I’ve got a provocative suggestion. Perhaps, we can flip the score on this whole ticket sales revenue debacle at the Kennedy Center.
Here in the US, we have always assumed that performing arts have to be somewhat self-sustaining. The two primary ways organizations achieve financial sustainability are through ticket revenue and donations. It’s a vicious cycle that orchestras, museums, opera companies, dance companies, and theaters endure year after year. If you start to look at organizations’ tax returns, you may get dizzy at the sheer magnitude of revenue that they must raise every year just to stay in existence. There is a reason that the arts in Europe were previously funded by monarchs and emperors and today are primarily funded by their governments.
With the precipitous decline in ticket sales at the Kennedy Center, we are seeing the house offer complimentary tickets in an attempt to ”paper the hall” with people in seats.
What a great idea!
Let’s reverse the trend of the last 100 years, where arts organizations have been required to sustain their existence; it’s time for the government to fund a larger portion of our arts and performing arts budgets at the Kennedy Center and throughout the nation’s communities.
If institutions like the Kennedy Center were liberated from the cycle of scrapping for ticket revenue and donations year after year, maybe they could have the freedom to make programming choices differently. With choice, performing arts centers could focus on ensuring their stages better reflect the diversity of their communities’ populations. Perhaps, performing arts centers could take risks on productions that expand our view of the arts and the voices heard on our stages.
Or, if they are handing out more free tickets, offer those tickets to school groups or to community groups that may not have attended a live performance before. The ironic part of all this is that many of these initiatives have been undertaken by the nation’s performing arts centers, which have limited ticket revenue and donor-based budgets. In fact, the Kennedy Center’s Social Impact Team did a lot of this work before Grenell shut its doors.
Ric, the opportunities to learn from your failures are endless.
Yes! Let’s learn from this calamitous experience of falling ticket sales. Now is the time for government-subsidized arts, just like in Europe.
All free and idealistic thinking aside, it is indeed a disaster that Grenell has allowed the Kennedy Center’s programming and ticket revenue to plummet. It is embarrassing that under his mismanagement, seats at the Kennedy Center remain empty for many performances. He and his board alone are responsible for these failures.
The musicians, artists, and employees at the Kennedy Center continue to come to work, performing at the highest standards; they should not have to bear the cost of Grennell and the Board’s incompetence. They deserve better than this.
So, Trump, Grenell, and Kennedy Center Board members: Put your money where your mouth is and Make the Kennedy Center Great Again, ushering in the golden age!
Support the Center’s endowment to ensure its long-term financial stability and continued artistic programming. Advocate with Congress for more direct funding of programming at the Center and for performing arts in communities across the country. Reinstate the Social Impact Team at the Center and fund it so that more Americans can enjoy the arts on the Kennedy Center’s stages and see themselves represented on stage.
Get your partisan hands off of arts programming and let the artists, musicians, and arts administrators do what they do best.
You broke it now put it back together!
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