Musings on the End of the Season

When I first began my programming career, I used to fall into a bit of a funk at the end of each season. I don’t really know why, but I’d find myself counting the things I didn’t do, and reliving the events that didn’t work as well as I had hoped. During those early years, I’d really snap out of my melancholy mood only when the next season’s programs began.

But I’m not like that now.

I finally realized that programming a season is less about ‘lining up beans to be counted’ and more about creating something out of nothing- it’s an art. I’m guessing that strikes you as a ‘duh’ kind of statement, but it was revelatory for me. I started as an artist, and I still create my own art, but somehow as I transitioned into arts programming and administration I cast aside my creative process.

Having worked around the country, I can tell you that it is very easy for arts administrators to get caught up in the ‘truth’ of metrics: numbers, spreadsheets, reports, and numerous other dispassionate measurement tools. I’ve heard it a million times, “remember, art is a business.” No, it’s not.

There is a major flaw in the logic behind the ‘art is business’ paradigm, here’s what I mean. Let’s say I book into my 400 seat venue an extraordinary chamber orchestra from Germany. The group arrives and gives a truly transformative performance- for 80 patrons. Despite my best efforts, I can’t find an audience for the show; I can’t even find folks to come see the show for free. Is it a failure? As a business, yes, it is a failure. But what if I told you that 2 of the 80 patrons who came to see the show were under the age of 18 and were so moved by the performance that they went on to follow their own creative paths and, through their artistic careers, changed thousands of lives. Is it still a failure?

Now let’s be perfectly clear, as a programmer, I wouldn’t last two years if I booked shows that sold only 20% of my available tickets. But what used to make me so depressed in my early programming years was the constant attention paid to the devastating failure represented by the 80 while not celebrating the ongoing impact of the 2.

Art is not a business. Entertainment is a business. Art can be a part of the entertainment world, but at its core, art is beyond quantifiable business logic. Unfortunately, the true impact of the arts can’t be well measured on a spreadsheet, so arts administrators are left to use the clunky language of entertainment to justify their work.

As world problems go, the tensions between art and entertainment seem relatively minor when compared to issues such as poverty, hunger or civil rights.  But I know that if we look closely at each of those issues we’ll find the arts hard at work, doing what they do best: reminding us of our shared humanity and bridging gaps in our collective understanding-changing lives in the process.

The 2014/2015 Hampton Arts season is nearly finished. As I think back on the many events and programs this past year, I see moments in my mind. While we welcomed more patrons to our facilities than we have in past seasons, the images I see most clearly in my mind aren’t of the crowds or of the spreadsheets; they are of small, magical, moments. Perhaps in those small moments big changes happened; changes that just might transform our world. That possibility makes me smile.

Thanks for making this season so memorable.

-Jeff