Must local arts and entertainment be another attraction used to promote potential visitors to be valid, to have value?
This month’s arts festival IGNITE Peoria! at the Civic Center on Saturday, August 9 seems to be an admirable endeavor: part showcase and part encouragement for others to be creative, too.
But it also seems to have a commercial side almost reminiscent of 1960s television execs trying to mimic independent, popular artists and manufacturing the Monkees, the Partridge Family or the Archies.
“I’m really trying to put a focus on our local artists as a tourism product,” Kaci Osborne of the Peoria Area Convention and Visitors Bureau told the Journal Star.
The PACVB has been supportive of the arts, as has the Civic Center and the City of Peoria. The Visitors Bureau said it’s paying about $20,000 to help meet some of the costs of IGNITE Peoria! The Civic Center donated the space for the event. And the City and Civic Center Authority for about 15 years have contributed a tiny percentage of the hotel restaurant and amusement tax to ArtsPartners, which helps dozens of local groups.
But is there some sort of pressure to deliver some kind of commercial return on such “investments”? And is that smart?
Just as arts and entertainment grow and develop, mature and expand in a natural progression, so does public interest – locally and outside the geographic area.
Music fans don’t travel to or read about Memphis’ Beale Street or Muscle Shoals, L.A.’s Laurel Canyon or Liverpool because a tourism council packaged and promoted a product. Those places are interesting because of the artists and entertainers who emerged apart from economic development concerns. Whether in Woodstock, N.Y., or Bisbee, Ariz., Door County, Wis., or Key West, Fla., arts communities, if not “colonies,” FIRST live and breathe. THEN they start drawing visitors.
Peoria has a vibrant arts community, and it’s not illogical to be proud and promote it. But should its continued support, stability or existence depend on travelers’ dollars?
Further, can’t Peorians ourselves be moved, charmed, amused and affected by aspiring local versions of Harper Lee, Hoagy Carmichael or Hootie & the Blowfish – without worrying about attracting tourists?
More than a year ago, Americans for the Arts and the Arts Alliance Illinois group helped gauge the economic impact felt by the arts, and researchers showed that Greater Peoria annually reaps more than $20 million in direct spending by means of artists, entertainers and audiences – which translates to more than $2 million in revenue to state and local government yearly.
“You’re welcome,” local musicians, actors, sculptors, dancers, et. al. might say.
In fact, if sports and athletics similarly had to generate more tourists, wouldn’t the Civic Center, Peoria County or the City – which helped Dozen Park get built, remember – insist on Bradley basketball, the Chiefs and the Rivermen to have better win-loss records?)
Perhaps eager to please, IGNITE Peoria! almost seems anxious to be all things to all people, presenting crafts and cars, fashion photography and metal stamping, origami and lawn furniture, birdhouses and a petting zoo, cloggers and the decade-old Worldfest, it with food and other features from Filipino, German, Greek, Indian and other cultures.
In the Civic Center Exhibit Hall and ballroom, meeting rooms and lobbies and other spaces, mostly free activities promise to expose attendees to an eclectic choice, to be charitable. Would it have been possible to show other corners of Peoria’s community of performers, as well, from string quartets to stand-up comics, from a poetry slam to graphic-novel artists?
Peoria has able artists, skilled performers, and breathtaking talents, but financial realities exist, of course. Overhead obligations must be met, whether paying for art supplies or licensing plays; people have to eat and need shelter. But shouldn’t there be a balance between the stereotypical “starving artist” and overpriced artifices presented as culture for travel agencies or bus trips en route to or from Branson?
“This is not going to be a one-time thing,” said IGNITE Peoria! chair Kathy Chitwood – who should be applauded, along with a big “Bravo!” to ArtsPartners director Suzette Boulais.
More IGNITE Peoria! affairs would be great and grand, good news. Entertainment and the arts add to the area’s quality of life and contribute to our culture and future. So loyal or casual fans and curiosity seekers, eager patrons of the arts or occasional customers of nightclubs or the Peoria Riverfront Museum all should GO to IGNITE Peoria! – if for no other reasons than to remind themselves, or introduce themselves, to the array of abilities and varieties around us the other 364 days each year.
AND… Follow up: Go to others events and galleries, bars and shops, shows and recitals, and KEEP GOING.