Saturday, July 31, 2010

Where does the money come from?

According to today's FT, the main private sponsorship of the arts is to London and outside has suffered. Local corporate sponsorship is really difficult to get in the regions - there's less of it. So, for jazz and music, I can see that more of this sponsorship would be geared to festivals, because it makes a bigger splash in media terms than the "drip drip" of helping a smaller venue.
Similarly in London for a club like The Vortex. Dalston is in the regions as much as Dewsbury.
So two conclusions are reached in my view for now. First, public funding should be geared to helping the day-to-day. Second, the best way to fill the gap for a venue is to promote the voluntary activity and door money, i.e. lots of small amounts of money from individuals rather than large lumps. Much as the latter are desirable and not to be ignored, the work is harder to find it and grab hold of it.

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