Recent arts coverage:
- Evolutionary biology. Aesthetic determinism. Live action role playing. The Rude Mechs are making a new play again
- Suburban battlefield: Women fight invisible foe in Amie Siegel’s ‘Black Moon’
- In eerie paintings by Ana Fernandez, a house isn’t just a house
More arts coverage | Follow this blog on Twitter @artsinaustin | Read recent arts reviews
Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2008 > December > 19
Friday, December 19, 2008
Long Center aims to wipe out construction debt
Seems another major arts non-profit is steeling itself against the recession.
A few days ago, Austin Lyric Opera said it was canceling its opulent annual ball, instead reallocating all of the money raised from the annual fete directly toward opera programming and education.
Now, the Long Center for the Performing Arts is giving itself a challenging New Year’s resolution. Center officials announced yesterday that they plan to pay off the center’s construction debt in 2009. The center has already wiped out more than 99 percent of its $77 million debt. The plan is to dispense of the remainder of it early next year, possibly even in time for center’s first anniversary celebration in late March.
The Long Center is owned by the City of Austin, which leases it to the nonprofit organization that raised the money to build it. All of the money raised to build the Long Center came from private sources. No public money was used.
“Operating the Long Center without any construction debt will free up future fundraising to focus solely on a variety of performing arts programs and on keeping the doors of this fine facility open,” Cliff Redd, executive director of the Long Center, said in a statement.
To date, the Long Center has reached about one-third of its goal of $1.9 million in fundraising for 2008-09, Redd said. The center’s 2008-09 budget year ends June 30, 2009. The fundraising goal for 2009-10 has been set at $1.5 million.
“We have gotten ourselves lean and mean to cope with the current economic times,” Paul Beutel, managing director of the Long Center, said. “The financial health of the Long Center is good. We have been taking steps to ensure it remains good.”
Among those steps, Beutel said, is concentrating on shows that sell. “Cirque Dreams Jungle Fantasy” attracted more than 15,500 patrons during its eight-performance run in late November. However, both the David Benoit concert and the “King Operetta,” scheduled for January, were canceled because they were underperforming in ticket sales.
The Long Center has also trimmed its 2008-09 operating expenses by 20 percent. “As the venue has been up and running for nine months, we’ve gotten smarter about how to operate more efficiently and yet still maintain the high level of customer service that audiences and artists expect from the Long Center,” Beutel said.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment
AMOA receives $50,000 bequest
The daughters of Mary McIntyre Malott, artist and former trustee of the Austin Museum of Art, have donated $50,000 to the museum in their mother’s honor, the museum announced Thursday.
The gift is from Barbara McIntyre, Carolyn White and Sylvia McIntyre-Cook. The monies will go to support a new painting studio at the museum’s art school. The studio will be named in Malott’s honor.
Earlier this year, the museum completed an extensive renovation of the art school, located at the museum’s original Laguna Gloria home in West Austin. Malott, who was involved with the museum since its origins in the 1960s, died in January.
You can read more about the studio dedication and see Malott’s own artwork here.
