GREAT PROGRAMMING WILL ONLY CARRY A FESTIVAL SO FAR. To entertain attendees for 40 seasons as Spoleto USA has done, it requires a solid financial grounding. Julia Forster for the past two decades has provided that for the Charleston, South Carolina event. The 17-day festival kicks off May 27, with a production of Porgy and Bess in author Dubose Heyward’s hometown for the first time since 1985. But even if you can’t make the trip to the Palmetto State, SRQ sought out Forster’s advice on keeping a cultural institution on solid footing. Forster served as keynote speaker at SRQ Media’s SB2 series for the January installment, Investing in the Arts: The Finance of Culture. At the event, she discussed balancing corporate sponsorship and individual donations, as well as how the festival contributes to developing culture in Charleston all year long. Forster spoke with the magazine afterward about keeping this celebration of the arts as a major economic boon for the region.

Julia, festival founders in Sarasota often openly aspire to achieve what Spoleto has done. How often do you hear from other festivals? Our festival is the model for festivals around the world. The Melbourne Festival is modeled after Spoleto. the New Haven International Festival of Arts and Ideas was created after our festival. We are in talks now with the Chinese government about creating a sort of Spoleto in China, where they have built all these beautiful theaters and facilities but they have no programming. So we get calls all the time for advice.

Is it a concern that they’ll be competing with you? No, because they can’t replicate Charleston. There is no other city like Charleston, so we only feel it behooves us to help. We are not threatened. There is a Savannah Music Festival that happens in March, and that was again a play off us. It’s been quite successful, but we feel they are just music, and we are more multidisciplinary, so we don’t feel its competition for us.

What has changed with the operations of the festival? One of the things we’ve done for the last 10 years is theaters. Fifteen years ago, a lot of theaters were not in great shape. There was one theater called the Garden Theater, and it was fabulous but for sale. At the time, we felt timid about buying the building. We also felt we were not in the business of managing theaters and owning theaters; a festival typically does not want to have a lot of assets. That theater turned into an Urban Outfitters. That was a wake-up call that we’ve got to do something about these other theaters or we are going to go out of business. It’s not just been us. The city and a public partnership just finished a renovation of the largest theater in downtown Charleston called the Gaillard Center, and we will be in there for the first time this year after the start of that renovation. The Dock Street Theatre, which is owned by the city, was renovated seven or eight years ago. The Sottile Theatre, owned by University of Charleston, was renovated in a way that makes it a better theater for us. And then we have the Memminger Auditorium, which we manage and raised money to renovate. We now manage it year-round. The school board owns it but we are responsible for day-to-day operations. We have all these theaters and now are in the long-range planning process of saying, “We’re done with the buildings and have a beautiful facility, what is our next thing?” And that is building the endowment so that we can have more programs that work with the theaters, and so we can do more operas in the Gaillard Center. So we are at this crossroads, which is very exciting.

Has there been a shift in the festival’s attitude toward community building?Charleston has changed dramatically, much like Sarasota, where so many are moving there in droves and moving in with money. Charleston is now this beautiful city with all these gorgeous homes, and the suburbs are growing by leaps and bounds. It’s all a positive. The symphony is doing well now. They have a new home. All of the arts organizations, we all benefit from it. The tide is rising; we can all ride. Since this is such a blockbuster year, our biggest challenge will be what are we going to do in 2017. We are concerned how we are going to replicate this success. We will never be able to. You can never replicate a season. Each season is so different. The biggest challenge we face every year is keeping the festival exciting and different and new. You won’t want to come back to the same thing every year. So you’re coming to be entertained—to be challenged—and we are finding that right mix every year.

Do you feel pressure to increase total ticket sales every season? Yes, but it depends on the program and how many seats you are offering. Our big thing this year is to increase our number of households. More households generates more ticket, and a lot of people buy for five or six shows.

The first 2 million tickets to Spoleto were sold in record time this year. What has made 2016 such an event? It’s all because we’re producing Porgy and Bess. People in Charleston are gaga. I’ve never seen anything like it. It has been fun to witness. The excitement, especially since a production hasn’t been done in Charleston since ’85, is enormous. We’ve actually started to worry that since 2 million tickets were sold and Porgy and Bess is sold out, will visitors stop coming because they can’t get tickets to Porgy? We hope the rest of the program is strong enough. Now, we are raising money to rebroadcast and simulcast Porgy and Bess so people can see it for free in a big venue, then perhaps rebroadcast in Charlotte, North Carolina. and other communities after or during the festival. We haven’t figured it all out. Someone suggested to our executive director that we do Porgy again next year, but he and I both felt that would be a mistake. We will probably do it five years from now. We build the production and can keep the sets. A lot of times, we don’t have space and we destroy the sets, or sometimes rent them or sell them. This is one set of props and costumes we will keep. 

Why does Spoleto create its own productions instead of simply hosting shows from out of town? Festivals either produce or present. We produce because critics wouldn’t come otherwise. They would never come and write about us if we didn’t do new works. Typically, we do more unknown works so that we can generate an audience as well as a critic audience and expose them to works they wouldn’t see elsewhere. 

You mention individual donors provide more financial support than corporate sponsorships. Has that always been the case? Back when times were very different, around 2000, we had over $1 million in corporate support, but a lot changed in the impending decade. Now we are at half that, a little over $500,000. Individuals have gone way up because so many people have moved to Charleston and so much money is coming in. Our donor pool is larger. I can’t imagine if Charleston wasn’t a destination where people wanted to move what would have happened to the festival. Foundations used to be the core of support in the ‘90s; we used to get money from Ford, [Andrew W.] Mellon, Rockefeller, all the big ones. That’s gone by the wayside because foundations want to do their own programming. They want to dictate, not simply fund. We used to get a lot of government help, but like everywhere in the country, we don’t get as much now. We get generous city support, but very little from the state. Thankfully as the funding structure has changed, Charleston has changed, and that is why we have been able to thrive. That’s reflective of here in Sarasota, too.

How challenging is it making sure individual donors give each year? People are weird about their money. We have one very wealthy philanthropic donor, and he’s older, but when he doesn’t come to the festival, he doesn’t think he has to give. His support is meaningful. Every dollar counts. I’ve tried to get the message across, I really appreciate the support and we’re very grateful, but we want you to know if you don’t give to us, then we have to cut back programing for next year. I have to make a clear statement. I call them, the ones I know, not ones who gave one year and then stopped. But if they have been giving, I will call them and ask for support. Most of the time, I have successes once I try and educate them about how their giving has a meaningful, long-term impact, and that it’s not just for that season.

People often discuss the impact of the fringe festivals around Spoleto on the community. Do you coordinate efforts with other events or do you worry they could detract from Spoleto?  The only festival that goes on during our festival is the Piccolo Spoleto, which is city-run and very different from ours. It’s regional, and the program doesn’t come out until April. I think it only enhances us. A few of our people do go to Piccolo and it’s nice to have something for everybody. We do not find it competitive, so that’s not an issue. There is no performing arts festival before Spoleto. We have a food and wine festival in early March. Our festival season starts in February with the Southeastern Wildlife Exposition. I only find them as competitors when lobbying the state. They are very good at lobbying our legislators, and they get more money because its hunters and our legislators tend to be more hunters than performing arts patrons. There is a fashion week, but it draws a more regional drive market; people don’t fly in for it. We have attendees from 47 or 48 states, so it’s different.

What is your strategy in getting the word out about the festival? We completely rely on editorial. We hope this year the London Financial Times comes and covers us. When we did the opera Veramonda, we had prominent Italian set designers, and Italian newspapers came to cover us. We don’t advertise. We have a national public relations firm who we hire to get the New York Times to cover us. They don’t deliver every year. But this year, we have the Music Critics Association of North America coming, with 47 music critics coming from all over. We try to reach out to magazines that have direct flights into Charleston. And because Charleston has been written about so much recently, we try and get small blurbs in Conde Naste Traveler or Southern Living that mention us when they talk about Charleston as a whole. Our convention and visitors bureau does a great job. They are more supportive of food and wine and of restaurants because Charleston is known for its culinary scheme, but they are now focusing more on us.

About Julia Forster

Julia Forster,director of development, has had 32 years of fundraising experience, including 20 with Spoleto Festival USA in the same position.  Prior to her current employment, she worked in New York City for numerous cultural institutions including the American Museum of Natural History, Brooklyn Academy of Music, and New York’s public television station Thirteen/WNET. Forster is responsible for raising general operating, capital and endowment campaign support. Sources of support include individuals, corporations, foundations, government and special events. In addition to fundraising, she manages the Festival’s Board of Directors, is involved in the overall management of the institution, and is a point person for the community at large. Forster has been actively involved on the board of the Low Country Chapter of the Association of Fundraising professionals, including serving as president for one term.  She is a volunteer fundraiser for local and national political campaigns, and has been engaged in her daughter’s school for several years.  

 

SRQ MEDIA hosted Julia Forster as the keynote speaker for the SB2: Regional Collaboration symposium on January 28 at The Francis on the topic of  Investing in the Cultural Arts. To engage with dynamic local and national speakers on key philanthropy, economic development, arts, education and architecture topics, visit us online at SRQSB2.COM for tickets and information about the 2015-16 Season.