She added, however, that ticket revenue is not the first concern of the group, but rather its members' wellbeing. Reynolds, music director for the Harvard-Radcliffe Gilbert and Sullivan Players, said the organization's board is working on “finagling” the budget to account for the loss of ticket revenue and plan for the future. “We have an alumni foundation that fundraises for us, which wasn't affected too much by the pandemic because they can still operate as normal,” Wang said. HRO alumni have also provided aid to the group to combat the difficulties presented by the remote format. “But not having a final performance last year meant that we got to save that, even though we didn't generate any revenue from ticket sales.” “It all balanced out because for most of our concerts, we also do end up spending a decent amount of money,” she said.
The reduced earnings from ticket sales is negated by the lack of concert costs, according to Wang.
That usually includes sales from a tour in China - an excursion HRO cancelled this year. Wang ’22, president of the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra, said ticket sales make up the bulk of the organizations’ annual revenue. When undergraduates were mandated to leave campus in March, many student groups were forced to shift their operations to the video conferencing platform Zoom.Īmong the groups affected are several performing arts organizations, which often relied heavily on ticket sales and advertising to generate revenue in past semesters. “This year, given that the students all have grab-and-go meals and they are all cold, we and the University worked over the summer to put a microfridge in every single dorm so every single student who is living on campus could have one.”įinancial reassessment has not been the only challenge faced by extracurricular groups in recent months. “Normally, we rent microfridges out directly to the students,” Sah explained. However, these positions have been largely understaffed due to a current University policy that bars Harvard students from in-person employment.ĭespite running into hiring obstacles due to University policy, Sah added that HSA is “really happy” about the new microfridge partnership between the company and the University this year. Harvard Student Agencies employs more than 600 student employees each year who are responsible for a variety of tasks, ranging from manning The Harvard Shop's storefronts to collecting and delivering laundry to students across campus. “It’s not easy being a company in a pandemic economy, but we’re trying our absolute hardest to make sure that we set HSA up for many more years of success in the future.” “Our initial projections were thrown out the window pretty quickly, and then we had to make sure we were using whatever money we did have to funnel it into the right places,” Sah said. As budgets shrink and student activities go remote, campus extracurricular groups are scrambling to remain financially viable amid the uncertainty created by the coronavirus pandemic.Īkanksha Sah ’21, the president of Harvard Student Agencies, said the non-profit has prioritized its financial resources to continue employing as many students as possible since having to discard its initial budget and financial projections in March.