Stuff To Ponder: What Is The Definition of Emergency?

This last week I have gotten some real lessons in the importance of disaster planning.

During the quiet of the holidays I started a conversation with some colleagues about how we would handle inclement weather on performance days. Everyone keeps telling me how they try to shy away from scheduling shows in January because the weather is so bad. With that in mind, I wanted to have a plan for how we would proceed before the need arose.

Since we present a number of touring shows, we would be in a position of needing to pay artists per our contract unless the weather is so bad a state of emergency is declared. In that case, we would issue refunds to the ticket buyers.

However, if the weather is poor, but not so bad that we cancel the show, there may still be a number of people contacting us asking for refunds because they chose not to attend. My recent conversation has been about what we should do to respond to these people. Since we need to pay the performers, we probably won’t be in a position to offer refunds.

I have been discussing possible options with staff, board members and others. Our eventual solution may not make our customers happy but surveys have shown that even when the solution doesn’t please them, customers have a better impression of your company when you make the attempt to resolve their complaints rather than just refusing them outright.

In the process of the conversation, we decided we should post our policy on our website noting that we only offer refunds when the university closes and/or the sheriff declares a level 3 emergency.

And then came this week with the extreme cold.

Pretty much every school in county closed and many of the universities in the state did as well. We were open though.

Given that it was sunny and there was barely a dusting of snow on the ground, I started to launch into the stereotypical grandparent tirade and talked about how I stood out waiting for the bus in colder weather than this when I was younger. (Unfortunately, I not as tough as my grandfather. I only had to trudge uphill through the snow to the bus stop one way rather than both ways.)

Had we had a show and a different provost who decided to cancel classes, I might have been in a situation whereby our own policy dictated we issue refunds. At the same time the performing artists would stand there looking at me like I was crazy for saying the show was cancelled due to the cold and then glare at me when I said we weren’t paying them.

Not that the cold didn’t cause any difficulties. Yesterday we narrowly avert a large disaster when someone noticed a ball of ice forming on the sprinkler heads of the lobby fire suppression system. They just got the water turned off as the ice melted. There was some flooding, but nothing like what it could have been.

Every company knows that they should have a good disaster plan, how they will respond, where people should turn to for communications, etc,. Performing arts organizations need to know about the evacuation plans of the venue they perform in and think about issues like refunds.

But the events of the last week have made me realize I also need to know about the criteria being used by the decision makers I am depending on. I may assume the criteria is one thing and it won’t be. It may also change as personnel change.

As we heard about school closings Monday morning, a person I know who had attended and taught in some of those schools was amazed, noting they had never closed in the past. He opined that they might be quicker to close now due to people being more litigious.

In any case, being aware of shifting criteria can make for better planning. Had we or one of our renters had a school show this week with all the schools cancelling, that would have been quite problematic. Thinking about that, it just occurred to me that I should know what my policy about payment will be if a renter is impacted by school closings.

The person who made the decision to keep campus open this week when other campuses closed will be stepping down in June. I already started to advocate that very clear guidelines be developed for what conditions will result in the campus being closed and for the successor to be aware of the repercussions on our activities should the decision be made.

Now I also realize I need to know what constitutes a level 3 emergency in the sheriff’s eyes.

Presenting Works By Indigenous Artists

A week from today, I will be presenting a panel at the Association of Performing Arts Presenters conference on “Presenting Works By Indigenous Artists.”

Our session is currently scheduled on Monday, January 13 at 9 am in the Madison Suite at the Hilton Midtown. (Check for signs and updates, they have already moved us once.)

Based on my experience in Hawaii, I know there are a lot of high quality indigenous arts performance groups out there who have a product that would appeal to the interests of curious audiences across the country.

However, I also know that there is a degree of uncertainty about how to identify artists, verify their authenticity and promote the show to audiences. So I put together a panel speak about the issue.

From our session proposal:

Session Focus:
Presenting indigenous artists, identifying groups, seeking support for tours, discussing the potential cultural requirements of those artists, promoting the artists in a respectful manner , marketing these performers to audiences who may be curious but unfamiliar with the culture; connecting indigenous artists with their local counterparts in your communities; Developing an understanding in your communities of the living and evolving nature of indigenous arts.

Session Description
There has been a marked increase recently in fine works being created by indigenous artists who combine western staging and presentation techniques with expressions of their own cultures. Recognizing that there may be a degree of uncertainty about artistic content, interactions with performers, expectations, use of terminology and promoting these productions to audiences, this session explores the issues around presenting indigenous artists.

The panel will discuss questions regarding booking decisions – identifying groups, understanding quality, your role as presenter in empowering artists to shape their own cultural expression while dispelling cultural misconceptions or stereotypes

Marketing – what is appropriate? what do I say to my community that doesn’t include these cultures? Interaction with the artists – what are the protocols? How can we create meaningful engagement?

The panel will consist of:

Colleen Furukawa, VP of Programming at Maui Arts and Cultural Center who has been instrumental in the creation and production of a number of cultural dance and visual arts works.

Karen Fischer, President of Pasifika Arts Network which represents indigenous artists and has been working to expand the programming of indigenous work in all disciplines.

Moss Patterson, Artistic Director of Atamira, the leading Maori Contemporary Dance Company based in New Zealand.

Rosy Simas, Choreographer of Rosy Simas Danse. Rosy is a Native American (Seneca) contemporary choreographer. Over the past 20 years, she has created more than 40 original works.

And, of course, myself. I have produced an opera entirely in Hawaiian, a hula drama about the Hawaiian snow goddess and a production showcasing elements of Balinese temple ceremonies. And I presented other significant works by artists from across Oceania and Asia.

You may be thinking it is easy for me to talk about how easy it is to sell indigenous performances based on my experience presenting to communities with a fair representation from similar indigenous communities. While I have lived in Hawaii, I currently live and work in the rural Midwest now and have worked in communities in NJ, FL, NY and UT as well so I am well aware of the varied types of communities many arts organizations are serving.

If you are going to be attending the APAP conference, swing by and see us.

I believe they plan to record us so between that and my own notes I will try to write about the topics we cover and the questions that are asked in a future post.

Forgive Your Mistakes

As the year ended, it was announced that Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark, was closing this January. Given the interminable previews, technical problems and public discussion of Julie Taymor’s dismissal as they moved to revamp the production, wry comments were never far from people’s lips when the show was mentioned.

The show served as a reminder that having successful big names attached to a show like The Edge, Bono and Julie Taymor, doesn’t guarantee success.

I was going to write a post on another topic today, but I got to reading about the difficulties faced by the original production of West Side Story in 1957. Despite also having big names like Arthur Laurents, Jerome Robbins and Leonard Bernstein attached to it, the show was a hard sell and faced a number of problems.

Stephen Sondheim, who hadn’t really become a household name at the time, didn’t want to work in the project for fear of being pigeonholed as a lyricist instead of a composer. His mentor, Oscar Hammerstein, had to convince him that working in such talented company would be invaluable for his career.

No one wanted to produce the show because its gritty story of street gangs ran counter to the happy, bright vision of musicals of the 1950s. (Remember, this is based on the tragic story of Romeo and Juliet, two of the main character are dead on stage by intermission and the two leads by the end of the story.) Even when two producers did sign on, one was unable to raise money and backed out soon after. Some theater owners refused to let their buildings be used for the show.

Finally, Hal Prince, who had previously turned the show down, was convinced to come on as a producer by Stephen Sondheim.

There were high tensions between the four collaborators over many of the artistic decisions, especially between the domineering Jerome Robbins and everyone else. Reportedly by opening night, none of the other three were on speaking terms with Robbins.

But the result was a show that was absolutely groundbreaking at the time, moving contrary to so many conventions. Now, more than 50 years later, West Side Story is one of the most enduring musicals on Broadway. It doesn’t seem quite so innovative today because so many others followed its lead.

In retrospect, it is easy to compare West Side Story to Spiderman and identify why one succeeded and the other failed, but had you been involved in the process of mounting the first production of either one, it would have been difficult to predict the eventual outcome correctly.

By some measures, Spiderman with the built in name recognition of the property, director and producers, along with all the funding behind it should have succeeded where West Side Story with its edgy story that no one wanted fund should have failed.

Today Drew McManus made a wish list for arts and culture in 2014 and asked what his readers wished for.

It wasn’t until I read about West Side Story and thought about Spiderman that I realized my wish is for artists and arts and cultural organizations to be able to forgive themselves for their failures and to realize that success is not always easy or immediately apparent.

Excepting Spiderman for a moment, there are huge, well funded corporations who perform extensive research and data analysis who still fail miserably in their endeavors. (See JCPenny’s assumption that consumers wanted honest pricing.)

While differences in economic realities may allow them to weather the consequences of their mistakes better than you can, at least recognize that having one hundred times your funding doesn’t make them even 10 times a better decision maker than you.

Conversely, your lack of funding does not indicate you lack brains and ability.

Know Who You Are Dealing With

In about two weeks I will be attending the Association of Performing Arts Presenters conference in NYC. I will be hosting a discussion panel, but my primary objective is to learn about different artists that might potentially perform in my space and make contacts with different artists’ agents.

It occurs to me to toss out a cautionary tale about being very, very careful about verifying that the people with whom you are working to arrange a performance are, in fact, the actual artist’s representative.

When I was working in Hawaii, the University of Hawaii at Manoa Athletics department decided they wanted to present a fund raiser featuring Stevie Wonder. They sent $200,000 to people who were not Stevie Wonder’s agent who subsequently took the money and ran off. The FBI ended up getting involved.

Given the scrutiny we faced to even get a $2,000 check cut, those of us working for the university in the performing arts wondered how so much money ended up getting transferred in the first place. Second, even if they didn’t think to ask those of us who handled performing arts contracts for the university, we wondered why none of the other prominent promoters in the state weren’t consulted. Any of us could have told them they were dealing with the wrong person.

However, I will admit that for someone who is inexperienced, it is difficult to discern who Stevie Wonder’s agent is. Many artists have their agent listed on their website, but Stevie Wonder doesn’t. My suspicion is that this keeps people who aren’t seriously prepared and qualified to present him from deluging the agent with requests. Anyone who is serious about presenting him will know how to identify his agent, Creative Artists Agency. (CAA)

That lack of information provides an opening which allows other people to take advantage. Even though I don’t engage artists who command $400-$500,000, I know CAA is one of the few agencies large enough to handle the business of someone like Stevie Wonder. But if you search the internet for “Stevie Wonder agent,” you will find 6-10 listings of people offering to arrange a concert for you. If you didn’t know CAA was his agent, which would you choose? CAA is the first search result, but there are two paid placements that come in above them.

Most of the other companies listed will likely turn around and contact CAA on your behalf to arrange for Stevie Wonder’s performance, taking a cut themselves. This isn’t to say these middlemen are just skimming a piece of the action. There are many that will add value to the exchange and handle the details you don’t have the resources to deal with yourself.

Some might take the money and run.

There are organizations that work to apply a code of ethics to artist booking like North American Performing Arts Managers and Agents (NAPAMA), but plenty of wholly legitimate agents are not members. And the general layperson never knows if these trade organizations are legitimate themselves or just created to provide a semblance of legitimacy.

Probably the best guard against getting cheated is good research and relationships. As I said, many artists will have their agent listed on their website. If they don’t some careful research is in order.

This is especially true if you are partnering with another entity who is going to help you mount your event. The more expensive the artist is going to be, the more you want to work with someone trustworthy who has experience presenting artists of that caliber.

The problem is, if you don’t have a close relationship with such a person, you are basically left assuming that the person you do trust to vouch for them actually knows enough to make that judgement.

The wisest course is get experience presenting events, working your way up to larger and larger names to get the experience. But many people don’t plan to present shows frequently enough to acquire this experience.

Deciding you want to invite someone who regularly commands $50-100,000+ for your fundraiser or anniversary event, having never presented such a performance before and not working with an entity that has, is a recipe for disaster. There are going to be basic expectations about the experience that you are entirely unaware of and unprepared for.

And really, the same is true for artists with $10,000 fees. There will just be exponentially more people involved at the higher fee and the problems will be that much more public.