After the excitement of conference the ABO team have been enjoying some holiday, but during March we still found time to meet with the following people: Migration Advisory Committee; PWC/Philanthropy Working Group; Mark Phillips, HMI; Sean Gregory, Guildhall School of Music & Drama; iTunes; Edward Blakeman, BBC Radio 3; Pauline Johnson, Surrey University; Jonathan Gruber, Ulysses Arts; DHA Communications; the Sustainable Touring Steering Group; Claire Mera-Nelson, Trinity Laban; Stephen Timms MP; Newham Academy of Music. Mark attended the Culture and Politics event at Kings Place and the NCA Hustings, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra conference, and Alex Ross's RPS lecture, and with Fiona attended the Mayor's Music Education Policy launch and the MEC. Jenny and Orla attended a YPIA meeting and the IAMA pre-conference launch, and various members of the team attended concerts by OAE, CLS, BBC Concert Orchestra, LPO's The Band and the Philharmonia at Classic FM Live.
 

The following Specialist Manager Meetings will take place this Spring:

13 April: Archivists' Meeting, Birmingham Conservatoire, Birmingham
15 April: Welsh Members' Meeting, Hoddinott Hall, WMC, Cardiff
21 April: Digital Managers' Meeting, LSO Bonhill Street, London
5 May: Finance Managers' Meeting, SOLT / TMA, London
7 May: Marketing Networking Meeting, Royal Over-Seas League, London
13 May: Education Managers' Meeting, Barbican Centre, London
18 May: Development & Sponsorship Managers' Meeting, Wigmore Hall, London
26 May: Chamber Orchestra Managers' Meeting, Cadogan Hall, London
9 June: Concert & Orchestra Managers' Meeting, Wigmore Hall, London

If you or a colleague would like to attend one of these meetings please log on to the Members Area of the ABO website and then click on Events and book the relevant Specialist Manager Meeting.
 

Dates for our summer series of Brass Tacks will appear on our website as soon as these are confirmed.

www.london.gov.uk/node/5334/

The £100,000 Mayor's Music Education fund announced as part of the programme will operate as a grant programme, which will open in May 2010 and cover projects in the academic year September 2010 - July 2011. The fund will be administered by the GLA in partnership with the Federation of Music Services - London (FMS) and Association of British Orchestras (ABO). Music services and ABO members are invited to register their interest in applying to this fund by emailing rhythmoflondon@london.gov.uk  
 

 For information about the Mayor's priorities for culture more broadly please visit www.london.gov.uk/priorities/art-culture/cultural-metropolis  
 

The League of American Orchestras is pleased to offer Association of British Orchestra members a special discounted registration rate for the League’s National Conference in Atlanta- June 16-19, 2010. To register and receive your special registration rate of just $450, please go to https://www.registrationheadquarters.com/events/?3e717b41b8b44e54aabe50bc459e5794a and enter the discount code EUROPE on the first page.

This year’s Conference will continue what we started last year: frank, open discussions about the state of the economy, the importance of our communities, and most notably, envisioning the future of orchestras. We hope to see you in Atlanta to be part of the conversation. Please visit americanorchestras.org (http://www.americanorchestras.org/conference_2010) for more information.

Arts Council England has made one more round of awards from its £40 million Sustain fund for organisations under pressure as a result of the recession. Successful applicants include ABO members English National Ballet, Opera North and Northern Ballet Theatre. Further details can be found here.

The Government has confirmed the next steps in realising the ambition for every child and young person to experience at least five hours of high-quality cultural activities each week. This will transform the way in which youngsters relate to culture and the arts, and lay the foundations for future generations of creativity and cultural excellence.

A policy paper “A Place for Culture: Towards a local culture offer for all children and young people” published on 1st April, looks at what has been achieved so far and spells out ambitions for the future. Over the past 5 years there has been a huge investment in cultural education, with over £570m between 2008-2009, revised secondary programmes of study since 2007 covering art, literature, music and drama, an area of learning on understanding the arts in the new primary curriculum, as well as more and more primary school children getting the chance to learn an instrument.

The paper sets out the ways in which the DCMS will now make the offer universal by mainstreaming it into schools and local authorities, based on the learning from the successful Find Your Talent programme. This will include a review conducted by the Arts Council of its support for the delivery of the cultural offer. The paper is available at: http://www.culture.gov.uk/images/publications/place_for_culture.pdf

Some of Britain's leading cultural and heritage organisations have joined together for the first time to launch their vision for the future in the document, Cultural Capital: A Manifesto for the Future.

The publication shows how investing in culture and heritage can help Britain's social and economic recovery from recession. It demonstrates with facts and figures that a fifteen-year period of investment has created a public appetite for culture that continues to grow, and that the arts, heritage, museums, libraries and archives make a strong contribution to the economic and social wellbeing of Britain.

The Cultural Capital manifesto can be read here.
 

The Private Sector Policy for the Arts launched today (Tuesday 23rd March) by Arts & Business calls for urgent new initiatives that will quickly boost the fundraising performance of the whole sector, ensuring a greater return on public spend and see a target of £1 billion in private sector investment reached.
 

 Colin Tweedy, Chief Executive of Arts & Business, said: “Our priority recommendations will encourage greater innovation, enterprise and creativity in fundraising and donor-relations. They will yield a decisive return on investment for public funds over one parliamentary term. Time is not on our side. The overriding aim for cultural policy must be to impact more quickly on the ability of the whole arts sector to transform their capacity to generate and sustain private funds.”
 

 “The artistic successes of the last decade have been driven by the deeply interdependent nature of the arts economy. The healthy levels of public funding secured quality for the sector, allowing arts organisations to attract increasing visitor numbers (and earned income), which in turn has encouraged further private investment (sponsorship and philanthropy) thus enabling further growth and consolidation. This three-legged tripod mixed economy model is under threat. This policy is designed to reboot and rewire it.”
 

The five priority recommendations of Arts & Business’ Private Sector Policy for the Arts are:

1. A new Challenge Fund Scheme to stimulate individual philanthropy for the Arts
2. A Legacy Campaign for the Arts
3. A Campaign to increase Cultural Philanthropy from the financial sector and wider business community
4. A Matching Grant Programme to stimulate business sponsorship of the Arts
5. Tax reforms to underpin a vibrant arts mixed economy.

Tweedy continues: “This private sector policy is also a call to action for businesses, their employees and individuals alike – for sponsorship and philanthropy to work hand-in-hand for the benefit of the arts and wider society. We all need their skills and finance, but also their hearts and minds.”

To read the full document, please visit:
http://www.artsandbusiness.org.uk/News/2010/private-sector-policy-for-the-arts/index.aspx

Arts Council England’s new report, Arts engagement in England 2008/09, provides figures on overall levels of engagement with the arts in England, with breakdowns by key demographic groups and levels of attendance at and participation in individual artforms.
 

 For the first time we also report on how people rate their arts experiences and on overall attitudes to the arts. We find that:
 

 • people rate their arts experiences very highly, with 86% of arts attenders rating their last experience as seven or higher out of 10, 77% planning to attend again and 75% recommending the event to others
• the most common motivations for engaging with the arts are fun and entertainment, bringing colour and excitement to life and the opportunity to spend time with friends and family
• there is evidence of both psychological and practical barriers to the arts, with 26% of people agreeing that 'the arts are not for people like me' and 20% feeling that they do not have opportunities to get involved with the arts

The full report is available on the Arts Council website.
 

Seven major co-commissioning projects, involving organisations from across the UK including ABO members, have been awarded funding in the first edition of the PRS Foundation’s Beyond Borders scheme. This partnership between PRSF, Scottish Arts Council, Arts Council Wales and Arts Council of Northern Ireland will help to create seven exciting new musical works as well as encouraging cross-border co-operation across the British Isles. Find out what the projects are

EUCLID has announced the next series of their popular and informative CulturEuro seminars:

• Newcastle, Civic Centre, 6 April
• Nottingham, Holiday Inn Express, 8 April
• Norwich, The Garage, 20 April
• Brighton, The Lighthouse, 22 April
• Edinburgh, Scottish Arts Council, 6 May
• Cardiff, Local Government Data Centre, 18 May
• Belfast, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, 15 June

Seminars will run from 1.30 to 4.30 pm, and the cost is £78 (no VAT). Delegates will receive a comprehensive information pack. Full information and booking details can be found at www.cultureuro.info

Wednesday, 14 April 2010, Cadogan Hall, London, SW1X 9DQ

supported by Blackbaud

£130 + VAT: ABO member rate

No one can deny that it has been a challenging 18 months for everyone, particularly for the arts and entertainments industry. Whilst the country has taken an economic pounding theatres have shown great resilience and ingenuity and have worked hard to buck the trend of recession. But what of the future, how will the next 12 to 18 months pan out and how can you ensure that you are getting the most out of each and every ticket sale?

To book your place please email seamus@solttma.co.uk  

This one day seminar will look in detail at ticketing and pricing structures, what strategies you can use when setting ticket prices and how audience booking behaviour can change during the various stages of a recession. Through a series of presentations and panel discussion, industry experts will explore their experiences to provide you with guidance to help you make an informed decision in the future. The day will include sessions on:

The Price is Right? Tim Baker of Baker Richards will ask if we are getting the maximum income potential from ticket sales. Do ticket prices reflect the true value of the products on sale and are discounts being offering to the very customers who are most able to pay? He will look at ways to adjust prices in response to actual sales patterns.

Hard Times? Arts consultant Heather Maitland will examine the impact of the recession on audiences for the arts. Why were ticket sales at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe up on last year? Did other festivals do so well? For many of our attenders, visitors and participants, monthly mortgage repayments are down. But what are they doing with the extra money in their pockets? And how does the threat of redundancy affect their leisure choices?

Concessions, are they needed? James Blackman, Director of Strategy & Communications, Lyric Hammersmith will talk us through the Lyric’s new ticket pricing, which has done away with the ‘concessionary’ ticket and replaced it with a fixed pricing structure.

The day will be chaired by Simon Drysdale of Impact Distribution Services. More guests and sessions to be confirmed in the coming weeks.

To book your place please email seamus@solttma.co.uk

The Hallé is delighted to announce that Andrew Gourlay has been appointed Assistant Conductor and will take up his post in September 2010.

Philip Flood, Head of LSO Discovery, London Symphony Orchestra has been appointed as the new Director of Sound Connections and will begin in this position at the beginning of next month.

Charlotte Spencer has been appointed the new Head of Development at Manchester Camerata. Charlotte was previously the Camerata’s Head of Learning and Participation and will be assisted by Development Manager Matthew Freeman. Nick Ponsillo, previously the Orchestra’s Chester Festivals’ Project Manager, will take over as the new Head of Learning and Participation.

Nick Jackman, has been appointed successor to Emma O’Connell as Development Director at the London Philharmonic Orchestra.