Besides the cost of travel, the rising cost of accommodations has been a hot topic for touring musicians.
The average price of hotel rooms in the U.S. is reaching $137 per night. That number is almost double in major cities like Los Angeles and Seattle.
The summer festival producers and regional orchestras try and ease the costs by providing musicians with some more affordable solutions options. These usually include preferential hotel rates and some good-hearted billets willing to take them in.
But with a housing crunch in centres like Toronto, New York, and San Francisco only getting worse, expecting the goodwill of festival patrons to house artists in a spare bedroom is not a long-term solution.
Artist-only hotels
Green Rooms is a 20-room not-for-profit hotel with adjoining space geared to artist needs in London UK. Rooms are an affordable $26 per night.
Baked-in housing
The Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s new Medak Center has decided to build its artist housing as part of the venue, saving itself hundreds of thousands of dollars in hotel costs annually.
“Berkeley Rep’s outgoing managing director, Susie Medak, the center’s namesake and the driving force behind its construction, remembers when housing out-of-town artists cost the company $300,000 to $400,000 per year. These days it’s more like $2 million. Before the pandemic postponed the most recent season-opening, Berkeley Rep had committed to paying for 7,000 nights at a nearby Marriott hotel for this past year.”
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