The Hopkins Center for the Arts plans to raise ticket prices, cut back on commissioned works and reevaluate its long-term strategic plans, including its stake in Dartmouth's proposed Visual Arts Center, in light of College-wide budget cuts and a possible downturn in individual donations, according to Hop director Jeff James.
"We, the Hop, have more reasons to be concerned than a lot of other players because we rely on ticket sales and donations, and those are the things we are spending the most time thinking about how to protect," James said.
As a result of the economic downturn, the Hop intends to raise its student ticket prices from $5 to $10 for performances by visiting artists, from $3 to $5 for student performances, and from $12 to $15 for Dartmouth Film Society's film series passes.
It will be the first price increase for the Hop in eight or nine years, according to James. Student ticket prices will remain around half the price of general admission.
The increase will go into effect before Summer term.
"Our sense from the advice we got from the budget advisory group [and other research] was that [the prices] should still be okay for students and should ideally not have an effect on attendance, " James said.
In the last year, there was a significant rise in last-minute ticket sales instead of advance sales, James said. This trend, consistent with a decrease in consumer spending nationwide, is expected to continue, meaning that the Hop will not know the size of an audience until just before the performance.
James said that the Hop has become more conservative with its audience-size projections, though he added that there has not been an appreciable decrease in attendance so far.
"Ticket sales have held up this spring pretty much across the board," James said.
In addition to raising ticket prices, the Hop is planning to cut back on event programming, which is funded by endowments backed by individual donations.
James said there will be fewer events and fewer expensive performers. Whereas there have been seven or eight well-known performers this season, next year there will be three or four, he said.
"I don't think, judging from what I see in the season, that that's meant a lowering of quality or breadth," James said.
With fewer big-name performers, James said, the Hop will have to work harder to market its programming.
"Our marketing department has been experimenting with not doing some things and seeing what the effects are," James said.
The Hop is starting to understand which forms of advertising it can cut or reduce with as limited effects as possible, he said.
The budget cuts may also affect student workshops, which could see a reduction in the hours professional craftspeople are available, and student performance groups, which will have a smaller budget for guest artists.
Whether the economic downturn will affect donations for the coming year will not be known until at least the summer, when the Hop solicits contributions from its patrons, James said.
From its founding in 1962 until 2007, the Hop collected donations through the non-profit, non-Dartmouth-affiliated Friends of the Hop and Hood Group. Two years ago, that group was disbanded and replaced by individual membership organizations for the two institutions.
James said that memberships are renewed over the summer, typically in coordination with the Hop's announcement of the next season's programming.
"We've started the renewal process now and we don't have any indicators yet as to how it's going to go," James said. "We've heard that some other local organizations are feeling a softness in our economy, but it hasn't happened to us yet."
In addition, the Hop plans to rethink its stake in the proposed Visual Arts Center, a $52-million venture to be built in downtown Hanover as the home for the studio art and film and media studies departments, which are currently located in the Hop and Wilson Hall, respectively.
The fate of the center will be decided by the Board of Trustees later this month. If the project is approved, the Hop will have to determine how to use its previously occupied spaces.
The status of the project is one of several priorities that will be discussed this summer as the Hop revisits its long-term strategic plan in anticipation of the 50th anniversary of the arts center in 2012. Hop officials met last summer for the same purpose.
"I don't think we expect to change the priorities we articulated [last summer], but I think we probably will have to face reality and that some things are just going to happen slower, and it's too early for me to say what they will be," James said.
James noted that one major priority discussed last summer was the plans to renovate Alumni Hall. This construction would involve changing the seating, floor, acoustics and technical system to make the venue more conducive to music and dance.
"I think the big issues [for the project] are money and finding other spaces for some of the social things that happen in there," James said.
Another priority is maintaining the Hop's support for commissioned work, James said, such as the co-commission of the Paul Taylor Dance Company's "Now Playing" in April. James noted that interaction between students and professional performers provides a valuable educational experience, but next year's commissioned works will be less visible.
"I think one reality for us is that there is an extent to which we can weather the storm a little bit better because we are in an institution like this," James said. "We've still taken our share of cuts ... but we've certainly done our best to have it be in areas that are not going to affect quality and not going to affect distinctiveness."
Despite budgetary constraints, James said he remains optimistic that the Hanover and Dartmouth communities will continue to support the Hop.
"One of the pluses of being in the Dartmouth environment, and knowing what we know about our audiences now from research we've done in the last few years, is we have a lot of longevity and loyalty, and people take us on faith a lot of the time," James said. "Even when they haven't heard of something, they come because they trust us."
