Mike Wolanin | The Republic An interior view of North Christian Church in Columbus,, Monday, Sept. 26, 2022.
Mike Wolanin | The Republic An interior view of North Christian Church in Columbus,, Monday, Sept. 26, 2022.
A consultant hired by the Heritage Fund to explore the feasibility of building a new performing arts center in Columbus has recommended that local officials use existing venues “more robustly” before deciding to build a new venue or undertake significant renovations on the Crump Theatre.

The recommendation came from international consultant Theatre Projects following a study it conducted earlier this year. The study, which included, among other things, a digital survey completed by 823 local residents from Feb. 16 to March 15, as well as quantitative market and programming data analysis, found that Columbus already has a “robust inventory of community and arts spaces” but are currently underutilized, according to a public report by Theatre Projects.

While Theatre Projects provided local officials with a few possible paths forward — including potentially building a new performance arts center or embarking on the “restoration, renovation and expansion of the historic Crump Theatre” — the consultant ultimately recommended funding a staff position that would help build relationships with booking agents “to accelerate the expansion of arts and culture offerings” at existing venues in the city while “continuing to test the market for which entertainment types are most viable.”

“This will facilitate the full utilization of existing venues and accelerate the expansion of arts and culture offerings,” Theatre Projects states in its report. “The data gleaned from this initial phase will inform the next decision about whether to build a new performing arts center or undertake a significant restoration of the Crump Theatre. Either will require significant capital and operational funding and should not be pursued without a clear, deliberate and strong case and approach.”

Currently, it is unclear how much data local officials will need before they will be able to make an informed decision on a new or renovated performing arts space, said Heritage Fund President and CEO Tracy Souza. However, knowing what kinds of performances people want and how much they are willing to pay for tickets are among some of the information that local officials hope to use to evaluate their next steps.

While local officials already have the survey results from Theatre Project’s study earlier this year, the respondents expressed a “very broad” range of entertainment desires, according to the report. Officials said respondents’ interests were “all over the map” — including music, musicals, comedy, magic shows, community-based programming, among other types of entertainment.

“Our performance profile is not clear, and we really are not a destination for booking agents,” Souza said. “We don’t have a profile out there. The recommendation was that we would implement a new position — not necessarily a new organization — but that we would have somebody who would be responsible for building that relationship with booking agents, for steering performance opportunities into the existing venues and for really marketing those opportunities.”

“I think we’ve got general agreement among the key stakeholders that this is the direction we want to pursue for some period of time that remains to be seen before the community makes a big investment in another kind of a performance venue,” Souza added later in the interview. “…The price on building a new performing arts center is pretty prohibitive. (The consultants) were tossing around $60 million for a 750-seat theater — or more.”

The report by Theatre Projects specifically mentions the Crump Theatre and the former North Christian Church, which the Bartholomew County Public Library Board recently decided to accept as a gift, as two spaces that could add to the inventory and fill outstanding market gaps. However, Souza said local officials are focusing on all venues in the city, including, among others, The Commons, Mill Race Amphitheater and high school auditoriums.

At the same time, Theatre Projects emphasized in its report that Columbus is close to “so many comparable venues” and “mileage exclusions” may limit the ability of some performers and shows to perform in Columbus. Mileage exclusions are often included in the contracts that performers sign with a venue in which they agree to not perform again within a certain number of days within a certain radius mileage.

“People who think that, ‘Well, you could just take a performer, say, at the Brown County Music Center and they could come over to Columbus the next day,’ that can’t happen by contract,” Souza said. “That protects ticket prices for whoever booked that performance. Columbus would have to work within the confines of those contracts. It just means that you won’t have performers that have two performances within close proximity within a close time frame.”

In the meantime, local officials said they have heard the public “loud and clear” that they want more entertainment and performance opportunities — including the younger highly skilled workers that local officials hope to draw to the community — and “we’re going to try to respond to that.”

“We’re taking this one on as a way to encourage economic development,” Souza said. “We’re not going to have pure Shakespearean plays that really only talk to six people in the community. We’re really trying to fill a gap that we have in the community right now, which is families and individuals saying, ‘I want to have these kinds of opportunities available locally. …I’m going to continue to drive to go to the entertainment I want, but I really want to be able to do it locally as well.’”
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