A Structural Milestone for the Future of the Sector — En Piste Was There
Gathered at Espace Saint-Denis on November 18, cultural organizations attended the release of the final reports stemming from the 2025 initiatives aimed at strengthening the vitality of the performing arts in Québec. En Piste, represented by our Executive Director, Nadia Drouin—who sat on the Working Table and was present for the presentation—welcomes this essential process, which highlights the priority issues and solutions identified across the sector, including circus arts.
The Report on Findings and Recommendations of the Working Table on the Performing Arts compiles months of analyses, regional consultations, and collective reflection. It confirms the need for structural actions to ensure the long-term sustainability of our artistic practices.
Key Findings
- Strengthen ties between culture and education to ensure meaningful access to artistic experiences from an early age.
- Significant increases in production and touring costs, which weaken organizations, especially smaller and more specialized ones.
- Persistent precarity for artists and the absence of an adequate social safety net.
- Public funding mechanisms that are complex and sometimes inconsistent, and not always aligned with the actual trajectory of works and artists.
- Insufficient private and philanthropic funding resources, particularly for small and mid-sized organizations.
- Major territorial disparities, limiting public access to the performing arts across the province.
- Need for stronger data and tools to support planning, touring, and audience understanding.
These findings strongly resonate within the circus sector, where mobility, risk management, specialized infrastructure, and ongoing training represent key structural challenges.
Proposed Directions for Action
- Increase the presence of performing arts in schools and better support links between artists, presenters, and educational environments.
- Improve the coherence of public funding by simplifying programs and ensuring continuous support from creation to touring.
- Develop a private-sector and philanthropic funding strategy, including shared services accessible to smaller organizations and independent artists.
- Improve access to data and support digital literacy to better plan touring and document real production costs.
- Strengthen cultural offerings across Québec by improving the circulation of works, recognizing the role of multidisciplinary presenters, and ensuring territorial equity.
What’s Next?
The Minister also announced two major initiatives that will directly impact our sector:
- A reflection on the growing number of festivals in a context of stagnant resources;
- A deeper effort to better structure philanthropic and private-sector funding.
For En Piste, these developments come at a pivotal moment. Québec’s circus sector—renowned for its artistic innovation and its contribution to the province’s cultural identity—must be supported by coherent, equitable mechanisms tailored to its unique realities.
We will continue to closely follow these developments and ensure the voice of the circus community is represented throughout the next steps.
Find below the four reports (in French) stemming from the different consultations.