F.M. Kirby Center for the Performing Arts

This past year was the year that our entire staff, board of directors, volunteers, patrons, partners and the community had been waiting for since spring of 2020 - the year that the doors to the f.mFM.m. Kirby Center were open, ushers were poised and ready, the stage was lit, the popcorn was popping and our community could once again gather together in our theater to safely enjoy live Arts and entertainment! During our most recent fiscal year from july 1, 2021 through june 30, 2022, we held 100 events - 100 more events than the previous year. One of those events being our 4th annual (and first since before the pandemic) f.mFM.m. Kirby fest fundraiser in april of 2022. Continued on schedule o.the demand for the return of in-person events was felt and reflected in the ticket sales from these shows and landed us at #96 in pollstar's 2022 mid-year top 200 worldwide theater rankings.despite performances being held, attendance was slow to build in some circumstances. During the fall and winter months of 2021, with covid-19 cases still posing a threat, several shows saw a large difference in the number of tickets sold to the actual attendance. While we were thrilled to be able to bring back our young people's theater series (ypts) program for the first time since 2020 as live stage performances, school districts were still restricting group outings and our attendance for the five shows was drastically lower than our pre-shutdown counts. We are very excited to report, however, that shortly after our announcement of this current year's ypts line-up, 4 out-of-the 5 shows were completely filled with waitlists started. Ticket sales and attendance began increasing as the fiscal year came to a close and more events were booked; a reflection of more things around us returning to some normalcy and a sure sign of future trends.