The Association of Performing Arts Presenters annual conference in New York was as hectic as ever this past weekend, and jam-packed with presenters, artists, agents, managers, and other supporting professionals from the world of professional performing arts touring. As the world’s largest annual marketplace for (primarily) nonprofit presenting, Arts Presenters is a great place to capture the zeitgeist of the industry, and measure the optimism/pessimism ratio for the year ahead.
From the convenience sample of peers I talked with over the conference, the field is cautiously pessimistic for 2011, with a sense of increasing hope for 2012. Producers and agents I spoke with said lots of people were interested in their artists, some were inquiring, but few were diving into commitments to book quite yet. Presenter budgets remained tight as all forms of revenue (ticket income, individual giving, foundation support, government support, and such) were in flux. But many had enough commitments in the queue to consider the coming season better than the last one. And the upward slope had many thinking that NEXT season would be better again.
For nonprofits with significant endowment income, this year and next mark the trough in their earnings…since most nonprofits draw endowment money based on the average value of the last 3 years (and 2008 was the free-fall year). So, for them, there’s not much more money (if any), but there’s at least the dream of more to come. And while consumer spending seems to be rebounding in the larger economy, purchase patterns for leisure or entertainment are still anyone’s guess.
Like the U.S. economy that seems to be moving again but isn’t yet hiring, the APAP conference was bustling with electric energy but only moderate action. A promising evolution from last year’s fright fest. But a far cry from “back to business”.
