Janice Brooks
From:
Pleasant Gap Pa
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Posted 8 Jun 2003 7:30 am |
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Hall of Fame alters focus in bid to grow
By JEANNE A. NAUJECK
Staff Writer
The words Will the Circle Be Unbroken are inscribed in the rotunda of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. The verse, which harks back to the pioneering Original Carter Family, is sung at important events like inductions and announcements of major gifts to country music's shrine.
And for 36 years, the Hall has moved in a fairly small circle. Its longtime home on Music Row was one of Nashville's main attractions — but didn't really attract anyone besides tourists and country music fans. It operated on a $1.8 million annual budget.
Now hall officials are faced with a challenge: expanding the circle without breaking it.
Two years after its move to a $37 million downtown showcase, Director Kyle Young wants to recast the hall's image in the museum world (and the popular culture at large) by serving more visitors, providing more educational programs and showcasing more of its 750,000-item collection, which he argues is significant to all forms of American music, not just country.
''Make no mistake, we are a tourist attraction, but we are also a serious museum,'' Young said. ''Country music and other Southern vernacular music is connected to all kinds of roots music, whether it's blues or jazz, folk or rock 'n' roll, and our business is telling the story of this music and how it relates to other musical genres.''
Armed with an $11.6 million annual budget, the Country Music Foundation, which owns the hall, has major new financial commitments to the building, the collection and outreach — and is rethinking its marketing and revenue strategies to meet them.
In February, the CMF brought in new Development Director Karen Fleming, who comes from the marketing and volunteer worlds, to tackle those strategies. Fleming faces the daunting task of cultivating relationships with major donors and corporate sponsors in hopes of attracting philathropic gifts — something the Hall has never done on this level.
''To go 30-odd years and never let people know that you really need help? We're just now starting,'' Young said. ''We were sitting in the old building with all these earned income streams that we were just developing one after the other. And now the shoe is on the other foot.''
Young was referring to a funding strategy he helped develop in the 1980s that relied on ticket sales, merchandise, a record label (CMF Records) that reissues archival recordings, a book imprint, Hatch Show Print, special events and licensing fees.
It was an unusual model for museums then, but one that many have since followed.
Earned income accounts for about 96% of revenue. The rest is ''contributed income'' from gifts, memberships and grants from organizations such as the Tennessee Arts Commission, the Metro Nashville Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts.
That proportion is skewed when compared with other museums. On average, museums derive only about 30% of their revenue from earned income and the rest is contributed, according to the American Association of Museums' 2003 Financial Information Survey.
But an over-reliance on ticket and merchandise sales makes the Hall's income stream susceptible to fluctuations in the economy and the tourism industry.
Five years ago, when the new building was being drawn up, planners projected yearly attendance of 500,000 visitors. But no one could have predicted the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks just four months after the new building opened or the economic fallout that affected tourism and spending nationwide.
Last year, total attendance was 296,000, and it's running about the same this year, Young said.
''Obviously, those projections went out the window,'' he said. ''Things changed drastically because of the economic downturn, 9/11. You don't want to lose sight of the challenging times we're in.''
Ultimately, the hall would like to build a $40 million endowment, interest from which would help cover the $1.6 million annual mortgage payment, along with expanding programming and helping to pay for conservation. The hall has never sought out major gifts beyond the capital campaign for the new building, which netted $15 million, and corporate sponsorships.
''An endowment is the centerpiece of contributed income,'' Young said. ''We know that eventually we need it in order to ensure financial stability, so we can continue to maintain the archives and continue to increase our educational programming.''
Young, who took the helm of the CMF when Bill Ivey left to head up the National Endowment for the Arts in 1998, has devoted his entire career — some say, his life — to the Hall.
Not a businessman by training, Young nevertheless spearheaded many of the hall's profitable ventures, but he is most animated when talking about music and the hall's educational mission. He wants more childrens' programs, more concerts, more interactive displays, to digitize the collection.
The hall spends about 17% of operating revenue — about $1.4 million — on education, compared with an average of 5% for museums nationwide.
Young speaks proudly of the Hall's status as one of about 750 accredited museums in the United States. And of the 12,000 museums nationwide, it is the only accredited museum devoted to music.
Accreditation involves meeting professional standards and practices set by the AAM, including mission, governance structure, finance and administration, interpretation and presentation, and stewardship of the collection. The Hall's performance in each area undergoes periodic review by the AAM.
The hall also wants to boost local residents' interest and participation.
In the Music Row location, about 1% of visitors were local. And while that number is up to nearly 13% in the new building, a market survey commissioned last year by the hall showed that 39% of locals say they have no interest in visiting.
Fleming plans to launch a membership program at the end of the summer that might attract more Nashvillians who balk at the $15.95 admission price.
The hall has never pushed membership because it didn't have the infrastructure to service memberships, Fleming said. But it's a strategy that has paid off for Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, which has 17,000 members who pay $50 or more for a year's admission and other benefits.
''They really become connected with the museum emotionally,'' said Todd Mesek, director of marketing and communications in Cleveland. ''They feel a sense of ownership, and they become ambassadors for us. There are people … I don't know their names but I recognize them. They're at every event. It becomes an extension of themselves.''
The rock hall also courts locals by rotating exhibits frequently, holding $5 concerts, bringing in speakers such as musician Graham Nash and sponsoring a variety of special events.
Some of those events, like an MTV concert series, festivals and free days for residents, are things that Nashville's Young says he'd like to do.
''It's a pretty steep hill to climb because of the perception of the old building and what it was,'' he said. ''We do a great job marketing the place as an attraction, which the city loves because we are an economic engine.
''But it is incumbent on us to educate locals about who we are — the fact that we are a serious museum, the fact that we do great family programs, school programs, more public programming in general that was not in the old building,'' Young said. ''Once we do that, they will understand that this museum is important to the community and a great local history museum.''
A major new exhibit debuting next spring could help.
Night Train to Nashville: Music City Rhythm & Blues 1945-1970 focuses on a little-known chapter in Nashville's history when R&B artists such as Little Richard, Jimi Hendrix, Etta James, Arthur Gunter and Gene Allison recorded here.
R&B singer-songwriters like Jimmy Sweeney collaborated with Music Row musicians like Hank Garland, Boudleaux Bryant and Floyd Cramer. Joe Simon turned Nashville songs into soul hits. (The Chokin' Kind was written by Harlan Howard.)
For part of that time, Nashville was still segregated and the record industry was still marketing Southern recordings as either ''Race'' or ''Hill Billy'' music. Night Train to Nashville will show how blacks and whites broke through color barriers through music, Young said, and there will be a full complement of public programs and performances, as well as reissues of historic recordings and publications.
The exhibit will run for 18 months.
''Being down here, right in the heart of the city, we feel obligated to be a part of the community in the way all good museums are,'' Young said. ''It's very important that we work hard to become part of the city's psyche, for the community to see us as a valuable resource.
''We have a lot of opportunities because of the place, because of the size. It's a new day.''
What’s in the vault?
While the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum has 750,000 items in its collection, only a small percentage will be seen by the public.
Most collectibles are stored in the hall's 7,000-square-foot archive space, known as the ''attic,'' in the center of the building or in a nearby east Nashville warehouse. Some items may be rotated through the museum's exhibits.
Some may never be seen.
Among the attic's contents are:
• The wedding dress, veil and tiara of Billie Jean Williams, Hank Williams' last wife.
• A rocking chair belonging to Hank Snow made entirely out of cattle horns and cowhide.
• The session sheet for James Brown's studio recording of Sex Machine.
• 500 fiddles, mandolins and guitars.
• 28,000 acetate 78 rpm recordings and 65,000 vinyl 45 rpm records.
• Les Paul's prototype for the solid body electric guitar. It is nicknamed ''The Log'' because Paul crafted it with a two-by-four.
• A cowboy boot covered with macaroni noodles and spray-painted gold – made by a fan as a gift for Little Jimmy Dickens.
• A silver bust of ''Colonel Tom'' Parker — manager of Elvis Presley, Eddy Arnold and Hank Snow.
• A well-worn saddle given to George Strait by his record label.
• Recordings of the Everly Brothers' hit Cathy's Clown — in French.
• Dozens of file cabinets containing the entire Acuff-Rose song library — on loan from Sony.
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Janice "Busgal" Brooks
ICQ 44729047
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