{"id":397,"date":"2008-01-22T11:12:08","date_gmt":"2008-01-22T17:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/index.php\/2008\/01\/22\/wac-ky-in-fayetteville\/"},"modified":"2008-01-22T13:57:54","modified_gmt":"2008-01-22T19:57:54","slug":"wac-ky-in-fayetteville","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2008\/01\/wac-ky-in-fayetteville\/","title":{"rendered":"WAC-ky in Fayetteville"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville at age 16 is being called a relic in some (moneyed) quarters. Those quarters know it’s not old by civic center standards, and in the last year or so it got reupholstered. The quarrel is its size. The main auditorium has about 1,200 seats, and we’re a growing metropolis, aren’t we, never mind the stagnant building-building industry here as elsewhere?<\/p>\n

The center’s governing body, the Board of WAC-kies, thinks the area’s principal performance facility<\/a> should be twice as big, holding 2,500 seats. There’s a handful of convention sites, municipal and hotel-based, that can hold at least that number of stacking or folding chairs, but thankfully the WAC-kies want relatively fixed seats and a permanent stage for ideal visuals and acoustics for music, drama and dance.<\/p>\n

(The main WAC has a second stage, a flexible black-box sort, and a gallery. A block away its annex, the Nadine Baum Studios, was custom-built a few years later for art studio-class space including kilns, as well as the center’s third performance space. The Nadine Baum seems to be nowhere on the WAC site<\/a>; it remains, however, the home of the Theatre Squared<\/a> drama company.)<\/p>\n

The WAC management has so mastered dance itself it rarely directly states anything. They don’t quite pull out Tchaikovsky’s 1812<\/em> cannon but the news media does state the WAC is threatening to move, both for a bigger building and, probably, financial incentives for wherever it lands, including away from Fayetteville.<\/p>\n

The news articles thus far have given only bare bones<\/a> on the WAC’s original charter. Reportedly, the city and the University of Arkansas paid for its construction but budgeted nothing for its operations over the years. UA productions — orchestral, band, choral and operatic — have some kind of priority in their bookings and a discounted rental rate, I’ve heard. Does that end if the WAC moves, or does the UA move with it?<\/p>\n

Of course Fayetteville officials want the WAC to stay, and if it needs a bigger building then that should be in Fayetteville. The strong argument<\/a> is Fayetteville is Northwest Arkansas’ cultural center and as the<\/em> college town will remain so. The main counter-argument is the population, particularly the executive population that buys most such tickets, lives and works<\/a> in the Wal-Mart Headquarters parking lot, aka Bentonville.<\/p>\n

The arguments are even, but here is one element still unexplored, at least publicly.<\/p>\n

An area auditorium has a business obligation, not to make a profit so much but to “be lit,” as Broadway types say. How many nights a year will a cavernous 2,500-seat auditorium be rented?<\/p>\n

It is thrilling to be in the WAC when our own North Arkansas Symphony is giving a sold-out concert, which is often the case. Yes, it just might fill twice the size just as easily. But the WAC offers many shows through the year that don’t sell that well. There were dozens of empty seats at last fall’s Lucinda Williams concert. She’s a Grammy winner, a hometown favorite, and her opening act was the C&W pioneer Charlie Louvin. Yes, bad nights happen out of luck, but the real reason lies in experienced ticket-pricing and marketing strategies (or their lack).<\/p>\n

The WAC-kies claim that comparable metro areas have larger auditoriums, but they have not said how often they get rented and when they do how tickets sell. Why does this occur to me? My late father was heavily involved at the building of the Fort Smith Municipal Auditorium in the 1960s and managed it for a time in the 1970s. I heard such talk at the dinner table. That building by the way was replaced in recent<\/a> years.<\/p>\n

I do have a proposal.<\/p>\n

The Fayetteville City Council should buy the existing building and run it, like Fort Smith and scores of other cities. It can get some funding from UA and from the Fayetteville School District in exchange for using the property. Fayetteville High can use the space for plays and concerts, reclaiming its on-campus auditorium for needed classroom space.<\/p>\n

A 1,200-seat facility on Dickson Street, if professionally managed, will remain continuously rented and not drain taxpayer money. Cut the WAC loose.<\/p>\n

-30-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville at age 16 is being called a relic in some (moneyed) quarters. Those quarters know it’s not old by civic center standards, and in the last year or so it got reupholstered. The quarrel is its size. The main auditorium has about 1,200 seats, and we’re a growing metropolis, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-body-home-street"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2755,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2011\/03\/point-the-way-bruce-walker\/","url_meta":{"origin":397,"position":0},"title":"Point the Way, Bruce Walker","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"March 15, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Attending the musical wake of Bruce D. Walker on Sunday brought up a lot of sadness in the midst of so many cheerful tunes by local songsters. Standing in several of the eight corners of George's Majestic Lounge (front bar\/stage and garden bar\/stage) I saw dancing and clapping and heard\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Body, Home, Street"","block_context":{"text":"Body, Home, Street","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/body-home-street\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2202,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2010\/08\/cultural-muscle\/","url_meta":{"origin":397,"position":1},"title":"Cultural Muscle","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"August 8, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"A month ago, the Walton Family Foundation offered money to Fayetteville's Walton Arts Center if it would build a second, larger auditorium 35 miles north in Bentonville, rather than enlarge itself into a complex a la Lincoln Center, with an accent. The idea had merit in some ways -- the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Body, Home, Street"","block_context":{"text":"Body, Home, Street","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/body-home-street\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2507,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2010\/12\/belly-up-with-dickson-street\/","url_meta":{"origin":397,"position":2},"title":"Belly Up with Dickson Street","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"December 22, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2010 Ben S. Pollock DATELINE MIRTHOLOGY -- I grabbed a take-out coffee from Common Grounds and headed across Fayetteville's Dickson Street to the rose garden of the current Walton Arts Center. I sat on the terraced brick wall, waiting for my client-friend Crystal Britches, and shivered. The flower bushes\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Chronicles of Crystal Britches"","block_context":{"text":"Chronicles of Crystal Britches","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/chronicles-of-crystal-britches\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2765,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2011\/03\/hail-to-the-chieftains\/","url_meta":{"origin":397,"position":3},"title":"Hail to The Chieftains","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"March 17, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Before The Chieftains review -- which it's not, because I lost my Lamy Al-Star pen following a disaster of a restaurant meal so I couldn't take notes -- a roundabout. 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Today, it's skin and drama. \u2022 \u2022 \u2022 Speaking of vuvuzela, one rash has come home to roost,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Loose Talk of the Town"","block_context":{"text":"Loose Talk of the Town","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/briefs\/loose-talk-of-town\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2249,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2010\/09\/blued-revue-review\/","url_meta":{"origin":397,"position":5},"title":"Blued: Revue Review","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"September 20, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The performance in Fayetteville of Blue Man Group filled my mind too full to write about immediately. A deadline would've been wonderful. So now it's time to free up to brain cavity. Past time. We saw the third of its eight shows at the Walton Arts Center, during the first\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "American Culture"","block_context":{"text":"American Culture","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/american-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}