Civic Arts Commission Meeting Agenda Packet 030325 FINAL

program allows attendees the opportunity to feel ownership over their theater and learning experience. The mental and emotional stimulation participants get from attending our series can benefit both their mental and brain health. There has been an unexpected, but welcomed, social benefit to the program as many use the series as a monthly opportunity to gather with friends and family for a shared experience. We have found that many of our patrons gather in the restaurants and coffee shops after the program to further discuss and connect over what they learned and what it made them remember and contemplate. Not only does this social stimulation benefit our audience, but it has economic benefits for our downtown businesses. Please describe in detail what the community grant funds will be specifically used for. The Community Grant funds will be used to help pay the performers’ fees for our shows. There are a limited number of individuals who excel at this art form and each of them have a limited number of characters they portray. That fact alone makes booking only known and local talent year after year challenging, but our desire to present seasons with diverse stories and perspectives further complicates the task. We have found that we need to go further afield to provide quality new characters for our audience to meet and engage with each season. Luckily, our program has gained a lot of acclaim in Chautauqua circles and more scholars are reaching out to us every year, eager to perform on the Pleasanton stage. Now, most of the headliners from the country’s biggest Chautauqua festivals are contacting us to perform in Pleasanton. The 2024 season includes Chautauqua headliners who hail from Colorado, Ohio, Illinois, Nevada, West Virginia and Southern California. These grant funds have allowed and will continue to allow us to explore more of these farther afield options when booking future seasons. Describe how this project is cost effective and whether the budget is reasonable for the anticipated result. If this project does not receive funding, what will be the effect on this project? Over the years we have worked hard to keep the costs down for this program so we can keep ticket costs affordable for our audiences. Performers often give us a discount because we are a non-profit organization so their fees tend to be reasonable. Compared to other performers’ requirements, we are getting an excellent product at less than the market rate. We have negotiated deals with local hotels for rooms for our performers so that we are not paying standard rates. This is no small feat in a community where hotel demand is high during the week because of local business and a thriving outlet mall. The Museum staff and volunteers carry out much of the administrative, marketing and public relations materials in- house, thus keeping our direct costs to a minimum. However, with what amounts to three performances for each show, the cost of the program has increased significantly post- Covid. If we get back to full sellout, the program will be more financially balanced, but we are not back to full sell-outs yet. In 2022 we found about 30% of our “sell-out pre-pandemic audience” did not come back to our live shows or our virtual alternative. In 2023 that number decreased to 20%. Our audience is growing, but we still need to invest in building back our core audience. To help decrease costs as we invest in growing our audience, we cancelled our least attended shows in January and February, added a show in November around Veteran’s Day, and networked with our performers to book a few “up and coming” Page 40 of 116