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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2008 > July > 17 > Entry
Long Center budget update
Reports that the new $77 million Long Center for the Performing Arts is facing budget shortfalls are wrong, Long Center executive director Cliff Redd said.
“We’ve said all along that revenues from ticket sales and facility rentals will not cover all the costs of running the Long Center each year,” Redd said. “Like every other non-profit, we have to raise money every year.”
The Long Center’s current annual budget is $8.8 million. Redd said preliminary projections indicated earned income from endowments, ticket sales and rental fees would cover all but $1.5 million.
However about $500,000 in additional parking and security costs have upped the figure to $2 million, Redd said. Insufficient public parking at the city-owned parking garage adjacent Palmer Events Center garage has meant that additional traffic control and security personnel are needed for each event. “We weren’t expecting to have to shoulder those additional expenses,” Redd said. “But we’ve already started fundraising for it.”
Published reports also said that Long Center had asked the city for money. However Redd said the Long Center, like dozens of other Austin arts organizations, has simply applied for funding through the city’s cultural funding program for the first time. The cultural arts funding contracts are announced in September. Last year, the city awarded a total of $5.5 million to Austin arts groups. Among the largest cultural contracts were $150,000 to Ballet Austin and $146,000 to Paramount Theatre. The Long Center has applied for $200,000.
In April, a massive traffic and parking snarl left opera-goers tangled with people headed to a reggae festival on Auditorium Shores adjacent to the center. The 1,200-space city-owned Palmer Events Center garage — which serves the Palmer and Long centers. With additional parking spaces in nearby city-owned garages at Town Lake Center and One Texas Center, both on Barton Springs Road, there are a total of 2,254 spaces available.
The Dell Hall, the Long Center’s main venue, has 2,400 seats. The Long Center’s Rollins Studio Theatre can accommodate up to 240 people. Estimated peak capacity for the Palmer Events Center is 6,000, according to the city.
Built to replace the city-owned 1959 Palmer Auditorium, the Long Center was built by a private non-profit organization started by backers of the Austin Lyric Opera, Austin Symphony Orchestra and Ballet Austin in order to give those organizations a permanent performance venue. The $77 million raised for the new center came entirely from private donations.
Permalink | Comments (6) | Post your comment Categories: Long Center
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By dprice
July 19, 2008 2:24 PM | Link to this
�Like every other non-profit, we have to raise money every year.�… raise money from taxpayer every year!!!
By MW
July 18, 2008 6:28 PM | Link to this
Of course the rich neighborhoods that blocked a bigger parking garage didn’t help matters. All the center is doing is applying for a grant. This city bills itself as the “Live Music Capital of the World” maybe it’s time they support all the performing arts in Austin.
By Melissa
July 18, 2008 10:06 AM | Link to this
The comments from A and austxhookem are so full of incorrect assumptions I hardly know where to start. The Long Center was not built by or for “socialites” but by and for all the community. Construction was funded by almost 5000 donors, many of them not wealthy but who gave, say, $25/month. And did either of you go to Video Games Live last weekend at the LC? Audience was a rockin’, t-shirt & shorts, gamer crowd - not a tie in sight, black or any other color. And FYI the city arts funding for which the LC has applied comes from the hotel/motel bed tax, not from local taxpayers (unless you often stay in a hotel).
By LOL!
July 17, 2008 2:46 PM | Link to this
austxhookem wrote: “Perhaps all the Samy Show patrons, Record Convention veterans and Cat Show people put a hex on the place when they were run out of their venue�”
Excellent! � I agree. This is the best post I�ve seen in days.
By A
July 17, 2008 1:28 PM | Link to this
This is such a joke. The city let the Dells, Rollinses, and other socialites convince us to build this thing, and now they want the ordinary taxpayers to fund it. I’m glad to know I can help support a venue for their black tie events.
By austxhookem
July 17, 2008 1:26 PM | Link to this
Let me get this straight—the privately funded Long Center wants the city to help bail it out? The city that is facing its own budget shortfall? Oh, please. Perhaps all the Samy Show patrons, Record Convention veterans and Cat Show people put a hex on the place when they were run out of their venue…