Strategies for the Current Economic Climate
JUNE 12, 2009Strategies for the Current Economic Climate
By Mary Kate Barley-Jenkins
Recently, IPAY board member Stephen Gabriel completed initial research on the North American touring market of performing arts for youth and family audiences. This research covered bookings that occurred before the economic downturn. Curious about how programmers have responded to the current economic climate, we asked IPAY member Sherri Leathers and annual Showcase attendee Shannon Dozoryst to share their recent strategies.
Sherri Leathers, Director of Program Services for Education at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center(TPAC) received upsetting news in November of last yea.. Her CEO asked her to cut TPAC's family series. Given that budget reductions needed to come from each department, the CEO also asked staff to review TPAC's strategic plans and mission statement in order to make additional recommendations as to what could be cut.
The Family Series was implemented in 2006 as a companion to the school matinee series and has grown from 86 subscribers in the first year to 530 for the recently concluded season. Leathers' attributes this growth to the input of many different departments into the creation of the series. "We built the family series from the ground up with a team, including input from marketing, box office and even the theatre technicians."
Staff members outside of Leathers' department noted that the family series was one of the main programs that served TPAC's mission. The fact that many outside her department were advocates impressed the CEO and the Family Series was not cut.
That said, Leathers did make some adjustments in her programming strategy as she still faced those 1/3 budget cuts. "I cut one of the literature based programs for the high school audience, as it's the most expensive program I have, and we did more titles than normal. I was told that shows had to sell at as close to capacity as possible"
To see what Leathers has booked for 2009-10, visit http://www.tpac.org/education/hot/0910season.asp
Shannon Dozoryst, the Education and Outreach Coordinator for Young Auditorium at University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, (http://www.uww.edu/youngauditorium), has been programming in a fiscally conservative way for three years and so far has avoided receiving any drastic news from her executive director. While she doesn’t foresee her budget being cut, she has been incorporating small changes into her programming. For example, two of her four family programming slots have gone to productions that are locally based and have community wide impact. "We’re not as adventurous as we'd like to be in terms of booking, but we are lucky to be in a good situation now and confident the approach we are taking is the right one."
Both Leathers and Dozoryst acknowledge that their family and school matinee programming loses money, but as long as they stay within their budgets, they don't have revenue goals to meet.
##
Do you have a story to share about your recent experiences with the economic situation?
Send your thoughts and comments to IPAY board member Mary Kate Barley-Jenkins, marykate@chfestival.org