Advance Redding receives grant from city, long-term fate of Civic Auditorium still unknown

Last week, the city gifted more than a half-million dollars to the nonprofit Advance Redding, which operates Redding’s Civic Auditorium. The extra money approved by Redding City Council on Aug. 19 — roughly $675,000 — will help bail out the organization during a financial shortfall, according to Civic Auditorium and Advance Redding General Manager Julie Dyar. 

During council presentations this month, Dyar blamed external factors for negatively affecting the Civic Auditorium’s financial viability under Advance Redding’s management. She cited a report from the National Independent Venue Association on the state of live music, explaining that production costs have increased dramatically. As a result, 64% of independent venues were reportedly not profitable in 2024, she said.

“Clearly the volatility that Advance Redding faces in the landscape is not unique to us,” Dyar said, adding the caveat that the organization could be profitable if the auditorium’s operating costs were further subsidized by the city’s budget like similar venues in other cities. 

Dyar did not mention how a change in a faith organization’s facility usage also impacted finances. Advance Redding was founded in 2011 by the leaders of Bethel Church, a local megachurch with national and international influence. As Redding made the move to privatize the ailing city-owned space, Advance Redding won the bid with plans to continue running events for the city while also leasing the space back to the church. 

For the next 12 years, Bethel subleased the Civic Auditorium as a classroom space for thousands of Bethel’s School of Supernatural Ministry (BSSM) students, paying rent to Advance Redding. That agreement ended in June 2024, as Bethel’s enrollment declined. It’s the same year the nonprofit running the Civic backslid into the red, moving from net revenue of $1 million in 2022 to a net loss of $25,000 in 2023, and $425,000 in 2024. 

Dyar told Shasta Scout by email this week that it’s a misconception to assume that Bethel’s sublease with Advance Redding played a pivotal role in the auditorium’s finances, emphasizing that BSSM’s rent – 20% of total revenue on average, she indicated – did not comprise the majority of Advance Redding’s income. 

She added that Bethel’s use of the space amounted to 18% of Advance Redding’s expenses, leaving a 2% profit over more than a decade. “That net margin, while not huge dollar amounts, has certainly been a very valuable ballast against the volatility of the other revenue streams,” Dyar said. “It also provided the bandwidth for Advance Redding to do the work of figuring out what programming can and potentially should look like for this venue in this market.” 

Redding’s Director of Community Services Travis Menne also spoke to the council Aug. 19, saying that Advance Redding was looking for financial support because of how heavily revenue has been affected by economic pressures and the music industry as well as what he described as the “peculiarities” of their agreement with the city. 

Similarly to Dyar, Menne did not mention the role that Bethel’s former use of the facility played in the auditorium’s financial solvency, noting instead that Advance Redding operates and staffs city events at the auditorium, during which time the organization cannot schedule other events. “So they essentially have to shut down for long periods of time,” Menne said, referencing annual events like the Redding Rodeo or Freedom Festival. 

The impact of Bethel’s sublease agreement is reflected in lease terms which indicate that should Bethel pull out of the space, Advance Redding’s monthly rent payments to the city would drop by half, to just $5,000, something that’s occurred.

Dyar explained that when the city first negotiated the agreement, “The original structure of the lease provided a fantastic solution for the City of Redding and for BSSM. What it didn’t do was provide a structure with an eye for long term sustainability once BSSM left the building.”

So long as BSSM remained a subleaser, she said there was “no way to move the conversation forward to a more normalized operator agreement. The $5,000 reduction was a compromise towards that goal,” she concluded.  

According to an independent audit, changes in revenue at Advance Redding over the last few years reflect not only the loss of Bethel revenue but also COVID-related relief funds that caused a brief spiked to the nonprofit’s revenue. The nonprofit’s annual income in fiscal year 2021–22 increased in part thanks to a $1.3 million grant from the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Shuttered Venue Operators Grant Program as well as approximately $130,000 in loan forgiveness as part of the federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). 

Combined revenue that year equaled $4.95 million, including $650,000 in lease payments from Bethel. That’s about the same amount as the council approved to help shore up the nonprofit’s operations last week. Along with granting one-time funding, the council voted to defer the nonprofit’s lease payments until January 2026, providing the equivalent of an additional $20,000 benefit for Advance Redding. 

But the one-time grant and deferred lease payments won’t solve the ongoing problems that Advance Redding is facing in making ends meet at the Civic Auditorium. Moving forward, the council tasked the city’s Community Services Advisory Committee (CSAC) to take the lead on recommendations for restructuring Advance Redding’s contract. 

City Manager Barry Tippin told Shasta Scout via email on Thursday that there is no timeline for CSAC’s recommendation process, but that it will be placed on the commission’s agenda soon. The next regular CSAC meeting is scheduled for Sept. 10.

Another option: closure

On the Aug. 19 agenda, the city also floated the idea of shutting down operations at Civic Auditorium entirely. 

Menne explained the city used to lose over $1 million per year operating the auditorium, and it would be too expensive for the city to take over operations again. Additionally, the building is old with lots of maintenance needs, including an air conditioning unit that he said is on “life support.” 

While Menne said the city would likely put out a request for proposals to find another operator before deciding to shut down operations, he felt it was unlikely there would be another local organization with the expertise or means of taking on the job. 

Council Member Tenessa Audette, who teaches a God and Government class at Bethel, asked if the public would have an opportunity to be involved in the decision making process. Including CSAC in the process could encourage the public to share ideas and opinions with the advisory committee, she indicated, which could then be considered as part of recommendations to the council. 

“I just want to create another opportunity for the public to weigh in and to also understand what is happening,” Audette said. 

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