Vernon’s recreation revenues bounce back

Oct 27, 2021 | 12:00 PM

Vernon’s Recreation Services department says revenues are back on the upswing, hitting 82.5 per cent of pre-pandemic levels over the summer despite a number of difficulties.

During the Vernon city council meeting on Monday (Oct. 25), Recreation Services noted that revenue from the third quarter of 2021 was $626,371. That figure represents 82.5 per cent of the revenue made in the same quarter in 2019 ($758,695), and a 212 per cent increase from the revenue in the same quarter in 2020 ($295,149).

Rec Services told council the revenue collected between July 1 and Sept 30 of this year can be traced to a number of sources.

Despite having to close the pool from June 20 to August 2 for maintenance work, there were 13,210 user visits for the Vernon Aquatic Centre’s Drop-in Swim and Fitness and 220 Learn to Swim participants. There were also 11,000 user visits to the Lakeview Wading Pool and 4,000 user visits and 126 learn to swim participants at the Lavington Pool until both were shut down due to air quality concerns.

Rec Services also stated there were 195 user visits for water fitness classes between August 3 and 16.

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Those aquatic programs brought in $173,396 for the city this summer, up from the $18,501 in the same quarter in 2020, and just below the $174,281 made in 2019.

Rec Services told council that recreation programs were also on the rebound. Playschool hosted 68 participants and six activities over the course of four weeks before being shut down to accommodate the Emergency Support Services use of the facility in August.

There were 355 registrations for summer camps and 16 camp activities held over nine weeks this summer, and 2,459 people program registrations. Rec Services note that 477 of those registrations were in-person and the remaining 2,092 were online.

Program revenue accounted for $218,256 in 2021, up from the $84,996 made in 2020 but below the $282,715 from the third quarter of 2019.

The facility booking hours reached 1,549 hours this summer, with a majority of those hours booked to handle the response to the White Rock Lake wildfire.

It was also noted that Interior Health continues to use the Creekside Conference Centre as a vaccination clinic site, and that the contract to use that site has been extended from September 2021 to the end of January 2022.

There were also 1,658 gymnasium hours booked, and Rec Services notes that the Dogwood Gym was used for the ESS Reception Centre for 40 days.

There were also 9,754 hours of outdoor space bookings and 1,073 hours of arena bookings.

The booking revenue for 2021 was $234,719, with $45,603 of that coming from sources related to the White Rock Lake recovery efforts. Again that figure is above the $191,652 recorded in 2020, but still below the 2019 figure of $301,699.

With the quarterly revenue reaching 82.5 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, even with most of these operations being run at 50 per cent capacity, which Rec Services assured city council that this upward trend is positive and encouraging.

“Back in the fall when we were presenting the budget, we thought we would have about 50 per cent of revenues and 100 per cent of expenses until the fourth quarter,” said Doug Ross, Director of Recreation Services.

“So this upward trend getting to 82 per cent shows we’re heading in the right direction, and we’re hoping that by the fourth we’ll start to see numbers closer to 100 per cent revenues.”

To date, 2021 revenues are 61 per cent of pre-pandemic figures from 2019.

by Liam Verster

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