Arts Funding
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On Saturday, I wrote a post on my personal Facebook page referencing the City of Calgary’s recent announcement that it will be offering 1.8 million dollars in funding for the Calgary Folk Fest, which is set to open a new 200-seat venue called “Festival Hall.” This post spurred what I feel is a very important conversation.
This past Friday, I received some bad news from the accountant for Broken City, a 200 capacity venue I own and operate in Calgary. Following a somewhat difficult summer and fall, the club’s finances are not in good shape. Running a live music venue is not lucrative, but we will pull through and the bar will be fine. Owning Broken City has been a wonderful experience, but it has been a labour of love. As the first of many dealings with municipal government, trying to get the doors open was a very difficult process that redefined my trust in Calgary’s municipal officials. These experiences have not all been negative. I have seen that there are some great people involved in municipal politics, many of whom try diligently to do positive things in a very complex system. Notwithstanding these experiences, however, I maintain a strong desire to become active in municipal government.
In my post this past Saturday, I was thinking about the rhetoric I hear concerning Calgary “becoming an arts city.” Despite good intentions, there is a continual underlying message that Calgary is inferior, that it has little good, little history. There is a sense that we need to inject money into “arts” in this city to make it better. I question who defines “the arts,” and where certain officials feel money needs to be injected. For example, in my mind there could be nothing more important for the arts than an all ages venue/recording studio that operates after school programs for youth who are otherwise unable to afford access to musical instruments. The New Black, for instance, provides an accessible venue for Calgary’s next generations of bands, promoters and audiences. However, The New Black is not being championed or promoted by the city of Calgary; it is being shut down. The New Black is not demanding millions of dollars, but just wants a license to operate. According to the current definition of “the arts” by a select few in administrative positions, it seems like this definition applies only to certain people, of a certain age, of a certain artistic taste.
I was thinking about this: how hard it is financially for Broken City right now, a bar that has existed for 6 years, to be a home to our local music scene. How hard it is for The New Black, a vitally important space to this city’s music scene. How hard is it for Broken City’s amazing competitors, such as the HiFi, Marquee, Warehouse, Underground, Verns, Dickens, The Distillery, The Palomino, The Ironwood and others. I considered the hard work I know they have done, the hurdles they have gone through, the taxes they have paid, the licenses they bought, the rules they dutifully follow. As hard as it can be, the city has a healthy amount of great live music venues, all of which would not ask, but could use some support this year more than any.
And then I thought about a city that is claiming to support the arts, a city that has 1.8 million to throw toward a music venue because they want to make the statement that they support creative spaces.
It made me angry to think that now we may have one more theatre like the Grand—something that is heavily funded, and books the same bands that should be playing in the independently-owned and operated businesses that build and sustain Calgary’s music scene. As a business owner, I am angry that I have to pay large amounts of taxes and struggle to stay open, and the city’s effort to support cultural spaces will only affect my business by potentially drawing away crowds and making it harder to bid for bands. The city of Calgary’s announcement that it will fund a new venue run by a single not for profit group rather than find ways to support existing venues will ironically harm the vibrant cultural spaces that define this city. It feels like the “arts” are heavily controlled by the carrot and stick of government grants, and certain peoples’ “arts” are given far higher priority.
My anger is not with the Folk Fest. I think the Folk Fest is excellent. They have survived for a long time, they have a huge support base in this city, they maintain relevance, and they are thoughtful in their programming. I could go on. My anger is that the City’s answer to supporting music venues in this city is to give a folk music festival a 1.8 million dollar grant to open a new venue. This funding is on top of many millions in federal funding already committed to the space. This is not the Folk Festival’s area of expertise; it’s not what they are supposed to be doing. I don’t feel like the city has a realistic or balanced understanding of what the arts are in this city. I believe it is ultimately destructive to simply throw so much money at a concept.
If this city wants to show support for music venues, they should consider opening a dialogue on find ways to encourage the great venues already operating in Calgary. Handing out 1.8 million dollars to the Folk Fest to open a venue seems like a slap in the face to every great venue that is currently struggling to survive in this city. It seems like more of that same broken concept that Calgary has nothing, and all we need is cash injections so selected groups can create “arts”—arts” being very selectively defined.
Money isn’t always the answer to supporting culture. The city of Calgary struggles to clean snow off the streets. Our busses are too full to pick up commuters closer to downtown. We have high priorities for municipal spending. I believe that local businesses drive culture, and the best the city can do is to provide an environment where new businesses are encouraged. The New Black, for example, should be given clear information and guided through the process of licensing. I believe the city of Calgary can show that it supports arts spaces by acknowledging the great venues that already exist. If we want to become a music city it isn’t going to trickle down through multi-million dollar theaters; it will come from the ground up.
I support thoughtful arts funding in Calgary. You cannot fault the Folk Fest for wanting beautiful multi-million dollar offices, and a theatre where they can run their own shows year round. The Folk Fest has a lot of support in the city, and they have three decades of experience; they are a good group.
The city needs to seriously reconsider its arts funding policy and the messages that are being sent by it. If Calgary really does have millions of extra dollars to spend on the arts, it needs to be very thoughtful about how it spends those millions.
Hi Zak,
I think the dialogue is interesting. I’d like to point out a fundamental point that I also made on Facebook.
I understand your frustrations as a business owner who is trying to support the arts. In your dialogue you have questioned who is defining “the arts”? Actually, this is defined by our federal government through the CRA (www.cra.gc.ca). You are continuously comparing yourself to the folk festival in your arguments when really there is no comparison. I am not “defending” the folk fest, but am just stating a fact. The folk fest is a not-for-profit organization that has a mandate to support the arts. And Broken City is set up as a business whose primary mandate is to make money. I understand that as a small business who has a secondary mandate to support the arts you are struggling financially and feeling unsupported, but by the simple definition of a “business” vs. a “charitable organization” you are in separate leagues altogether, like it or not.
If you wish to access the same funding that “arts” organizations receive, perhaps you should consider setting up a charitable organization instead of a business. This is simply the social paradigm that we exist in, again, like it or not.
Hey Zak, I’ve worked for The Calgary Folk Club, a bi-montly venue for folk music that is now in its 37th season. In addition to that Folk Venue there are the Bow Valley Music Club, The Nickelodeon Music Club, The Rocky Mountain Folk Club, The Saturday Night Special Folk Club, The Bragg Creek Performing Arts, The Fish Creek Concerts as well as The Ironwood all competing for the same audience. Sure they get all the ocassional government grant but for the most part they operate off of ticket sales, maybe some revenue from a casino night and the hard work of volunteers.
It seems a little odd to be handing 2 million to one organization when the other well established Folk venues still rent their spaces. I can justify helping the Folk Fest with office space but I don’t think there’s any need for another venue, let alone one that has such an advantage over the other venues.
As for The New Black, I’m baffled yet again that the City of Calgary resorts to their usual tactic of giving people the run around as to where to go for approvals or who is to blame for getting the approvals, etc. The right and left hands at the city don’t talk to each other at all but I’m beginning to think that’s by design. Throw up enough roadblocks until the “undesirables” just give up. The New Black isn’t even asking for money, just the permit to operate! It can’t be a noise issue for them, the train line is right at their door.
Just me two cents.
This is not an easy problem for city officials to define, especially when you realize that few of them understand the music system in this city.
The New Black is a for profit organization, along with many others. There are also many not for profit organizations here, not just for ‘Folk’ music.
Whatever system they use must also conform to city bylaws for noise, parking, liquor and so on.
In other cities that some claim to be centers of music (Nashville, LA, Toronto) the same set of unfortunate terms exist, and this kind of ‘one for you, fifty for me’ support happens everywhere.
So I am a great supporter of finding a solution for this, and it will need to start at the top of the city government.
The nearly two million they spent ’supporting’ ‘arts’ here would have been better spent setting up a department downtown to address any art based issue in the city.
But I have no idea how to affect this.
I think the problem is that an awful lot of movers and shakers in this city see folk music as “the arts” and the kind of music Broken City hosts (punk rock, etc,)as something else, something not really worth giving taxpayer dollars to. Probably because they see the musicians as young people who join bands just to get drunk and meet girls, whereas the folk festival is respectable, socially conscious, and therefore something to throw money at. Both fall into the category of “the arts” in my book, whatever other people may say.
As one of the founders of The New Black, I find a few comments quite short sighted. Yes we are for profit, or a better term would be “for keeping the rent paid and power on”, as running a music and art centre and youth based programs is NOT a lucrative venture. Not one of us at New Black (which started 2 years ago as a small local record label btw) got involved thinking for a second that we would make any sort of money let alone profit. Yes I know the term “for profit” just designates what type of business you operate (or more fairly, where the capital is coming from for sustainability), but trust me, we took on this challenge because it was needed, plain and simple. We are all musicians/artisits ourselves, and the reward is seeing something truly amazing arise that is inherently “Calgarian”,over any thought of personal reward.
The fact is we tried to go for funding, grants, non-profit status, but because of certain requirements(business operating time), and because of how different our concept was, we failed to meet the somewhat limiting requirements.
Due to this outcome, the other two founders personally invested tens of thousands of dollars to make this idea of one stop shop for artists and musicians a reality , which we all can agree is filling a niche left wide open for too long. We did follow the necessary protocols in regards to noise, occupancy, fire codes, parking, and the city actually RECOMMENDED the license that has caused us so much grief. We were told, in writing, that we were permitted to operate as a multi-functional studio with recorded performances, and we followed the guidelines to the letter. The initial complaint was not due to anything obvious, it was a personal attack against both us and the landlords by the business downstairs, and was unrelated to anything to do with how our business was operating.
What it did is cause a storm of controversy, fueled by the fact that the city can afford to throw millions at a project that doesn’t need the extra funding(a purely political move, I may add) but wants to charge us thousands more to change zoning, and charge thousands to other small businesses to relax parking. It also highlighted the lack of responsibility and accountability of Calgarys’ municipal departments.
I think the problem is that an awful lot of movers and shakers in this city see folk music as “the arts” and the kind of music Broken City hosts (punk rock, etc,)as something else, something not really worth giving taxpayer dollars to. Probably because they see the musicians as young people who join bands just to get drunk and meet girls, whereas the folk festival is respectable, socially conscious, and therefore something to throw money at. Both fall into the category of “the arts” in my book, whatever other people may say.
Dear Zak,
Unfortunately, I have to agree with what Danielle French says above, that Broken City is indeed a “For Profit” venue and thus falls under different standards. These standards, although your establishment provides amazing support to local artists, are set so that organizations of “non-profit” status can recieve support.
Now I do agree with you that it is unfortunate that the city is very narrow in their views of arts funding. And it dissapoints me that they spent so much money this year on Folk Festival, which is already very strong in its following, when other smaller festivals such as ours (Afrikadey!) are struggling to make ends meet due to Art funding and grant cuts accross Canada this year. If a festival can charge over $60 a ticket and they still sell out, then maybe they don’t need as much extra support from the city. Maybe that government money should have been split up and alocated to the many small festivals in the city just barely making it by this year.
Zak:
I think that you need to be more innovative in how you structure your “Broken City” business. And I would welcome you to take a role on city council with a view that there might be a better way for not-for-profits and commercial cultural or entertainment businesses to work together. There are any number of non-profits that might be able to utilize your space at off-periods under the proper scenario. City council needs innovative and collaborative individuals with non-confrontational approaches.
Ward 8 needs an Alderman that can move beyond a single-faceted policy of mindless defense of our police to the detriment of most other civic sectors, including the cultural segment, and most particularly the library. I have spoken publicly to John Mar on my view, based on some evidence, that more youths in libraries mean less policing problems. Please keep an open mind to the value of our cultural funding, it may benefit from revision, but not reduction or rescission.