waist up — printed on a coroplast cutout seated right in the theatre.

Sponsors can also have their logo added as another visual show of community support.

These cutouts also have a practical function, VDPAC said. As venues remain at half-capacity, cutouts will be used to keep the real audience members appropriately socially distanced.

“We took a photo from our stage of our sample cut-outs seated in the house, “ says Harding. “They look real, so for performers, with a successful campaign, artists won’t have to face a half-empty house when they perform, which is also a great show of support for them as well.”

For more information and to order, patrons and sponsors can head to ticketseller.ca and click on “join our crowd.”

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