It’s been a busy year for the Vic Juba Community Theatre (VJCT), with the organization looking forward to major capital projects looming on the horizon.
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Jen McConnell, the theatre’s general manager, updated Lloydminster city council on operations in 2025.
“Your investment in the theatre helps strengthen the cultural fabric of our community, creating opportunities for connection, creativity, education and economic activity throughout the region,” she said.
Next year will mark 25 years of operation for the theatre, which opened in 2002.
McConnell explained the city owns the building, which is connected to Lakeland College.
“The city owns the building envelope and systems, which is connected to Lakeland College building systems and the college grants approval of land use,” she said.
She also took time to outline the work of the staff, explaining that each member wears many hats.
“The VJCT board and staff ensure the theatre remains both financially resilient, mission driven and balance earned revenue with community benefit,” she said. “We are a group motivated by responsibility and act as stewards of art and culture in our region.”
On top of staff hours, there were 2,080 hours of volunteer service at the theatre. McConnell spoke to the important role the Lloydminster Regional Theatre Foundation plays.
“It is a registered charity providing financial support for the maintenance, operation and equipment of the theatre,” she said.
Funding for the Vic Juba comes primarily from the theatre itself, with 68.5 per cent of its overall funding coming from rental clients and ticket sales for the Dr. H.A. McDonald season presentations. The theatre also receives 20 per cent of its funding from the City of Lloydminster, six per cent from donations and 5.5 per cent from grants.
Most of the annual users of the stage are community and educational institutions, including local school divisions.
A new offering by the theatre is sensory bags, which include noise-cancelling headphones, fidget tools and verbal cue cards.
“This helps give them some tools if they do find themselves overwhelmed. We also designate a quiet space for them to go to if they need,” McConnell said.
She explained dance is a big part of their yearly programming, highlighting three local dance studios and two dance festivals that grace the stage.
While community makes up 74 per cent of annual users, the remaining 26 per cent is commercial use.
Throughout 2025, they hosted 175 event days with an average ticket price of $47.78.
“We successfully delivered affordable entertainment while generating economic activity,” McConnell said, noting they had an estimated economic impact of $4.1 million.
She said they had audience growth of 83 per cent with an average attendance of 420 patrons per show.
One of their local economic drivers is the patron perks program.
“With every ticket, while driving business to our local economy through partnership with local businesses, ticket holders and volunteers receive exclusive discounts encouraging audiences to shop, stay and play local,” she said.
In 2025, VJCT contributed $233,000 to maintenance.
“We completed significant projects, including the replacement of counter tops, new spotlights, painting and replaced $150K worth of automated stage lighting,” McConnell said.
Larger capital projects are still on the horizon for the theatre.
“Today, we are approaching a pivotal point where key building systems and infrastructure requirement investment to ensure the long-term sustainability of this community asset before issues become past due and far too expensive to address,” she said.
They are currently fundraising for their roof and HVAC capital project.
“In partnership with the Lloydminster Regional Theatre Foundation, we are currently actively raising $100K towards this critical $2M rehabilitation project,” she said.
Other capital fundraising projects include flooring, backstage improvements and slotted seat replacement in 2030. New for the theatre in 2025 was the expansion of services to the Cenovus Energy Hub with the concert working group.
“Up until this point, VJCT has contributed to the event staffing and we look forward to collaborating on concerts and productions in the future,” she said.
Council asked for clarification on why the theatre’s goal was $100,000 of the estimated $2 million needed for the project.
“The roof and the HVAC would be the responsibility of the city as the owner of the building, that’s part of our triparty agreement with the college and the theatre,” Tracy Simpson, the city’s executive manager of community development services, said.
“We’ve been working on a partnership with the operations staff at the theatre as well as the foundation to try and ease that burden on our tax payers by raising some funds, so that’s the goal we’ve set for them.”
She explained they’ve worked over the last couple of years to delineate their responsibilities.
“We spent the last couple of years really delineating what’s the responsibility of the theatre as the operator versus the city as the owner,” she said. “Something like chairs we’ve identified as a shared cost where they would help us raise money and we would contribute up to 50 per cent. We’re doing the carpets in the audience chamber this year at a 50/50 split between the two parties.”
Donations and information on upcoming shows can be found on the Vic Juba Community Theatre’s website.
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