January 25, 2013Dear SirIn the early years of the Bermuda Festival, the appreciative audience and supporters ensuring the Festival’s popularity were Bermudians starved of local professional performances.This audience has been, to some extent, replaced by vacancies because of the block bookings made by international business companies. These firms make it their charitable duty to spend something on the arts in Bermuda and if they continue to limit their patronage to the acquisition of tickets without providing the personnel who will put their bums in seats, the quality of the performers the Festival can expect to attract will plummet disastrously.At the Reduced Shakespeare Company’s performance last night, half rows of seats in the front of the auditorium were vacant at a show which, elsewhere, would have had a full house. It was humorously commented on by the actors as an ad-lib in a very funny show but, at the least, must have been disconcerting for them.If the firms cannot ensure someone will occupy the seats they’ve booked, the tickets should be returned to the box office in time for them to be sold a second time so The Bermuda Festival continues to be a popular destination for all the performers.ARS ARTIS GRATIADevonshire