The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion was one of the first venues in The Woodlands area to cancel events in 2020 as the COVID-19 shutdown began last March, but as of this spring its schedule is beginning to populate with shows into the fall, and Pavilion President and CEO Jerry MacDonald said he hopes to see the venue host a full season going into 2022.
Despite a year with essentially no revenue, the Pavilion has been able to keep its full-time employees on staff and did not conduct any furloughs, he said. It was able to leverage a rainy day fund alongside funds from federal Payment Protection Program loans, which covered five months of salaries, he said. The Pavilion has 30 full-time employees on its staff, but an additional 300 are hired for seasonal employment during the concert season.
The Pavilion was among the businesses in The Woodlands area to receive between $350,000 and $1 million in funding from the PPP in July, which was rolled out as a loan that could be forgiven to help organizations pay their employees.
“We kept busy and worked on things around the facility. ... It’s a 13-acre plan you can’t just walk away from; it still takes a number of people to maintain the systems here and keep things operating,” he said.
