City of Ballarat councillors approved $240,000 for the Royal South Street Society on Wednesday night, with the strategic partnership to stretch over four years.

In 2018, entrance numbers of the eisteddfod dropped 18 per cent, due to the closure of Her Majesty's Theatre.

Royal South Street Society chief executive officer Brett Macdonald said the secured money was "critical in helping us rebuild" after the significant financial hardship caused by being out of the iconic theatre.

The society operated at a $200,000 loss last year, due to fewer ticket sales and the costs of moving IT and equipment for its main competitions to Founder's Hall at Federation University.

Council officers reported the event brings more than $5.5 million into the city's economy each year, with 34,000 spectators across dance, band, choir and public speaking competitions.

While the money is useful, Mr Macdonald said the hard work to reinvigorate the competition is not over yet. He said funds would be used for extra traditional and social media marketing to get the word out to dance and calisthenics schools, with the trend of fewer entries continuing this year.

"While timelines are tight, we're very confident we'll be back in the theatre. But the public might be thinking, 'maybe not...', and we'd like them to understand we have every intention to have every event we hold in Her Maj in there in 2019," he said.

"The cash injection is helping us with forward thinking ... reforming those connections with the calisthenics and dance worlds and marketing initiatives."

He said "lurking in the background" was the bittersweet realisation that a $10 million state government promise to fund lifts and improve disability access would mean more periods of closure for the theatre.

"We've got some uncertain years ahead, but by the end we're going to have access to the best heritage theatre in the country," Mr Macdonald said.