Let’s talk about Hartford. I’ve never been to Connecticut, but in the past week I have read two stories about Hartford, and it is interesting to think about the links, if any.
First, the symphony is in financial troubles. Dan Haar of the Hartford Courant reports, “The symphony is bleeding $1.3 million a year and nearing the end of its cash reserves.” Hartford’s Connecticut Opera went bust in 2009. So far, a familiar story to a number of mid-sized US cities and their ‘legacy’ arts organizations.
The other story comes from Richard Florida’s City Lab, in a story I wrote about last week. In the year 2000, Hartford ranked in the top ten amongst large US metro areas in terms of proportion of the workforce in the ‘creative class’. In 2014, it still did. Indeed it had risen within the top ten (to 37% of the workforce). It also ranked in the top ten in terms of growth in creative class workers from 2000 to 2014.
What’s going on then? A couple of things to think about:
First, how are we defining the ‘creative class’? In Florida’s The Rise of the Creative Class, he defines it (see p. 328) to include ‘creative professionals’: management occupations; business and financial operations occupations; legal occupations; healthcare practitioners and technical occupations; and high-end sales and sales management (he removes this final category in his newer estimates). Hartford is, famously, a capital of the insurance industry, and also has a growing health care sector. Now we can argue about how ‘creative’ these occupations are, but it is pretty clear that a city like Hartford is going to do well on this score. But what link between those professions and support for the symphony or opera?
Second, in examining arts and creative class data, should we think about metro regions as our unit of geography? Hartford is, like some other US cities (say, St. Louis, or Detroit), a poor city (indeed, it makes an unfortunate top ten ranking in this regard) with wealthy suburbs. How does that translate into audiences and support for the performing arts?
Finally, when looking at where the arts thrive, and where they falter, is it the economic makeup of the city and/or region, or is it something about how the arts organizations themselves have integrated themselves into the lives of residents? In other words, are there particular characteristics of metros we can identify as ‘good for the arts’, or is it what the symphony makes of it?
But at least something seems clear: good numbers on ‘creative class’ employment are not, on their own, enough to sustain an orchestra or an opera company. Or even a hockey team.
“Hartford is, famously, a capital of the insurance industry, and also has a growing health care sector. Now we can argue about how ‘creative’ these occupations are, but it is pretty clear that a city like Hartford is going to do well on this score. But what link between those professions and support for the symphony or opera?”
I don’t know about insurance agents, but any arts administrator with a few years of experience will tell you that doctors are second only to artists themselves when it comes to appreciating art. I can’t remember how many hospital CEO’s I’ve met with who were very open to promoting the local theatre, symphony or opera among their staff and distributing PR materials for arts organizations. Try doing that with car salespersons – or insurance agents, perhaps.
As for what geographical areas we should think of as “our” audiences, there have been a bucketful of studies from the NEA and various philanthropic foundations which all agree on the fact that audience decline exponentially with a linear increase in distance between them and the arts organization. This, obviously, does not apply to major national-level arts organizations, which has somewhat different dynamics if they are situated in cities with a decent amount of tourism, or if they can figure out a way to diversify their performance venues.
The latter, though, applies very much to the mid-sized organizations. If you are a mid-level arts organization like the Hartford Symphony, tourists aren’t going to come flocking to you – or your city for that matter – so venue diversification is not only the best, but probably the only way such arts organizations can build up audiences large enough to provide decent ticket revenue, which goes hand in hand with increases in donations and grants. I’m not saying venue diversification is easy, but if arts managers aren’t working on it – let alone thinking about it – they need to find another career.
If the doctors and other audiences are in the suburbs, then that’s where you need to perform, not in the “general metro area,” which most often means downtown. If affluent neighborhoods are both in the north and south suburbs, then you need to perform in both areas, not somewhere in between them, hoping they’ll come to you. They won’t. I know… this just marginalizes the arts, puts up barriers between arts and less affluent people, alienates certain audience segments, etc. etc. etc. That’s just PC arts manager terminology and outdated thinking.
The way to reach out to the “underserved,” ‘economically disadvantaged” etc. is through special events like 4th of July outdoors concerts and educational programs. The people who come in masses to the 4th of July event with fireworks will probably not enter your performance space. Ever (unless you get Bon Jovi to perform with you, and he only works with the big boys). If you’re a good manager, however, you just might make a profit on the even, and those zeros in the attendance calculations are the caviar in grants applications for other purposes. As we all should know by now, the only way to secure increased attendance in the future is to work with kids now. I could get into a long tirade about this, but rest easy – I won’t. But unlike special events like the 4th of July, don’t just pay lip service to kids in schools or who’re at risk so you can use it as the sour cream on top of the caviar of attendance in grants applications. Arts organizations need to be involved long-term with schools near their various venues, and have programs that follow these kids from grade 1 through college with multiple exposures per year. One-off exposures every 3-4 years is a waste of time, and will never help maintain interest in your arts organization among the young, who are getting next to no arts exposure in school anymore (my apologies to hip hop, heavy metal, et al. but exposure to these…ummm….”art forms” is already nearly omnipresent in our society, so they don’t need help).
As for your “finally” question, I believe I’ve answered that one pretty much in full above.