Have your say

The AMA recognises the rapidly changing context within which we are all working, with impending cuts across the cultural sector affecting arts and audiences in every funded region.

We'd like to invite you to share your thoughts, comments and ideas, which we will also pass on to the relevant organisations and bodies.

Have your say: post your comments below or on Twitter using the hashtag #artsfunding.

Comments

[Andrea Perseu]

Comments from the #ama10 conference can be found here: http://amadigital.typepad.com/blog/2010/07/arts-funding-have-your-say.html?cid=6a0133f1fd07ea970b013485960e35970c#comment-6a0133f1fd07ea970b013485960e35970c

[BrandinyourHand]

Everyone pays taxes on the same basis in the UK, wherever they live, and subsidy from the various arts councils is the way supposedly equitable distribution of the arts is achieved across the UK. But we know that it is not actually equitable, and in many places arts provision is limited.
Therefore, if the government talks about making large percentage cuts of 25%-40% (Treasury guidlelines over 5 years) the high risk is that arts provision will be removed completely in many places. Combined with the threats to local authority levels of discretionary funding to the arts, many of the venues which are the principal means of the performing arts reaching people will be closed.
Look at what has happened in Wales with a claimed re-prioritising of funding: over a third of the arts organisations funding actually terminated; huge geographical swathes without arts provision; community theatres closed.
Audiences, visitors to galleries and museums, participants in the arts, all appreciate the provision accessible to them. Think of the daftness of cuts which may maintain national companies, orchestras and arts organisations but close the venues to which they should tour, and remove the rural touring on which so many communities rely.
Don't think about the impact on us, those who work in the arts, think about the impact on the public and their quality of life. Harness their protest, their voice, to speak up for the provision that counts for them.
Roger Tomlinson

[LC_Arts]

Very good points from Roger above, so wanted to second his thoughts here before adding a different perspective and talking specifically about why we should consider the impact of funding cuts on those who work within and around the Arts sector.

Before anyone else points it out I'll admit to a bias certainly. Yes, I work in the sector and, yes, the proposed cuts may very well affect me directly, so I may as well be honest and talk about me:

I studied Theatre Studies at university, I started my career in subsidised venues and I work voluntarily on literary events and a book award alongside my current work at London Calling.

My point here is that, like many, many people working behind the front lines of the Art Makers (that includes Mark Ravenhill still I guess) I'm pretty embedded in the cultural sector in all kinds of different ways, both as contributor and consumer.

I say that as a preamble because unlike a lot of the opinion that's likely to be collected here, mine is going to be deliberately, even crassly, commercial and business based. A deliberate ploy if you will, because I hope that maybe crassly obvious appeals may penetrate through to our governing powers-that-be where impassioned cultural common sense may fail.

London Calling is a small / medium enterprise. A commercial, privately owned venture that punches above its weight when it comes to P&L and is a steady employer of more than 50 people.

In other words, companies like us are exactly the kind of entrepreneurial, innovative and tax-paying types of venture that our Con-Dem party has supposedly pledged to support.

Apparently it's our kind of business-drive and commercial chutzpah that's supposed to help lift us out of the financial slump.

The thing is, I'm not just talking about my company, I'm talking about ALL of the companies similar to ours who support the Arts & Cultural sector in delivering their plans.

We're part of a delicately inter-weaved ecology of relationships and there are a lot of us out there.

The prevailing attitude of the cut-makers is that the arts could do with some toughening up and generally becoming more business-like - getting on our bikes and cycling off in search of private funding or whatever.

I'm guessing I don't need to go into just how wrongheaded this attitude is on a forum like this one, so let me just say this.

There is a very broad network of organisations - good, sound, commercial organisations - dedicated to serving the Arts.

We print the brochures, build the websites, help sell the tickets and we pay our taxes.

The Cultural sector is many things, but one of the things it definitely is already is business-minded, and from a commercial perspective it's a sector that pays back more in taxes than it asks for in support.

My point here is that while the focus is, rightly, on the untold damage ill-thought out cuts can do to our cultural future, it's worth pointing out that there's also a world of commercial damage about to be wrought in an enterprise sector our government is also expecting to lead the way in turning the corner back out of recession.

Tom Hunter,
London Calling

[Melissa Milner]

Interesting discussion…we work for a number of arts organisations, helping with advocacy and communications. A couple of thoughts on messaging (some of which have already been touched upon here):

• Public subsidy of the arts is not just about concerts, shows or exhibitions. It’s actually supporting the huge range of education and community work that these organisations are doing across the country – having a profound social impact on people young and old as well as making a significant economic contribution to towns, cities and regions in the UK. Those key measurements – impact and value – are crucial.

• Linked to this, demonstrating support ‘on the ground’ is crucial. It’s not just a small elite group of people who are benefitting from the arts – it’s schoolchildren, parents, community groups, older people etc. Having local voices articulate your worth and demonstrate your wider impact is invaluable.

• Arts organisations make their public subsidy work hard. For example a survey into the impact of Welsh National Opera (WNO) on the Welsh economy reveals the company contributes £22.5 million to the country – five times its current annual revenue funding of £4.5 million from Arts Council of Wales – see http://tiny.cc/gezt9

Melissa Milner
DHA Communications

[BrandinyourHand]

While I agree with the economic impact argument, I find it doesn't play well with the public and sometimes even Councillors and MPs at local level. They see the benefits much more in terms of quality of life, education and community (as Melissa suggests), and fairly obvious things such as keeping town centres alive at night, social cohesion, visitor attraction, etc. And they see and hear the quoted benefits of those outstanding moments people recall when the arts impacted on their personal lives.
Working all over the UK I find that there is little or no genuinely commercial performing arts provision: presenting theatres and concert halls and arts centres are all subsidised to exist, and build audiences for some commercial work often using subsidised quality work. Indeed local Councillors get stressed realising their local theatre is losing money staging Bill Kenwright's most recent tour of Joseph and his amazing technicolour dreamcoat.
So the irony is that commercial and subsidised are co-dependent, and for most of the UK would not be accessible without subsidy. Philanthropy and fund-raising is never going to close the gap in our current culture of giving.
Galleries and museums have had more statutorily driven support in the past, but their preferred culture of free admission definitely relies on subsidy. New galleries in the lottery funded years which relied on admission income streams struggled. So there is no avoiding that if most towns and cities and their surrounding communities want to retain access to quality arts, subsidy is needed. People in rural areas face some long drives.
Ironically, we who work to bring the public into contact with the arts, need to remind everyone of the benefits in their terms, so they can communicate to everyone else what they appreciate to their local decision makers. I always noted doing market research surveys in the street those people who said "I don't go myself, but it is really important that our town has..."
Bit hard to argue against Darwinian free-marketers who don't understand the non-economic values people have. But other civilised people do understand the values
Roger

[Simon Thomas]

Roger's point about the co-dependence of commercial and subsidised is so important. Why do Governments (not just this one) never realise that the arts come at a cost, just as their wars do but with far greater benefits. Working in the commercial theatre sector, I'm very aware of how we benefit so much from public funding. In fact, we couldn't exist without it.

[Jonathan Goodacre]

It’s ironic that we, as arts marketers, still have so much to achieve in terms of making the wider case for the arts. Looking at the comments about funding in The Guardian, it’s clear that large parts of the public (willingly or not) still have mis-conceptions about funding in the arts.

Let’s leave the debate about ACE, Creative Scotland etc aside for a moment and think about one of the biggest funders of the arts in the UK: local authorities. They are the supporters of so many of our local theatres, concert halls, arts centres, galleries and festivals. This is usually where it is nurtured and this is where it is delivered.

In Cambridge, where I live, it is the local authorities (district and county) which support the major civic venue, the internationally renowned folk festival, built a local arts centre and fund local community initiatives. Some of the grants given are small, but they are vital.

For example, I work with a local group which finds that visits to local school assemblies to show them what they might learn in a week of hip hop dance workshops is extremely effective in bringing in a wider cross-section of participants. You could run a week of workshops without doing this (and some do) but I’m afraid they tend to turn into middle class holiday camps. Maybe this doesn’t matter - but we need to be clear that this will happen as funding is squeezed. Some impacts will have big headlines and there are bound to be big closures and casualties – but this is the week-in week-out work that arts organisations are doing; surely the ‘frontline’ that Jeremy Hunt says he wants to support?

There have been mixed successes over the last ten to fifteen years in terms of widening participation and improving accessibility in the arts. We all have our examples of failed initiatives (and I’ve been involved in a few myself so I’m not dewy eyed about this). However, there are areas where there has been progress. The New Audiences initiative of the late 1990s / early 2000s funded many innovative marketing and audience development practices which have influenced practices now seen as standard and earning income for arts organisations all over the UK. Think of those books produced by Arts Council England about using the web, ambassadors’ schemes or marketing touring work. They were straightforward and useful guides consolidating key ideas and practices.

What is going to happen to our commitment to Cultural Diversity in the arts? Surely this is an area which has seen a progressive shift in the last ten years. It has been achieved with the aid of significant funding and commitment by government, funders, arts and education organisations. Is this not what we are going to be so proudly showing off at London 2012?

All these are marketing related areas and it doesn’t have anything to do with persuading people to engage in experimental art (not that I have anything against that). It is about the simple enjoyment and fulfilment of ordinary citizens in their local arts organisation up and down the UK. They will be the losers. Let's remind them of this fact.