Thank you all so much for rallying behind this petition and showing your support for our businesses. We surpassed 10,000 signatures in just 2 days and the number is still climbing which is simply incredible.
Friday afternoon we also received a direct response from Steven Marshall. We also understand he responded to anyone who emailed him directly as well with a similar response. You can view his response to us HERE. As you can see the general angle he is taking is that we have already received $324k in funding, we are being offered a 1 year extension to our LAF lease to December 2022 and they are offering to defer paying our 100% rental invoices for October, November and December into 2022 where we will be paying double the rent for 3 months of next year. These were all facts we were already aware of before we launched our public petition for support and we were as upfront as possible about all of this in our open letters. His response is extremely disappointing as it shows a lack of understanding and an unwillingness to engage further with the issues and this industry. It also attempts to paint us in an ungrateful and poor light by essentially saying - 'you have already received a lot of money and a lease extension, please stop asking for more than you need'.
I have sent him a rather lengthy response which can be viewed HERE. The key takeaways from my response are that we breakdown and acknowledge the financial support received thus far, demonstrate that the majority of funding was given to us in the first 12 months of the pandemic and that it was essential to surviving that period of time. However, it is quite clearly still a very inadequate support package given losses sustained and the fact that the pandemic is still going and we are still being heavily restricted. Some crucial points are that since march 2021 we have actually been charged $44k in rent and only received $17k in government support in this period. Five Four Entertainment has lost $1.5 million in revenue since the pandemic started and only received $57k in useful survival support grants.
If the government is not willing to continue to provide ongoing financial support to ensure the sectors survival what was the point in giving us any to begin with? It will be a wasted investment if businesses do make it to the other-side of the pandemic.
On top of that I also address why a 12 month extension to our lease and rent deferrals are simply inadequate. I know that everyone signing this petition wants to know what the plan for the Lion Arts Factory space is going to be beyond a 12 month extension to December 2022. It is very curious why they wont grant us longer than this, there must be a reason and we deserve to know what it is.
In contrast Dan Andrews announced on Sunday that he is putting another $15 million into the music industry on top of the $20 million he has already committed. The extra $15 million is to help the industry from November onwards when they reopen to the same levels SA has been trading under for 3 months already. This is the exact response we need from our government.
I have moved my focus onto asking for a meeting in the coming week with Steven Marshall to discuss all of these complex issues. If his government really does want to support the music industry, like he says they do, then he should be willing to at least do that.
Once again thank you all so much for you support, we cannot give up yet and we need to keep pushing this petition to gain more signatures. The larger this grows the more it shows how valued our businesses and this industry actually is and means the government are not only responding to me directly but also to a very large portion of the general public as well.
I believe this could be a crucial week ahead and I will update you as we receive news.
Once again we thank you immensely for all of your support.