Arts Find Ways to Up Income and Audiences

from the January-February 2009 Issue of Arts Management
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In hard times, cultural groups are finding new ways to generate income and attract new audiences. Retail sales tie-ins, pay-per-view performance broadcasts, low-price ticket offers and unusual fundraising concepts are weapons in the arts arsenal.

The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is winning visibility and income through sales of the Alvin Ailey Barbie Doll, a new addition to the Barbie Collector Pink Label. Introduced late last year to help celebrate Ailey's current 50th anniversary season, the doll, with 12 points of articulation, is available at Target stores and major toy retailers. Other new Ailey items available for purchase are sets of six Ailey Hallmark cards, a photographic book, Ailey Ascending: A Portrait in Motion, an Ailey celebration calendar and Movado's Ailey commemorative watch. Though the projects ''netted some money to Ailey's bottom line,'' said executive director Sharon Luckman, ''the purpose was to increase Ailey's visibility and generate awareness of our 50th anniversary.''

Britain's Royal Ballet also will benefit from merchandise sales thanks to a lucrative partnership with the Italian fitness wear company, Freddy. Under the arrangement, part sponsorship and part licensing deal, valued at an estimated £400,000, Freddy will introduce a Royal Ballet Collection of dance and leisure wear in four colors, to be sold at its stores throughout the world.

In Los Angeles the County Museum of Art, in an arrangement with the BMW automobile company, is installing four BMW Art cars designed by Andy Warhol. Frank Stella. Roy Lichtenstein and Robert Rauschenberg at its grand entrance for free viewing from February 12-24.

No longer a novelty, operas and ballets beamed live to movie houses by the Metropolitan Opera, the Royal Opera House, La Scala and other noted groups, are now being joined by theatrical performances. London's National Theatre will beam a live performance of acclaimed actress Helen Mirren in ''Phedre'' to 50 UK theaters and within 24 hours to 100 theaters around the world. The first of four plays to be beamed live by the National, the viewings will include backstage footage and interviews.

The internet also is bringing visibility and income to performing groups. The UK's Classical TV website is offering live internet broadcasts by the Metropolitan Opera, Bolshoi, English National Opera, Paris Opera Ballet and others on a pay-per-view basis costing users just under $10 a viewing.

To spur funding at a time of need, some arts groups have dramatized their case. The Cincinnatti Ballet, seeking funds to maintain live music at its performances, solicited money from an open violin case while in Los Angeles, artists David Weiner and Angie Lee held an artistic bake sale to benefit the Museum of Contemporary Art. The sale featured Giacometti-style baguettes and cakes with images by Jasper Johns. Faced with a large deficit, the Kentucky Repertory Theatre called on Kentucky celebrities George Clooney, Annie Potts and Ned Beatty to sell its case for additional funding to the public.

The Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in Kansas City, which needs to raise $60 million, has added a new wrinkle to its named seat sale, where prices range from $2,500 to $10,000. In an appeal to parents and grandparents, the Center is now offering to put a child's handprint on a theater wall for $1,000. The Pacific Baroque Orchestra, which hopes to name harpsichordist Alex Weimann as its director, has started the Alex Weimann Club to raise the necessary funds. The entry fee for club membership is $5,000.

Groups are enticing audiences to programs with offers that are hard to refuse. Thanks to a contribution by an anonymous donor, the New York City Ballet is offering 50 orchestra seats, normally selling for $90, for only $25 for each performance during its 2009 repertory season. The Toronto Symphony launched a three-concert Wednesday evening 6:30 to 8:00 pm series in December for $69 a ticket, instead of the usual $132.

In Maryland, some 67,000 furloughed state employees have been offered free or discounted tickets to programs by such groups as the Baltimore Symphony, Center Stage, Baltimore Museum of Art and the Walters Art Gallery thanks to the ''Arts Step Up'' program launched by Maryland Citizens for the Arts on January 5. Throughout February, the Art Institute of Chicago is offering free general admission to everyone. Beginning in February, Broadway made its ''Kids Night on Broadway'' a monthly event. Youngsters age 6 to 18 are free on the first Tuesday and Wednesday of every month, when accompanied by a full-paying adult.

Off-Broadway theaters in New York City are being helped by NYC & Company, the City's marketing and tourism arm through a Feb. 15-March 1 promotion. Designed to boost the theaters' ticket sales, ''On the House,'' offers two-for-one tickets at more than 30 Off-Broadway productions. In a bid to stimulate dining at neighborhood restaurants, the program also offers free Coca-Cola beverages at pre or post-theater meals at 11 city restaurants. Overseas, French youngsters under 25 along with teachers, now can enjoy free admission to national museums, including the Louvre and the Musee d'Orsay.

To promote its image and new music director, Leonard Slatkin, and entice audiences to concerts, the Detroit Symphony launched a new PBS television series hosted by Slatkin, ''Making Music With the DSO.'' Starting January 3, the series has been aired Saturdays at 5:30 pm and rebroadcast Sundays at 2:30 pm.

The Boston Symphony has become fashion-conscious. As part of its ''Symphony+'' program of pre- and post-concert events designed to entice concertgoers, the orchestra held ''Project Mozart,'' its first-ever fashion contest. Eleven fashion students from area colleges showed off evening wear designs inspired by Mozart's music at three February pre-concert receptions. The Metropolitan Opera, meanwhile, is adding a documentary film to its movie house offerings of live operas. On April 19, 400 U.S. movie houses will show ''The Audition,'' a film about Met auditions. Canadian movie theaters will show the film on June 6.

Arts groups in Minnesota, meanwhile, will have a guaranteed new source of income thanks to a constitutional amendment passed in the last election authorizing a state sales tax increase of 3/8th of 1 percent. Under the Clearwater Land and Legacy Amendment, arts and culture will be one of four areas to benefit, receiving 19.75 percent of the proceeds. In the UK the campaign to raise £50-million to keep a major Titian work in the country was successful.

On a less positive note, Brandeis University, faced with financial concerns, voted to close its Rose Art Museum and sell its important collection of more than 8,000 works whose estimated value is over $300-million. Museum leaders protested the action and the state attorney general plans to look closely into the action. Lehman Brothers with liabilities of $613-billion, won bankruptcy court approval to sell its $8-million art collection.