Walton Arts Center Brings More Broadway
Board Of Directors Has No Immediate Plans For New Site
Last updated Tuesday, August 19, 2008 9:35 PM CDT in News
By Skip Descant
The Morning News
FAYETTEVILLE - By adding Broadway house-fillers like "Avenue Q" and "Spamalot" along with violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman, the Walton Arts Center hopes to use these draws to fill seats and raise the revenue those seats earn.
As the arts center enters its 17th season, the performance venue hopes to grow its per seat revenue to $27 per seat, said Terri Trotter, the center's interim director, at the Fayetteville City Council meeting Tuesday night. This year's per-seat revenue is $24.37.
And because of longer runs of big-name musicals like "Spamalot," or the children's musical "Magic Tree House," the center's budget will top $7.63 million in 2009, up from $7.3 million in 2008, Trotter said.
Some 42 percent of the budget will come from ticket sales, and the remainder will come from grants, donors and other sources, according to the center's annual report.
But high on the list for the next few months is completing the final phase of a site evaluation, which will offer insight in terms of how to accommodate larger and more high-end Broadway acts, where to place additional theater space and how to pay for it.
Any decision, arts center officials say, is still five to 10 years off.
"Our board is not going to move quickly on this," said Trotter last week. "And a new facility of any kind could easily be eight to 10 years away."
"We do expect as a board to spend the next few years planning," said Curt Rom, a member of the arts center's board of directors. "And we do expect in the next five years to embark in a capital campaign."
Since the study was launched, community speculation across Northwest Arkansas began to wonder if the Walton Arts Center's future may include a new and bigger performing arts center, and, more importantly, where it might be.
Regardless of the study's findings, said Trotter, the Dickson Street venue will stay.
"This will building will not sit idle," she said.
The arts center recently invested $300,000 in the 17-year-old building for improved lighting, sound and staging.
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lifelongcitizen wrote on Aug 20, 2008 8:16 AM: