Performing Arts Center Management

Patricia Lambert, Robyn Williams, Patricia Dewey Lambert, Robyn Williams, Patricia Lambert, Patricia Dewey Lambert, Robyn Williams

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781315525877
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Art & Politics
• Index: Business

Performing arts centers (PACs) are an integral part of the cultural and creative industries, significantly influencing the cultural, social, and economic vitality of communities around the world. Virtually all PACs are community-based and serve the public interest, whether structured as a public, nonprofit, for-profit, or hybrid entity. However, there is a lack of knowledge about the important community role of performing arts centers, especially those that mainly host and present work produced by other arts organizations. This gap is startling, given the ubiquitous presence of PACs in urban centers, small communities, as well as colleges and universities.

This co-edited reference book provides valuable information at the intersection of theory and practice in the professional field of executive leadership of performing arts centers. Drawing on the expertise of leading academics, consultants, and executives, this book focuses on institutions and practices in the United States, and is contextualized within additional fields such as cultural planning, urban revitalization, and economic development.

Performing Arts Center Management aims to provide valuable theoretical, conceptual, empirical, and practice-based information to current and future leaders in creative and cultural industries management. It serves as a unique reference for researchers, university students, civic leaders, urban planners, public venue managers, and arts administrators aspiring to improve or advance their work in successfully managing performing arts centers.

1
The Professionalization of Performing Arts Center Management

Patricia Dewey Lambert and Robyn Williams

Introducing the American Performing Arts Center

Performing arts centers (PACs) are an integral part of the creative and cultural industries, significantly influencing the cultural and economic vitality of communities around the world. Throughout North America, PACs contribute to civic vitality, enhance the vibrancy of city centers, promote cultural tourism, serve historic preservation goals, strengthen creativity and the arts in society, provide arts education, and encourage a rich cultural identity. Virtually all PACs are community based and serve the public interest, whether structured as a public, nonprofit, or for-profit entity. However, there is a lack of knowledge about the important leadership role of performing arts centers in America’s arts and culture sector. This is startling, given these organizations’ ubiquitous presence in urban centers and small communities, as well as colleges and universities throughout the United States and internationally.

Performing arts management researchers tend to focus on the management work of producing companies (i.e., organizations that fund and create their own artistic work, utilizing their own artistic, administrative, and production personnel). In contrast, extant research on presenting organizations (which “buy” productions and sell them to audiences) or hosting organizations (which provide opportunities for other producing or touring companies to rent the venues and facilities) is very thin. The performing arts center of interest to this book project is a presenting or hosting organization, which is a facility “with multiple users, where there is a management organization in place that activates a building with some combination of rentals, presented events, producing, and community programming” (Webb, 2004, p. x). A PAC that hosts or presents the performing arts is an organization that “works to facilitate exchanges between artists and audiences through creative, educational, and performance opportunities. The work that these artists perform is produced outside of the presenting organization” (Hager & Pollak, 2002, p. 9). Despite the prevalence of hosting and presenting PACs, published research and reference materials for management of such organizations are scarce. Performing Arts Center Management addresses the field’s need for relevant scholarship positioned at the level of advancing strategic executive leadership of such organizations.

An authoritative source for the number of PACs in North America is not available. Even the field’s main professional associations—the International Association of Venue Managers (IAVM) and the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP)—do not have complete listings, as not all PACs are members of these organizations. Presently, the most robust data sources for performing arts centers can be found through VenueDataSource of the IAVM Foundation (www.iavm.org/vds/vds-home), and PACStats developed and overseen by AMS Analytics LLC (ams-online.com/pacstats). An additional treasure trove of data on performing arts centers in the United States can be found on the website of the “Set in Stone” study¹ conducted within the Cultural Policy Center of the University of Chicago. Ample evidence also exists regarding significant investment in performing arts venues currently underway internationally—especially in the Asia-Pacific region—yet, again, only rough estimates exist for the large number of performing arts centers that exist in communities throughout the world.

It is difficult to investigate the role of performing arts centers within the creative and cultural industries because PACs are found everywhere and have many diverse community functions and organizational forms. As Webb (2004) explains, a PAC can be owned and operated by local government; a division, department, or agency of a city, county, or state government; an educational institution; a church or religious organization; a private nonprofit organization; or a commercial organization. The matter of PAC oversight is further complicated by the fact that the PAC’s owner and operator are frequently not the same entity.

According to Hager and Pollak (2002, citing data from the Association of Performing Arts Presenters) as well as Webb (2004, p. x) major issue areas affecting the leadership and operation of all performing arts centers are the increasing use of technology in the performing arts, changing revenue streams, changing audience behaviors and preferences, an increasing and diversifying role that these organizations play in their communities, and the ever-increasing complexity of PAC management responsibilities. Furthermore, one must consider the important role of performing arts centers in helping make it possible for nonprofit professional performing arts organizations to present their work in their communities. Urban performing arts centers often host resident companies, which are local arts organizations that work with their own hired talent—either local or contracted from out of town—to produce and perform their own productions in a subsidized “home.” A PAC’s resident companies typically comprise the city’s symphony orchestra, opera company, and ballet company, along with any number of additional performing arts groups. Revenue from presenting touring commercial productions and other events makes it possible for a PAC to subsidize the use of the hall for its local resident companies.

The PAC in the Local Creative Economy

In the United States, policy action and investment in the arts and culture sector and the creative economy is concentrated at the local level, often mediated by local arts agencies and local economic development departments of government (Wyszomirski, 2008). Urban cultural planning efforts often seek to engage the arts and culture sector in revitalizing and developing vibrant, sustainable communities through focusing on the local creative economy (Borrup, 2006; Evans, 2001; Landry, 2000; McCarthy, Ondaatje, & Novak, 2007). If artistic, administrative, and technical workers are at the core of the performing arts within the entire creative economy, it can be argued that PAC facilities and venues serve as a crucial support element of the “downstream distribution infrastructure” of the creative and cultural industries sector (Cherbo, Vogel, & Wyszomirski, 2008):

The downstream distribution infrastructure connects the creative industries to their markets and consumers. This includes retail outlets; media and advertising; presentation and exhibition venues; the services of agents, brokers, and other intermediaries such as critics and art dealers; market and audience research services; and an ever-changing cast of partners and collaborators that links the artists and arts organizations to new audiences and instrumental uses.

(pp. 15–16)

When conceiving of the performing arts center as a key player in the arts and culture distribution infrastructure in any given local community, it is easy to see how the PAC might become a central focus of urban cultural planning and development efforts. Indeed, performing arts centers appear to often be the “crown jewel” of urban development and revitalization efforts. Although major performing arts venues have long been located at the heart of cities, the past 30 years have observed a dramatic expansion of cultural facilities as an explicit element of urban development strategies (Strom, 2003).

By the 1980s… cities began to promote their arts—real and invented—as a major quality-of-life asset in the belief that a vital artistic sector would increase their competitive edge in attracting visitors, residents, and the creative worker. Business in turn would be attracted by the opportunity to capitalize on this critical mass of consumers and highly skilled employees. That the arts can play an important role, even a linchpin role, in a municipal redevelopment strategy is an idea that has gained sufficient traction to warrant a measure of confidence in the arts as a key element of revitalization policy.

(Stewart, 2008, p. 113)

Cities are growing increasingly competitive in developing urban communities that feature cultural amenities to attract and stimulate creativity and innovation. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, communities routinely commissioned cultural plans, establishing cultural districts, investing significant sums of money in cultural facilities, and developing new revenue sources earmarked for support of the arts (Markusen & Gadwa, 2010, p. 379). Arts-based revitalization and the promotion of cultural districts have become important policy tools for cities. As Galligan (2008) explains, a policy tool is “an instrument or plan of action undertaken by a municipality in achieving social, economic, political, or aesthetic goals with clearly delineated outcomes in mind” (p. 129). While a cultural district may simply refer to an area of a city that is recognized for a high concentration of cultural and entertainment facilities (Smith, 2007), a definition more useful to urban planning is that “a cultural district is a well-recognized, labeled, mixed-use area of a city in which a high concentration of cultural facilities serves as the anchor of attraction” (Frost-Kumpf, 1998, p. 7).

Furthermore, a municipality’s strategic investment in the development of a cultural district is frequently intertwined with economic and tourism goals. Markusen and Gadwa (2010) identify two widely employed strategic choices made by urban regions: “(1) designated cultural districts anchored by large performing and visual arts spaces versus dispersed ‘natural’ cultural districts with smaller scale nonprofit, commercial, and community cultural venues and (2) tourist-targeted versus local-serving cultural investments” (pp. 379–380). Throughout North America, many communities have now created cultural districts “where informality and aesthetic stimulation combine through the juxtaposition of performance spaces, eclectic stores, and new-style eateries” (Donnelly, 2011, p. 33). It is beyond the scope of this book to explore in-depth the diverse goals, structures, and operations of cultural districts, but the role of major performing arts facilities in the planning and ongoing life of a cultural district is referenced in many chapters of this book and begs further investigation.

A Typology of Performing Arts Centers in the United States

To begin an in-depth study of the relationship between performing arts centers and their communities—which is the overarching theme of the chapters in this book—one must first understand the basic governance models, institutional forms, functions, and revenue streams of these entities. In the United States, performing arts centers are divided into four main types: mega-PACs, small market PACs, collegiate PACs, and major metropolitan PACs. A further key distinction among venue is found among venue types that are presenting or hosting organizations, as discussed earlier in this chapter, as well as whether or not the PAC hosts local resident companies. Regardless of the category or type, leaders of all PACs see themselves as community engaged, and most aspects of PAC structure and operation are quite similar (with the exception of ownership and governance). What differs dramatically among PACs is the scale of operations, as determined by budget, number and size of venues, mission, and programming.

In the United States, one “typical” set of PACs is venue management organizations that serve a large urban region. The major metropolitan PACs may run one venue or multiple venues, and can be further differentiated by budget, programming, and art education programs, along with other community engagement initiatives. The funding of these organizations varies significantly in all three categories of government support, nonprofit funding streams, and commercial revenues (as well as various combinations of funding streams). The governance and local politics associated with the PAC also vary enormously. Because of these institutions’ important role in providing benchmarks for the field as a whole, Chapter 7 of this book analyzes a sample set of major metropolitan PACs in detail.

In comparison with the typical PAC found in all urban communities, well-known large PACs like Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, and the Sydney Opera House—which we term mega-PACs— possess identical structures and function to the typical urban PAC, but have resources available to make the scale of operations much larger. Mega-PACs also tend to have national and international reputations as cultural institutions. In contrast, small market PACs tend to be community arts based and community-focused venues. The mission and programming of these PACs reflect the smaller venue size (typically fewer than 1,000 seats), as well as lower budgets. Throughout the United States, a wide range of PACs is also managed under the auspices of colleges and universities. In terms of basic operations and programming, collegiate PACs do not differ significantly from other types of PACs. However, the academic mission, student focus, university governance system, and funding streams distinguish this set.

Functions and Operations of Performing Arts Centers

A snapshot of the range of types of arts and culture programming and for-profit activity exhibited by “typical” (major metropolitan) PACs throughout the United States may help to introduce the professional management functions and organizational structure required of these entities.

Performances and activities that take place within PACs appear to fall into four major categories: resident company performances, other performing arts presentations, community-focused events and activities, and profit-making activities. Support of resident companies is a particularly interesting (and often-frustrating) mandate of PACs. This responsibility includes assisting resident companies by providing privileged use of the venue calendar, as well as subsidized use of the facilities, which dramatically impacts the capacity of the PAC management to program other performances and activities with higher revenue streams. Table 1.1 lists the main subcategories of both venue programming and ancillary revenues. This wide range of activity suggests the need for managerial competency in balancing seemingly anti-thetical mandates and responsibilities.

Table 1.1 Main Types of PAC Programming and Ancillary Revenues

Venue Programming	Ancillary Revenues
Resident company performances	Concessions and restaurants
Broadway series	Merchandise sales
International touring and presenting	Parking income
National/regional touring and presenting	Facility fees/user fees
Commercial concerts	Ticketing commissions
Family/kids programs	Equipment and utility charges
Lectures	Other for-profit activity
Commu...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Tables, Figures, and Boxes
• Preface
• 1 The Professionalization of Performing Arts Center Management
• 2 The Evolution of the Performing Arts Center: What Does Success Look Like?
• 3 Trends in the Development and Operation of Performing Arts Centers
• 4 Programming the Performing Arts: Balancing Mission and Solvency
• 5 Magic of Place: An Unrecognized Revolution in Theater Architecture
• 6 Building Performing Arts Centers
• 7 Ownership and Governance of Urban Performing Arts Centers
• 8 Managing Venue Operations for a Newly Opened PAC
• 9 Managing Performing Arts Centers in a University Setting
• 10 Impact of the Performing Arts Center on the Local Community
• 11 The PAC as Intermediary: Models of Collaboration and Partnerships Among Local Performing Arts Organizations
• 12 International Horizons in Performing Arts Center Management
• 13 Executive Leadership for Performing Arts Centers
• About the Editors and Contributors
• Index