Is Your Arts Organisation Healthy?

Recently I was engaged by a local government authority to undertake a review of the business model for one of their arts venues. It was a great opportunity to do a bit of a health check and see how things were tracking.

All too often, we don’t have time to stop and critically assess how things are going, even when we feel that things might be drifting off course a little. There’s often barely enough time to keep on top of day to day operations, so it can be hard to schedule in that time for longer term planning and evaluation.

Is the Programming Strategy to blame?

There was a lot of media coverage last week following the announcement of mass redundancies at Arts Centre Melbourne, caused by a rumoured $8m operating loss for the last financial year. So what went wrong?

What is the future for the Presenter Driven model of Programming?

When I first started working in Arts Administration in Australia I was intrigued by the complex theatre touring landscape and the reliance on what is referred to as the Presenter driven model of programming. I was amazed to discover that large numbers of venue managers got together two or three times a year to collectively choose work to put on their stages.

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.

When is a shoestring budget really too short?

Small, tiny and in some cases non-existent budgets are all too common working in the arts. Over the years I have worked on lots of projects where there has been such a small budget that I have had to beg and borrow as much as I can to actually get things off the ground. And, as any artist knows, having constraints means you have to be creative, and that’s what makes great art!

Bringing the Famous Spiegeltent to Melbourne

In my time working at Arts Centre Melbourne I spent the good part of 5 years working on presenting the Famous Spiegeltent on the Arts Centre forecourt. The Famous Spiegeltent is a wonderful travelling Belgian mirror tent with an impressive pedigree – most famously hosting a performance by Marlene Dietrich in the 1930’s.

To visitors, the Spiegeltent mysteriously appears for up to three months at a time in Melbourne, and then disappears again to another location on her touring circuit. The Spiegeltent arriving is an exciting time, but behind the scenes getting it to Melbourne each year is a highly complex project.

Influences on Programming in a Performing Arts Centre

Performing arts programming is something I have a real fascination with. When I studied for my Masters degree at Northumbria University I wrote my dissertation on influences and issues in theatre programming in the UK. Since then I've spent five years working in the Programming unit of a large performing arts centre, and during that time I did a lot of work on programming strategy.

We were constantly juggling multiple and often conflicting priorities, and one of the constant challenges was balancing the financial and attendance targets with artistic aspirations. In fact it's a constant reality for most arts organisations!

In order to make well-informed programming decisions you need to have a good understanding of these kinds of issues (in no particular order):