For local concerts to continue, public must provide support
| Wednesday, Jun 09 2010 04:08 PM
Last Updated Thursday, Jun 10 2010 09:30 AM
One thing is certain: Public funding for art of all types is on the wane. Community demand -- paying customers -- is what will preserve a local artistic community versus one that must be imported.
Is there a market for local musicians? Arts Council of Kern director Jeanette Richardson is beginning to wonder.
Richardson has used the Arts Council to champion local visual and literary artists and art events, with a good deal of success. Because she wanted to provide the same level of advocacy for music, Richardson applied for, and got, a $75,000 grant from the James Irvine Foundation to build a local audience -- or market -- for local performers.
She and ACK staffers have been working since November on a number of fronts: finding and developing the performers, working with venue owners and managers to hire them, even creating events to showcase performers, plus advertising the events. Musicians performed at the Kern River Festival in Hart Park, at the AMGEN Tour finale at Bakersfield College, at the Kaiser Permanente art exhibit opening, the annual Walk for the Arts and many other events around the county.
How are they doing? Not as well as Richardson hoped.
A benchmark event was a showcase concert in April at the Fox Theater that featured three acts: Soulajar, Near Miss Mallet and singer Ron McOwen. Richardson had expected the extensive publicity for the show and $5 ticket price would fill the 1,500-seat theater. But only 300 to 400 people attended.
"We just didn't have the response and turnout we thought we should have," Richardson said. "(Area residents) just don't respect local musicians.
"The people who came said this was a great show," Richardson said.
The turnout has had other consequences besides disappointment. Richardson said the council lost a lot of money on the event. While she wouldn't state on the record how much the show lost, she did say the loss will probably force the council to cancel what was supposed to be grand finale, a "Best of Kern County" concert at the Fox Theater this November, because the grant money is just about gone.
"We're very close, we're down to the last match," Richardson said. "I don't think we'll be able to do a wrap-up concert."
Where did the $75,000 go? Richardson insisted that musicians be paid for their performances, with fees ranging from $150 for a solo performer to $1,000 for a large group. While some of that cost was shared with sponsors, Richardson also cited other costs, such as advertising and venue rental. Richardson said production services, such as lighting and sound, usually cost much more than the performers.
There's a hard truth about grant-funded projects. Grantors, those lovely people who give away money, usually measure success by what is known in the nonprofit world as "inputs" -- how many hours were devoted to a given activity, how many items were distributed, how many contacts were made, how was the money spent, etc. These are things that are easy to measure because they're easy to predict and control. People in business measure success by "results"--how much money was made from those inputs, how many paying customers were attracted, how many returned.
Although Richardson comes from the nonprofit world, she approached this in a results-oriented way: She wanted the grant activity to result in a growing, paying audience for local musicians. Now, it can be reasonably asserted that customers will feel happier about the club or restaurant they've chosen to attend because particular local musicians happen to be performing there. But it's quite another thing for customers to choose to go to a venue because a particular local group is performing there. People's taste is the most unpredictable, uncontrollable thing of all.
Maybe there hasn't been enough time for all of this activity to make an impact. Maybe there are some lessons to learn about what works and what doesn't. One thing is certain: Public funding for art of all types is on the wane. Community demand -- paying customers -- is what will preserve a local artistic community versus one that must be imported.
Although the grant money is spent or at least committed, Richardson said there are still a few more events: a concert at Fruitvale-Norris Park planned for July 2; a September concert planned for Stars Theater; and a show at the Oildorado Days in Taft in October.
