A former church in the middle of Ballarat is set to become a performing arts hub, keeping the heritage-listed buildings in use for the community.
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The Ballarat Performing Arts Community, a new group that includes music, theatre, and independent performers, will set up the building to provide a space for rehearsals and performances.
BPAC secretary Beth Lamont said the group of interested people came together when the church went on the market.
"It was artists and people who just didn't want to see the site develop into apartments," she said.
Lamont said Natures Cargo Food Service chief executive Graham Wilkie, whose family has been involved in the church, was instrumental in bringing people together.
She said the collection of buildings, including the church, two halls and cottage, solve two problems the community is facing.
Firstly, finding performance venues that are "affordable and available".
"There is a gap in terms of small to medium affordable performance venues," she said.
She said when you hire a space like Her Majesty's Theatre, you need to ensure you can fill all 800 seats in order to cover your costs.
The Neil Street Church is able to seat about 300 people.
The second issue facing the community is finding suitable rehearsal spaces.
Depending on what you are using them for, you might need a variety of room sizes, or high ceilings and suitable floors for dancing.
"The big drive here is that this is a dedicated space for performing arts," Lamont said.
"We only have to talk to each other about the availability, we don't have to compete with the owners of the property for other uses."
BPAC has an agreement with Uniting Church to rent the space for the next year while it raises the funds to buy the building.
Lamont said they need to fix up a few safety things, then performing groups or individuals who are members of BPAC will be able to use the spaces for rehearsals and meetings.
The two halls will be used for rehearsal spaces, and the cottage for administration.
Lamont said they want to use the church space for performances, but will need to go through the relevant planning applications.
Development for the community in Ballarat
Lamont said she was excited to see what can happen in the performing arts community when they have a dedicated space to be together.
"Everyone has been doing their own thing, there are a lot of silos in the industry," she said.
"It can be lonely, especially when you're doing something like marketing for your own show and you don't hear much back, it can be isolating."
She said there are plans to facilitate more professional development in the future.
BPAC vice-chair Peter Kingsbury said it was important to facilitate opportunities to bring talent to Ballarat.
"There is nothing available for graduates from Federation University, professional industry pathways are very limited," he said.
Kingsbury said they did not want to eliminate the need for people in performing arts to go and train in Melbourne, but would like to see more of them return and spend time in the space here.
Lamont said she hopes building these opportunities means there is more viability to how many people are needed to put together a performance in production and technical roles.
"I would have loved that in high school to see that there are jobs in the performing arts that aren't just performing," she said.