Charlottetown Festival is closing the curtain on paper programs

P.E.I.'s oldest theatre festival is trying something new this summer.

Theatre-goers at The Charlottetown Festival at the Confederation Centre of the Arts won't get physical programs they can take home as souvenirs. Instead, patrons will use a QR code that will bring them to an online program.

It's a change that the Confederation Centre's marketing director said was overdue.

"We've been really looking at ways to reduce waste and introduce green initiatives here at the centre for many years now, and this was always one that we were considering," Andrew Sprague said.

"This year, we decided to move ahead and go to an all-digital program."

The centre would print as many as 35,000 programs to cover all its productions each season.

Last year, organizers started to pilot digital programs, offering the audience both a paper program and the one accessible by the QR code for the months of July and August. In September, they did digital only.

During that pilot, patrons downloaded about 15,000 digital programs.

That didn't reduce the number of paper programs out the door: All 35,000 programs were still used, indicating a continuing interest in paper copies.

But Sprague said it also shows something else.

"It also indicates that a very high percentage of those programs are ending up in the waste somewhere, either here at the centre in our own trash cans as people are leaving the centre, or when they take them home and decide that they don't have much use for them at home and they end up in the trash there."

Ticket buyers get their first chance to download the digital program through a link in the pre-show email from the Centre. Upon entering the lobby, patrons can also download the program from a QR code.

Additionally, that code is on the backs of half the seats in the theatre, and projected on the screen while people wait for the show to start. Staff will be available to help anyone having trouble accessing the link.

The Charlottetown Festival isn't the only Canadian theatrical event moving in this direction.

The Stratford Festival in southwestern Ontario and Canadian Stage in Toronto are both taking a hybrid approach, offering a choice of a QR code or a printed program.

Mirvish Theatre in Toronto will be sticking with paper programs for now, with an official telling the Toronto Star this spring: "For our audience, that is what works."

In Halifax, Neptune Theatre is going with the hybrid approach.

"We provide a digital copy for all of our shows through our website or scanned from a QR code, plus a printed version for the larger shows — for example, our Christmas production and our year-end production," Pam Nicoll, who handles graphic design and marketing for the theatre, told CBC News in an email.

"Even if we have a printed copy available, we are still encouraging patrons to consider the digital version, and allow them to put the program back at the end of the night for re-use if they choose."

She added: "Since opening back up after the pandemic, we are finding fewer patrons want to take a program home as a keepsake, and therefore when we do print we have been reducing the quantities ... We are concerned for the environment and would rather run out than to have any left over. "

The environmental factor is certainly top of mind in Charlottetown.

"People sometimes aren't terribly fond of change, but we think this is an important initiative to reduce waste," Sprague said.

"We think that the advancements in technology that have happened with QR codes and the sort of value-added things we can add into a program like direct links to our programs, direct links to websites for advertisers, different things like that — that can really add value to the program that you can't get out of a paper program.

"So we're optimistic, we're hopeful that audiences will accept the change."

Cost not 'determining factor'

Sprague said there will be some cost savings involved with this, but that the money was not a determining factor.

"The determining factor was the potential waste reduction by eliminating printed programs," he said.

The digital format also lets the centre easily make changes to the program, when there is a cast change or new sponsor, for example.

Sprague acknowledged that the programs were a souvenir for some — but he said there are lots of other keepsakes people can get at The Charlottetown Festival.

"We think the most important thing is the show itself and people's ability to enjoy the show," he said. "And the best possible souvenir that they can have from that show is the memory of how much they enjoyed themselves."