Janet Starke

An Arts Educator’s Report from NAMPC 2014

I had the privilege and honor to attend this past weekend’s NAMP (National Arts Marketing Project) Conference in Atlanta. I co-presented a session with AFTA’s Arts Education Program Coordinator, Jeff Poulin. This stemmed from a conversation we first began last winter, when we discussed the concept of the “shared space between arts marketing and education.” Mind you, even as we might picture the "center" of the highly-valued Venn Diagram, there are varied tracks within that center:

1) Marketing arts education for the advancement of the programs

2) Using education as a tool for marketing the organization

3) Using education as a vehicle for increased audience development and ticketing sales

Each, I argue, has merit in the strategic and daily operations of an arts organization.

Having worked in (solely) arts education organizations and performing arts insitutions (including three performing arts centers) for over 20 years, I have helped to develop and incorporate each of these strategies into the overall work of the organization. I think most of us who have worked in small organizations can attest to having had to market our own programs/performances or work in earnest with our marketing peers to find purposeful opportunities for promoting our work. Some might also, as I have, worked for an Executive Director who was not as attuned to the best practices of sound education programs as s/he viewed education as opportunity for “easy” money, or PR events. It’s the last realm of interplay referenced that intrigues me most—how can arts education programs and initiatives be utilized as both a short-term and strategic approach to advancing ticket sales and cultivating audiences? As my colleague Jeff likes to say, it’s about developing strategies that help us all to work SMARTER not HARDER.” And so, this weekend, we posed these ideas to a couple different groups in Roundtable Discussions at NAMPC.

Reactions and feedback from both groups was affirming. Some questioned why there weren’t more sessions on the topic (this was intended to gauge the initial interest and applicability of the topic, we explained). Others expressed challenges in being called to wear multiple hats, or finding common philosophies (with peers) in the development and implementation of strategies. Finally, others shared some success stories of using education to reach new audiences or to strengthen the performance experience (exposure) in an effort to cultivate a more invested and aesthetically connected audience member.

To quote the NEA's 2011 publication by Rabkin and Hedberg, “The future of the arts may not lie in the restoration of higher levels of “benchmark” attendance at traditional performances and exhibitions. Rather, it could lie in new kinds of arts experiences and participation which, for some people, hold more personal value than sitting in an audience.” (Rabkin, Nick and E. C. Hedberg, Arts Education in America: What the Declines Mean for Arts Participation)

Imagine the shared space that is ripe for exploration that supports each of these schools of thought, maximizing the core functions of our cultural institutions.

This interplay was evident in The Wallace Foundation’s most recent report on audience development. In it, they identified “Nine Effective Practices for Building Arts Audiences”, and see so many opportunities for education to play a supporting role in many, including in the identification of barriers that need to be removed, thinking through the relationship, and a means to providing multiple ways in (20).

The Wallace Report also speaks to the need for any initiatives to be fully embraced by and aligned among arts organization staff, reaching across departments (and functions) outside of marketing and education—a characteristic seemingly integral to the successes of so many of the case studies cited.

I applaud AFTA and their National Arts Marketing Project (NAMP) for what I observed to be an engaging and energizing conference. (I could write a whole other blog on the incredibly dynamic Keynote given by Elizabeth Streb, whom I would argue, gives myriad new meanings to Newton’s laws of motion.) I also thank NAMP for allowing us to introduce the idea to a larger group of peers.

As my colleague and I shared with our participants on Sunday, this is meant to be the beginning of the conversation. And so I ask you: what does this concept of shared space between arts marketing and arts education mean to you? How do you identify shared outcomes? Have you found successes in playing within the space? And what are the caveats? Where are the areas and ideas that must remain outside of the shared space?

So please, join the conversation.