Joe Patti

I have been writing Butts in the Seats (BitS) on topics of arts and cultural administration since 2004 (yikes!). Given the ever evolving concerns facing the sector, I have yet to exhaust the available subject matter. In addition to BitS, I am a founding contributor to the ArtsHacker (artshacker.com) website where I focus on topics related to boards, law, governance, policy and practice. I am also an evangelist for the effort to Build Public Will For Arts and Culture being helmed by Arts Midwest and the Metropolitan Group. (http://www.creatingconnection.org/about/) My most recent role was as Executive Director of the Grand Opera House in Macon, GA. Among the things I am most proud are having produced an opera in the Hawaiian language and a dance drama about Hawaii's snow goddess Poli'ahu while working as a Theater Manager in Hawaii. Though there are many more highlights than there is space here to list.

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The National Arts Leadership Institute

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The first session I attended at the Western Arts Alliance conference actually made the whole experience worth it in terms of professional development. I actually didn’t learn more than I already knew so much as I discovered people are really getting serious and organized about teaching good leadership skills.

The session was presented by Philip Horn, Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and Margaret Mertz of Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts.

Their purpose was to solicit feedback about how to make the developing National Arts Leadership Institute (NALI) valuable and accessible for artists, managers, agents and others. They were asking the question “What do we need to know and be able to do to make ourselves and our field more successful?”

They were also asking how the session attendees envisioned themselves participating in the institute and perhaps contributing to it.

Philip took our suggestions and observations on big tear off sheets which he took home with him. He also handed out some really great self-evaluation surveys for both artists and presenters which help people assess what they do and don’t know about the industry they are in. (I thought the spreadsheets were on the Southern Arts Federation website but I can’t find them. I emailed Philip in an attempt to track them down and hope to eventually feature them here.)

These self-evaluation instruments are important because, as was pointed out in the session, “there are many on ramps to presenting.” People in the industry range from those with formal training, (though apparently few management programs teach presenting), and/or long time experience in the field to amateur members of a community group who decide they want to present a performance and people in schools who get volunteered for the task because of experience in a tangentially related field.

There were a lot of great suggestions made and to my chagrin, I was so interested in the conversation I forgot to make note of half of them.

One thing that NALI is doing to make informational sessions at conferences more valuable is to require people on panels to communicate with each other weeks in advance (apparently they often don’t discuss what they will cover until ten minutes prior to the panel) and to essentially create an outline or syllabus letting participants know exactly what they should expect to be covered.

They have already put this into practice. The Performing Arts Exchange conference being held in Memphis this coming week features a section on their website where you can download the course outlines and bios of the NALI sponsored sessions and instructors.

One of the goals is to specifically plan a cycle of NALI sponsored sessions at the regional conferences so that a person could attend the same conference over a period of 3-5 years and ultimately complete all the coursework one would theoretically need for presenting.

There was some discussion as to whether NALI was going to be granting people certification of some sort, what the qualifications would be, if there was going to be testing, what happens if you fail the test, etc. Philip and Margaret essentially felt it was too early in the development of the whole process to say.

This seems logical to me since they are in the solicitation phase of developing the whole program. While people felt that there was a need for better education and information exchange to help move the profession forward, no one was actually suggesting the creation of a certifying authority. One woman actually liked the idea of the program because it would mean she could take classes and continue working (rather than quit and go to grad school).

In the discussion of delivery channels for supplementary or even core information, Philip mentioned that community colleges seems to have the flexibility and power to create and offer arts management courses much more quickly than 4 year institutions.

I brought up blogs like Artful Manager a place where links to resources may be found. (As I noted in yesterday’s entry, I didn’t mention my own at the time. I have started to rectify that situation.)

I also mentioned podcasting as a means for disseminating important information or lessons on a weekly basis. I didn’t realize the potential power of this form the way others like the Artful Manager has until I started to recently listen to a local arts podcast .

I sent the host of this podcast a press release one day and it was on the podcast the next day. Newspapers and radio stations are picky about what they announce and when, but I think getting your info announced on podcasts focused to a specific community can end up being much more powerful a tool than print and broadcast media.

Granted, this guy’s podcast has a small audience and a probably has a dearth of material to work with at the moment so I might get booted or have to compete for time in the future. But there are alliances and relationships to be forged!

In any case, I think using podcasting to send out weekly wise thoughts from arts professional on issues of the day can become a powerful tool and be especially helpful for those managers who don’t have the money to attend conferences and the professional development sessions contained therein.

I also mentioned the way Annenberg/CPB delivers their Arts in Every Classroom programs over the web as another potential delivery medium. (I wrote about these great programs earlier.)

One thing another participant in the conversation touched briefly upon (and I expanded on with Philip after the session broke up) was the need to not to move the profession forward by educating presenters, artists and agents, but also educating organizations and municipalities.

There are a lot of cities and groups out there, perhaps driven by the idea of attracting Richard Florida’s Creative Class, who are building arts facilities without really understanding the calibre of personnel and annual infusion of resources necessary to do justice to the $50 million it took to construct the facility.

I am seeing such a case on my local horizon, but they are living it in Madison, WI. Andrew Taylor responds here.

Whew! Covered a lot of ground today and wandered a little, but this is heady and exciting stuff. I hope NALI continues with their plan and becomes a going concern. Watch this space for more coverage!

Forgetfulness Setting In

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Dang it. I forgot my notes from the WAA conference to support my entry tonight at work.

I looked around for a topic to blog upon, but ultimately decided to update the Theatre Blogs section of my site with new links. Enjoy!

As I passed by The Playgoer’s blog, I came across a quote of the day from a Terry Teachout entry two years ago. (Unfortunately, because of the change in Artsjournal.com blog structure, the link to Terry’s entry is incorrect.)

There was a part of Terry’s writing that made me ashamed of myself.

The difference, of course, is that arts bloggers can’t count on a cataclysmic event to stimulate interest in what we’re doing. We’ll have to publicize ourselves, not only by linking to one another (though that’s important) but also by reaching out to potential readers who don’t yet know what a blog is. That’s why I always include the www.terryteachout.com URL in the shirttails to the pieces I write for the print media. That’s why I remind you each morning to tell someone you know about this site. People who come here will go elsewhere, too.

For all my talk about the lack of arts bloggers out there implying the need for more voices and discussion—when I had the opportunity to mention my blog at the WAA conference last week I balked.

I either didn’t mention it or glossed it over when I was talking. I don’t know why. I can honestly say I often didn’t think many of the people who were talking were that much smarter than I was (if at all) and that I didn’t want them reading the dumb stuff on my blog. (Though granted, some of my stuff isn’t the quality I would like it to be.)

Even if what I write isn’t as good as I might want, the things I link to are worthwhile reading. The only reasons I can think I didn’t mention it as much as I should have is 1- In some cases I figured I might be writing about the people in the room. 2- In other cases I didn’t think the people I was talking with would get what the whole blogging thing was about.

In the second case, I should give people the opportunity to get it or not on their own and not decide for them. In the former case, I am pretty circumspect when it comes to including identifiable details about people with whom I disagree and I also often state my criticisms to people before they ever appear on my blog. People may not like that I discuss problems and challenges here, but they aren’t learning about where I stand from my blog.

Foolish people have less reason to worry that what they say and do will show up on my blog in identifiable form and more to worry about from other people in the room gossiping about what they did.

So I am resolving now to talk more about my blogging, the great stuff I am learning through that process and promoting other intelligent bloggers in the process.

Cost of Cancellations

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So I had a bit of a problem while I was at the WAA conference last week–or as some might say, an “opportunity to learn.”

An agent pulls me aside and tells me–“You know that show you booked? The one you were smart enough to recognize the talent in while your compatriots on the other islands spurned it?”

“Well, to further validate your good taste–the show was a smash at the Edinburgh Fringe and a bunch of big name producers want to have the show on the West End.”

At the same time it is supposed to be in my theatre.

Well honestly, I have to say I am thrilled for the show. But at the same time, my brochures just went out and people are buying tickets at a nice clip right now. But the show isn’t until the Spring so it is good to find out now when I have the time to announce the change. It will be good PR to have to announce the show will have to be rescheduled because it burned up Edinburgh and is going to the West End.

But my theatre is also pretty much booked up until next August at the moment between my shows and rentals so I don’t know when I will reschedule. And before the college will send out a deposit check to an artist, I have to sign a statement saying I will personally reimburse them if a group doesn’t perform.

Guess what got mailed out the day I flew to Alburquerque.

So while the agent is trying to find out if this is a sure thing, I attend round table discussions. One I want to attend is being delayed so I stick my nose in on an session about ethics. I wasn’t going to attend because the same topic was covered last year, but it ended up the panel on this one did a better job.

One of the first questions was if anyone had ever faced an artist cancelling.

I raise my hand and say funny you should mention it and tell my story.

One of the panel members says that he takes that in stride because it happens often when performers in his cabaret series end up getting a contract for a Broadway show. He knows where he stands in the pecking order. He prints up an alteration, explains why the switch is occuring and offers refunds to those who might want it.

Be that as it may, my problem is that: 1- He is talking about a secondary series being affected, not his primary audience attracter. 2- His facility has enough prestige he can easily attract an equally talented performer who is eager to appear.

In many theatres in the region, the person appearing in his secondary series is often the primary attraction for that organization and are difficult to replace.

The roundtable discussion covered the fact that artists/agents/presenters who are new to the process (and some old hands who are just clueless) need to realize the reprecussions of cancellations.

For the presenter, a cancellation can mean upset ticket buyers, an upset board who mandated certain numbers and certain types of performances, loss of revenue and a loss of prestige and credibility with the community.

For the artists, a cancellation can mean loss of income; depending on the timing, mean they are stranded between points A & B with nowhere to sleep; result in a loss of credibility with the public and perhaps with the presenters before and after the cancelling venue because they need to ask those venues for more money in order to meet expenses that week.

For agents, it means a loss of credibility with the artists and/or presenters.

Since the arts community, even nationwide, is fairly small and members tend to meet each other often, an agent/presenter/artist can find themselves increasingly ostracized for problematic behavior.

But of course, this depends on the power and influence of any of these players. Sometimes you have to bite your tongue and do business with these folks in order to please your clients/patrons and just hope they don’t decide to screw you this time around.

The end of my story, fortunately, turned out well. A day after getting the potential bad news, I am told that the West End theatres the London producers wanted weren’t available during that time so they are looking for other dates.

So I get to have my performance AND claim it burned up Edinburgh and perhaps mention it will be going to London shortly after it appears here.

Change Ain’t Easy

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Well I am back from the Western Arts Alliance Conference with much to tell. The first a controversial plan WAA has to change the format of the conference.

As I noted in my last entry, because the plenary speaker had to cancel, the Marketplace Committee report scheduled for Sunday was delivered on Wednesday instead. This was lauded as a happy incident because it would allow people to discuss the changes throughout the conference.

By annual membership meeting on Sunday it became clear that it might not have been such a good thing to have people talking about it all conference because people were very angry.

The proposal for the change is found in WAA Celebrates 40 Years of Community: A Commitment to the Future.

The biggest problem people had was with The Commons proposal. Instead of continuing to replicate the pipe and drape format that even Comdex follows, the taskforce envisioned something less structured.

The pipe and drape format, they felt, commidifies what the artists and managers exhibiting have to offer. The presenters walk around and get to pick and choose who they will talk to while the exhibitors stare longingly from within the confines of their booth hoping to make eye contact while the presenters try to avoid the same.

Under the new proposal, artists/managers/agents might set up shop in different formats. Perhaps in a suite, perhaps at a bar, at a table in a common area, etc.

I had a discussion with someone about this on a shuttle ride to a venue. Ultimately, a change of format will probably be necessary as younger people enter the field. People will be communicating via cell phones, text messaging, Blackberries, etc. rather than walking up and down rows. They will flock to showcases as word gets around about what artists look most exciting. Brochures and DVDs will be replaced by presenters asking artists to send them a link to a Bittorrented movie of their work.

The problem was, the taskforce didn’t offer any solid vision of what this commons would look like. Before the meeting on Sunday, I heard presenters opposed the change because it took power out of their hands, but at the meeting it was mostly artists/managers/agents who voiced their criticism.

Among their concerns were-

-If artists/agents were set up in bars, how would presenters know where to find them?

-If they were set up in suites, the line between the haves and have nots would be extreme. William Morris and CAMI would be able to fete presenters in style and comfort while others would bankrupt themselves just arranging for a room.

-If the Commons were going to be available for meetings around the clock, did that mean the small artist who only had one person representing them would have to exhaust themselves sitting there 14 hours a day?

Currently, the resource room where the exhibitors are is only open for 2-3 hour periods before and after professional development meetings and showcases. This gives insures the majority of people, including exhibitors have an opportunity to devote their attention to just roundtables, just showcases and just discussing possible performances.

I suspect the Commons being available all the time just means managers and presenters could arrange to meet outside of the offical time in that area rather than people always being “on.” They turned the lights out on an agent and I while we were talking because they wanted to encourage us to move on to the showcases. In the future this theoretically wouldn’t happen. (I actually went to dinner with an agent and members of my consortium)

I actually had an entirely separate problem with the proposal. However, I followed an irate agent who was flabbergasted that the conference administration had actually originally considered waiting until Sunday to present this proposal to the membership so my complaint was probably forgotten pretty quickly.

I was actually impressed by this agent’s fervor. He represents a rather prominent dance company and, as he pointed out, hardly needed to be at the conference to get bookings. He said he showed up to lend support to the other artists. I have to admit, the fact his company is represented there does lend to the sense that one can contract quality artists at this conference.

My problem was mostly philisophical. The suggested changes would mean that the conference would end up in California permanently. LA, San Francisco maybe San Diego and Denver are about the only cities in the region that might have a hotel large enough to house a conference since they seemed to be so set against, as the association president put it, returning to the ugly cookie cutter, conference centers with bad lighting and loud ventilation. (I really felt bad for the conference center staff standing in the room.) The fact the conference would be able to take advantage of the wonderful theatre facilities at Disney Hall, etc was lauded.

My comment was this- LA and Disney Hall doesn’t reflect the conditions in which most of the presenting membership operates. Like me, they are in smaller, less well appointed facilities located in smaller cities. There is more benefit to the membership in seeing venues like the National Hispanic Cultural Center (gorgeous facility and ironically, contains the Roy E. Disney Performing Arts Center.) and KiMo Theatre because we can walk away from them with applicable ideas about running our own theatres.

Just in case rumors that came to my ears about the conference permanently moving to LA bolstered by the denigration of conference centers were erroneous, I asked a person on the Marketplace Task Force who refuted my view in meeting point blank if I was wrong about the permanent move.

While he allowed that there was a slight chance that they could be talked into going back to smaller cities, he pretty much doubted it would happen. (This might have been his personal preference rather than an expression of the prevailing attitude since he really appeared to want to turn the conference into APAP of the West. (You want to talk about an atmosphere of commidification, attend that conference!)

It will be interesting now to see how things pan out in 2008 after the LA conference.