Interview TV One Breakfast Show
Presenter (Mike Hosking): Some of those who frequent and run Auckland's art scene, have been working on a way to better market the art's sector in the country's biggest city - to sell the scene through an Arts Marketing agency. Interview TV One Breakfast Show
Presenter (Mike Hosking): Some of those who frequent and run Auckland's art scene, have been working on a way to better market the art's sector in the country's biggest city - to sell the scene through an Arts Marketing agency.Now, Arts Advocates Auckland, have enlisted the help of a couple of heavyweights in the business: they have brought out, arts marketing gurus Paul Kaynes and Shirley Kirk from Britain, to brainstorm a few decent ideas, and they're with us. Nice to see you
Shirley Kirk (South West Arts Marketing): Good morning.
Presenter: Now, what you do in Britain is commonplace, or not? Like everyone's got an arts agency?
Kirk: We're working at full coverage across the whole of the U.K. - there's just a few gaps at the moment. But some are really established agencies, like Pooles in Birmingham, that's been going for 10-12 years, and some are very new. Ours has just been going for 3 years.
Presenter: What do you do?
Kirk: What do we do? We work with artists and arts organisations on finding ways to reach new people - bring in new audiences. By working collaboratively, we're able to sort of make a louder noise together and celebrate and raise the profile of the arts.
Presenter: So you do the South West of England?
Kirk: That's right.
Presenter: Which is like the bottom left-hand corner?
Kirk: That's right.
Presenter: Ok. And you do Birmingham, which is a specific city?
Paul Kaynes (Birmingham Arts Marketing): That's right, yes. We work mainly in Birmingham - which is a city of a million people -in accommodation of two and a half million. But we're about to expand to cover the whole region. So, as Shirley said, the Arts Council of England is very keen to see the whole of the country covered by this kind of support network.
Presenter: So you've got a metropolitan setup, and you've got a regional setup?
Kirk: That's right.
Presenter: All over-arched by the Arts Council of Britain.
Kaynes: Well certainly all funded by the Arts Council of England, yes.
Presenter: Ok, but you get your money elsewhere as well though, don't you?
Kirk: We all do. One of the major things is, that the arts council invested to get sort of seed money, to help build up, so that we could have the infrastructure for the agencies, but once we're going, then we raise money from other sources for the arts as well.
Presenter: So what do you cover - ballet, orchestra?
Kirk: Everything - you name it! Visual arts, performing arts -everything to do with the arts.
Presenter: But don't you in a way, in a microway (to use the business terminology), in promoting one thing, you do that at the expense of something else?
Kirk: Oh good grief no. People are all fully rounded individuals, and they like more than one thing - I'm sure you do.
Presenter: Yes I do.
Kirk: I mean, just because I like going to see a play in the evening, it doesn't mean that I won't enjoy going to the rugby the next day, or the gallery the day after. You have to make people aware of what's out there, so they've got the option and the choice.
Presenter: All right. Let me ask you another question. What's arts, and where do you draw the line then?
Kaynes: Well arts really is anything in the cultural sphere that people enjoy. So, for instance, we hold an annual festival in Birmingham called Artsfest, which is a free weekend festival - 400 events outdoors and in. It includes djs; it includes rock bands and comics, as well as the opera companies and the theatre companies, and the visual arts. It's a very, very, very broad range.
Presenter: Do you encompass commercial arts, like a rock band, for example? Do you promote young talent, for example?
Kaynes: Yes we do indeed. And we find that by getting, if you like, the commercial arts to work alongside the more traditional subsidised arts, that you get this very good cross-fertilisation of ideas, and people do start creating the most unlikely and very fruitful partnerships.
Presenter: Because there is an element of... One of the great debates - we've had several debates in this country - one of them is that you get to this... (a) You don't support commercial, because you know, hey can do it themselves - they make their own money and they don't need help, (b) Once you've supported anybody - doesn't matter who it is - once they get to a certain tier or level, you've got to let them go, because they're doing it on their own, so therefore you go back down to the bottom of the pool and drag somebody else up. You see what I'm saying? Is that what you do, or not?
Kaynes: No, I don't think it is, actually. I think what we do is we try and bring people together and give them a chance, and go on supporting them until they're successful in their own right. And then, the lessons that they've learnt along the way, will be of interest to others.
Presenter: All right. How do you do it regionally? Because within your region there'll be cities and towns who want to compete against each other though, won't there? And that's one of the great problems that, say, Auckland has - cities within cities.
Kirk: Oh no you see, we don't see it as competing. We're sort of working together. We're bringing people together to form natural partnerships. Here we're working with the arts organisations in the whole of the Auckland region, but we're also... This is an initiative we've been brought over - invited here - by Auckland and Wellington working together, the arts organisations.
Presenter: Ok, so you've got something that is collaborative between Auckland and Wellington, as it would be between two towns within your south west region?
Kirk: When they share, yeah, the same partnership.
Presenter: But see, it's all very well to talk about that, but I mean there's barriers to break down, cause in Auckland they hate each other - the cities in the...
Kirk: (laughter)
Presenter: They do. They hate each other. That's why the city's disfunctional for a whole lot of reasons, because they all hate each other!
Kirk: No. (laughter)
Kaynes: Well no, it's not our experience. Meeting the people that we've met over the last few days, we've found people who are very, very keen to work together, and they've got some great plans to do so.
Presenter: Do you educate or grow an audience through populism, or education? In other words, it's easy to put bums on seats isn't it? I mean I could do that for you, no worries at all, you just hire a top act and you get bums on seats?
Kirk: Well it's both, actually. It's making sure that people have lots of different ways in, so they can find things that interest them. They're led in, and introduced to things in a non-threatening way. And also making sure that there's lots of opportunities to enjoy very popular stuff as well.
Presenter: You agree? - The same theory?
Kaynes: Absolutely, yes. Once you've got people involved. Once you've got people to come for the first time, you've got an opportunity then to take them on a journey and show them things that they would never have dreamed of doing for themselves beforehand.
Presenter: How tough is the competition? Because you are, I suppose, in Britain you're up against football; you're up against technology; you're up against the movies; you're up against other stuff. Is arts appreciation, in general terms, growing or not?
Kaynes: Yes, it is growing in fact. There's a huge range of competition, which has grown up over the last 10 years. The number of - not just sport and television, there's also all of the websites that exist, the growth in the magazine industry - all of the other leisure activities that people have to do. And yet, the arts has held its own and has seen a significant increase in the last 5 years in terms of the percentage of people who participate in the arts.
Presenter: And what about that old myth, if you like - and I hope it is a myth - is that snobbery, that literati attachment that arts has - unless you're an officionado with old money, then your kind of not welcome, and we'll look down our nose.
Kirk: Well that's something, that you know, it's an attitude that we're trying to help stamp out, because it's just not true. If you go to most arts events, particularly those in the arts centres around the country, you'll see a really mixed cross-section of people having a good time, and that's what it's about.
Presenter: Good stuff. Nice to meet you both. Hope you have a good stay in the country. Paul Kaynes and Shirley Kirk.
Ends