Cinderella was on course to be Perth Theatre’s “best ever panto” until Omicron reared its head.
Horsecross Arts Ltd’s chief executive revealed Perth Theatre lost a six-figure sum in income from ticket sales as a result.
Nick Williams was presenting an update to Perth and Kinross Council’s scrutiny committee on Wednesday, February 9.
A total of 25 performances were cancelled resulting in a loss of £121,000.
Horsecross chief executive Nick Williams told the committee: “In so many ways it was on course to be our best ever panto.
“We had outstanding press and audience responses from all who saw Cinderella. If we had the sales we were projecting we would hit that would have reached £240,000 which is a financial target exceeded by nine per cent.
“As you are aware we started to lose performances first of all in the school performances through the first part of December as Omicron started to rear its head and prevalence of the virus started to sweep again through schools and staff.
"Then further through performances ending up being cancelled because of COVID in the latter half of the run.
“In total we lost 25 performances and a total panto ticket income loss of £121,000.
“It was the perfect storm in terms of the restrictions imposed on Boxing Day which meant it wasn’t viable to run the panto for any longer.
“A one-metre distancing rules gives us a capacity of just over 100 in theatre. Unfortunately we took the very sad decision to end the show on Christmas Eve.”
He said Perth Concert Hall fared better over Christmas only losing a “handful of performances”.
Mr Williams added: “The deviation of the rules in Scotland from England had caused a number of tours coming up from England to postpone or cancel.”
This has resulted in “a number of events” within the current brochure - that recently landed on doorsteps around the region - now not going ahead in February and March.
Mr Williams said some have been rescheduled to April/May and some by a full year.
