Is Arts Centre Programming Really Failing?

For a couple of months I've been thinking about how I might put down on paper my own thoughts on the role of arts programming in audience development. It's taken some time as I've been sidetracked with programming of a different kind for the past couple of months. But this blog post by Ricky Bryan has got me back on track.

Last month Ricky posted a really interesting statement on his blog around the programming of performing arts centres and how he believes they have failed. It's a long article, but well worth the read. In essence, Ricky argues that government funded arts centres are failing in their mission to be centres of creativity and culture in their communities. He believes that essentially, we need to put community engagement at the centre of our programming:

“...you would be flat out finding a venue in the country that devoted any more than 15% of its activity to genuine community engagement programs - by this I mean the commissioning of local works, education programs, community out reach programs and the like. What should be the main gain for Arts Centres has become the sideline, the thing we do when we have time and spare money.”

I think Ricky makes some excellent points about the problems with the regional touring framework and programming approach of some venues. However, I do really see arts centre programming as a much more multifaceted dilemma.

Although Ricky is critical of the regional touring model, there is no doubt that the Playing Australia / Blue Heeler consortium does a great job at facilitating touring - it helps get shows to venues that could never afford them and helps small companies with limited resources get out on the road. I think the fact that it also facilitates work by large established companies is contentious, but that's another discussion!

I do agree, that if everyone programs the same work through Playing Australia then you see a homogenising of programming across venues and regions that can be culturally very different. On one hand, this is a negative because we aren't driving the content from the local community. But on the other hand, because every community is different, some of this work can actually contribute to audience development.

I think the key to arts centre programming is to ensure that you use a range of tools to craft the offering for your community. The touring work from Playing Australia can be a part of that, but I don't think I have ever met a venue manager who only programs work that way. I have worked in a number of venues which have a mix of community led activity (amateur dramatics, school concerts, workshops etc), subsidised touring and commercial presentations. It is the basic principle of cross subsidisation which allows this to happen, balancing the programming mix and dollars to try and offer something for different aspects of the community. And at the end of the day, some of them really just want to be entertained!