INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — Just in time for a whopping arts season that will include an international opera competition, the most ambitious production ever mounted at Riverside Theatre – “Les Miserables,” and planning for further expansion of the Vero Beach Museum of Art, the umbrella arts agency of the county has won approval for a $60,000 grant that will fund increased advertising for all the arts.
The Tourist Development Council (TDC) money comes from the so-called “bed tax,” a tax hotel rooms and rentals.
The grant had to pass muster with the county’s council, made up of a changing roster of elected officials and others involved in tourism-related businesses. The council’s recommendation to fully fund the Cultural Council’s request went to County Commissioners last week, where it was approved along with the grant requests of four other agencies.
The grant was an increase of more than $23,000 over last year, when the Cultural Council’s request was slashed after it did not garner as many points in the TDC’s ranking system.
The Cultural Council is the county’s designated arts agency, established in 1995 to advocate for and market cultural interests.
In the last two years, it has been mired in a struggle to update and refocus. Those efforts have apparently paid off in attracting visitors, at least in the view of the TDC, which credited all the agencies that wanted money as helping to fuel the substantial increases in tourism this season.
The increase in funding will go mostly toward ad placement, said Barbara Hoffman, board chairwoman and interim director.
The group also intends to beef up its website’s new registry of artists and performers, and to develop a concierge service so visitors can arrange for cultural activities in advance of their arrival.
It would also serve to inform seasonal residents of events of the upcoming season so they can plan and buy tickets from their summer homes up north.
Hoffman says she is in the early stages of testing the concierge idea with SpringHill Suites Hotel.
Last week, she also approached the management of the island’s most exclusive community, Windsor, about membership in the council.
She says she hopes a new concierge service could eventually work in tandem with Windsor’s existing concierge service, though a spokesperson for the community says it is “a little early” to talk of a partnership.
Hoffman says the idea was born in a conversation with a Windsor couple who are friends of hers.
“They live in New Hampshire and they said by the time they get here in December or January, all the tickets are gone for the things they want to see. They said they wanted to plan things in September or October while they’re still in New Hampshire.”
Hoffman says she found support for the idea at other developments, including the Moorings.
“It’s amazing the enthusiasm people have for the concept,” she says.
The concierge concept would work with tourists too, Hoffman says.
“We’re working on building packages for tourists,” she said. “They come for the beach and they come for the weather. Culture comes in when they get here. We need to make sure they know everything there is to do and make it very accessible to them.”
The Cultural Council’s signature effort is an events calendar, to be redesigned this year and renamed the Cultural and Arts Guide.
In addition to the 10,000 copies it publishes and distributes to hotels, restaurants and other public places, information submitted by organizations is posted daily on its website.
In the past 12 months, the website attracted nearly 50,000 visitors.
Annual membership in the Cultural Council includes the right to post a listing on the site with photographs or Youtube videos of a business, venue, artist or musician.
Last fall, membership fees were increased 33 to 50 percent, and now stand at $75 for individuals and $300 for businesses.
“We want to start listing pop culture too,” says Sharon Morgan, herself an artist married to a drummer and a 12- year veteran of the Cultural Council. “I’m trying to get bands to let us know their gigs and we want to include musicians in our registry so groups know who’s available to hire.”
The council currently places advertising in a magazine of statewide art districts, a local almanac and a bimonthly glossies.
Hoffman says she will poll members and in particular the downtown art galleries to see how best to spend future ad dollars.
“We want to know what publications work best for them,” she says.
While the TDC money will help marketing, it does not include money for salaries.
Hoffman says the agency operates “extremely well” with fulltime volunteers.
“We are really fortunate to have some fabulous accomplished volunteers and they’re doing some things that normally you would have a lot of staff to do.”
A year ago, the Cultural Council’s asked for $75,000 from tourist tax dollars, but the request was cut to $36,000, after the TDC gave a generally lower rating to the group.
One year earlier, the County Commission withdrew its designation of the Cultural Council as a quasi-governmental agency, or one doing work that otherwise would fall to the county.
Last June, the commission let it be known it no longer intended to fund the agency, and the Cultural Council withdrew its request for $60,000.
That fall, the council lost its salaried executive director, Susan McGarry, who resigned for health reasons.
Hoffman, who chairs the council’s board, took over as director at no pay.
Meanwhile, Hoffman wanted the county to let it use $15,000 in TDC dollars to pay for an economic impact study of county arts.
When the County Commission refused, the council dipped into a reserve fund in what seemed a last-gasp measure.
The gamble was a good one.
The consultant’s study of the economic impact of “the creative industry” produced stunning numbers that appear to have enhanced the stature of the Cultural Council itself.
The consultant concluded that in 2010, the broad swath of jobs it included as “creative” generated an economic output of a staggering $346 million, with nearly 1,800 workers earning $59 million.
Though those numbers involved estimates and extrapolations, and counted fields such as public relations, toy stores and web design, it nevertheless backed up what has long been known about the area: cultural arts define the community beyond entertainment.
After a number of meetings to “refocus” the Cultural Council last summer, Hoffman seized on the figures and promoted them to civic organizations and government bodies in an effort to expand the council’s initiatives as well as raise funds.
She said she relied heavily on the consultant’s report in her presentations to both the county commission and the TDC.
A grant for the Indian River County and Sebastian chambers of commerce topped the list at just over $400,000, followed by the Treasure Coast Sports Commission, which was awarded nearly $150,000.
Though the TDC recommended all the agencies receive full funding – a 7 percent increase over last year, county staff recommended only a 3 percent increase, holding back some money until Oct. 1, when the worst of the hurricane season should be past.
Commissioner Bob Solari moved to withhold $21,000 in TDC funding for possible beach replenishment, and the motion passed withholding for the time being some $7,000 from Vero Heritage Inc., which works to preserve historic buildings and runs the Heritage Center downtown.
The Indian River County Historical Society, which only asks for money when it has a specific project underway, trailed the list and will only receive its $14,000 request if there is no hurricane.
