Community Arts

Yes, our general goals for the grant were achieved. Attending artists were exceptional. They 1) put on professional sets that exceeded their experience, 2) drew impressed crowds in part due to their effort marketing their art (their music), 3) engaged in thoughtful conversations with headlining artists about how to be an artist, how to work with other artists, and realities of amateur versus professional pursuit of art, including touring, recording, practicing, and performing. The pre-show Q and A sessions were a huge hit among the promising young artists and participating headlining musicians. The concerts were exceptional and well-received in-person, on social media, and in correspondence after the show. It's a series we feel like we need to continue and improve. The challenges primarily were securing headlining artists. Though we book 100 show year, many with professional headliners, the cancelation rate for headliners of the Young Musician Series was astonishing and caused us this summer to ask for (and be granted) an extension for our grant period. Instead of booking artists for specific Young Musician Series dates, when we do this again we would 1) go through our normal booking process, 2) identify certain headliners who are interested in our nonprofit's mission as well as working with young people, then 3) turn their already booked show into a Young Musician Series event. We would essentially have a fund of money we would use to turn a concert we already have contracted to turn it into a Young Musician Series show. -Yes and no, we were able to reach many young local artists but we were not able to reach a diverse group of people. A large part of this is due the concert genres that performed (metal and punk) versus those which canceled (hip-hop, hip-hop, pop, and singer-songwriter). The genres whose headliners canceled have a larger percentage of performers and fans who are women and people of color. The estimated population that would benefit versus the population that actually did not change, it was still primarily young people and largely white. We did, however, see fewer women and people of color than we would if our entire concert series had happened as we planned, which would have additionally included two hip-hop shows, a pop show, and a singer-songwriter show. Community diversity is something we work on in our conversations with patrons, in outreach, and marketing. In the context of the Young Musician Series we think the primary failure was of a reduced series run, rather than our outreach efforts. We put out open calls for our Performer Meetings and advertised the spots for the Young Musician Series. We widely advertised the concerts for potential attendees and saw greater than anticipated attendance. We averaged 219 people were at each show instead of our goal of 150 people at each show with 26 individual young musicians. 100% of individuals artists rated the series as "Good" or "Very Good"--almost 70% said "Very Good." Attendees' ratings of their experience at THE GARAGE were 4.6/5. Comments expressed value in learning from "inspirational artists" and "insight" into the local music scene.