Bramante attributes the fall and recovery to the down economy, as well as to people waiting to see how the election would turn out. But "average ticket prices are trending down, even though overall ticket sales are up. People are looking for bargains."
"If ticket sales are going back up since the election, the economy may have not had as much to do with it as we thought," says Lynne McCormack, director of Providence's Department of Art, Culture and Tourism. "Whenever there is a really contested election, ticket sales go down. Whenever the Red Sox are in the World Series, ticket sales go down. I think the economy is definitely having an effect, but in terms of ticket sales, I don't think it's as dire as we thought."
McCormack worries about donations. "All the foundations have been hit really hard. Their assets took huge hits," she says. "That's where I think the problem is going to come into play."
The audience for Everett Dance Theatre's Friday Night Live improv comedy troupe remains steady, but operations manager Matt Kandarian says, "What's really being affected is grants, donations." Fall 2007 brought in peak donations for the Providence troupe, he says, but the spring donation letter attracted less than half of that.
"We've drastically had to cut back," he says. The company's Carriage House School went from eight youth classes to two. "We're finding little ways, grassroots ways, of making sure that programs aren't lost. But we're feeling it."
RISCA's Rosenbaum says, "Funding sources are as pressed now as they've ever been." Financial collapse has sapped money from the invested endowments of foundations. Plus "during bad economic times the level of distress that philanthropy needs to respond to goes through the roof. And the arts are an important part of that philanthropic picture, but they have a harder time when they compete against things like poverty and hunger."
THE FALLOUT FROM HERE
Some capital projects are slowing as a result. Island Moving Company has plans to renovate an 1868 opera house in the heart of Newport so that it can become a 700-seat performing arts center. It had planned to begin raising funds for the project this fall. "We had not yet embarked on our capital campaign and we are basically holding back," Alfandre says.
Gamm Theatre is preparing plans to convert the Pawtucket Armory's drill hall into a 340-seat theater. "We are moving very, very cautiously," Seggerman says. They have been lining up government grants before starting any wider capital campaign. "I absolutely think we will have problems. But by the time we're asking people to write the check, presumably, the financial situation will have improved."
AS220's Crenca says its redevelopment of the Mercantile Block building in Providence will go ahead because all but $1 million of the $13 million cost is already in place.
RISCA and the city of Providence's Art, Culture and Tourism department have hired a special planner to help develop directions by late spring 2009 for the city and state agencies to focus their efforts to the needs of the cultural community.
The city is developing a campaign — beginning on its Web site — to encourage arts funding by promoting arts as important to the city's culture and economics. It's offering its usual ad-hoc technical assistance to arts organizations. And two weeks ago, the city launched its "Buy Art Campaign" (see buyartprovidence.com) to encourage art and ticket sales.
