Ballet BC laid off most of its staff on Monday. (CBC)

Tough economic times are being blamed for mass layoffs at Ballet British Columbia, a Vancouver-based professional ballet company.

The company laid off all 17 dancers and most of its office staff on Monday, it confirmed at a press conference on Tuesday.

Whether the company will survive now depends on sales to the Christmas classic, The Nutcracker.

Ballet BC is still mounting the production, but it is being performed by the Moscow Classical Ballet, because Ballet BC is too small for such an ambitious show.

The future of the company depends on an injection of revenue from The Nutcracker, said Graeme Barrit, president of Ballet BC.

"Make no mistake about it, Nutcracker can absolutely save Ballet BC," he told CBC News.

"Now traditionally Nutcracker sells something in the range of 11,000 tickets for us. This year we need to sell 7,000 in order to be successful. If we're able to achieve that — when we're able to achieve that — Ballet BC will come back full force in the New Year."

One of the reasons the ballet laid off its employees now is that ticket sales for The Nutcracker are much lower than in previous years — only about 2,000 have been sold.

Both subscriptions and ticket sales for shows earlier in the season were down, Barrit said.

"It got a lot darker at the end of October. It's always a delicate balance in the arts, and if you were to look at any arts company balance sheet, you would question its survival I would suggest, at almost any moment."

Ballet BC is down $150,000 on subscriptions and $120,000 on its fall productions of Nine Sinatra Songs and Faerie Queen.

The 22-year-old ballet has an annual budget of $2.4 million and Barrit said the problem has not been lack of government support, but poor ticket sales.

Barrit said the dancers are usually laid off over the Christmas season, but that layoff, scheduled for Dec. 12, has been moved forward.

The rest of the season, which includes productions of Carmen and Streetcar Named Desire, depends on ticket sales or a large donation.

Barrit said the company has asked Vancouver City Council to waive the $63,000 in rent on the Queen Elizabeth theatre for the Nutcracker performances.