Spanish lessons

There are many wonderful things about living part-time in Madrid: there’s the climate, there’s the food and wine, and it’s great to be paid in Euros. Best of all is the opportunity to be involved with the most exciting cultural project I have ever come across. ARTeria (‘artery’) is a network of 14 multi-space, multi-artform cultural centres in Spain, Latin America and New York (which is a majority Hispanic city). The cost of building, refurbishing and equipping these venues is around €400m – a sum which is already privately financed. It is the largest private cultural project in the history of Spain and Latin America. The physical network is mirrored by an online network, ARTeria Digital. The online and offline networks will promote engagement between artists, creators and audiences on a scale and in a manner hitherto unprecedented in Spain and Latin America, or indeed elsewhere.

ARTeria is a project of the Fundación Autor (FA), a not-for-profit organisation based in Madrid. FA’s parent, the Sociedad General de Autores y Editores (SGAE), is a membership organisation of around 90,000 creators, mainly in Spain and Latin America. The primary role of SGAE is the collection of royalty income for its members although, through the FA, it also engages in the promotion of the performing and audio visual arts. SGAE/FA has decided that the best way it can do this is by creating its own network of venues – this is ARTeria. The aims are: to promote Ibero-American performing and AV arts; to increase the offering from all parts of the world to the public in Spain and Latin America; to create an online network which reinforces the physical network; to develop new audiences; to increase the diversity of people attending cultural activities and the works presented; to nurture a new generation of creators; and to provide practical resources for creators.
It will have a profound impact on the use of a mixed economy business model to challenge the traditional dichotomy of subsidised vs commercial funding. ARTeria will challenge the traditional ‘Olympian’ idea that artists are gods who look down on us mortals from the heavens, a view still prevalent in Spain and Latin America, by placing the audience at the centre of the project. It will also integrate physical and digital spaces. Venues will be equipped with the latest technology in the areas of sound and lighting, flexible seating, high definition recording and broadcast equipment and IT for sales and venue management.
The Brits are coming
Why does such a powerful, ambitious, above all, Hispanic organisation find it helpful to import a Yorkshireman? Well, the model they have identified for ARTeria is that of the arts in the UK. It will receive some project-related grants from statutory sources, but no regular subsidy – it will have to earn the bulk of its own income from sales and from fundraising. Sound familiar? In the UK we have learned that sustainable revenue generation stems from taking our audiences seriously. ARTeria proposes to place the audience and creators on an equal footing at the core of what they do. Generally speaking, we Brits know how to achieve this, and, generally speaking, in Spain they don’t. In the past year, I and several other British arts professionals have engaged with ARTeria. Chris Denton of the Barbican Centre has helped create a brand for the project and is writing the global marketing strategy, Roger Tomlinson of ACT is advising on a centralised ticketing and Customer Relationship Management system, and David Duncan, also of the Barbican, is explaining the importance of customer experience. Others will follow very quickly; the project is large and the need for expertise very great.
My role in this is as a broker, identifying gaps in the operations of ARTeria and filling them with expertise, ensuring a transfer of knowledge. Happily, most of the people involved in the project speak very good English, and we also organise bilingual Spaniards with knowledge of the cultural sector for UK visitors who don’t speak Spanish. I guess that not everyone will like the idea of working in Spain or Latin America (too hot, too cold, foreign food, funny money, and the Guardian costs €3!). But those who do fancy giving it a go will have something to tell their grandchildren.

The Physical Project
• Seville – multi-purpose theatre with smaller theatre/cinema, rehearsal rooms, studios and meeting places.
• Barcelona – theatre with meeting and rehearsal rooms. Linked with nearby resources centre.
• Bilbao – refurbishment of historic theatre with multi-use space.
• Santiago de Compostela – study and resource centre with performance space.
• Boadilla (Madrid) – refurbishment of a C18th palace to create offices, a home for an existing archive of Spanish and Latin American sheet music and a theatre.
• Valencia – new indoor venue, 7,300 capacity outdoor arena. European campus for the Berklee College of Music, a USA music school.
• Mexico City – new build theatre with associated studios.
• Mexico City – study centre, rehearsal rooms and offices, performance space.
• Buenos Aires – theatre with two spaces.
• Buenos Aires – study centre, offices and cinema.
• Madrid – refurbishment of historic art cinema.
• Madrid – state of the art audio and video recording and production studios, rehearsal spaces.
• Las Palmas de Gran Canarias – study centre, rehearsal rooms, performance space.
• New York – new build theatre and multi-purpose space.
Discussions are underway for further venues in Latin American and Spanish cities, and in other countries too.c

The Digital Project
Before the web became a household word, the SGAE group created SDAE as its digital arm (the D stands for ‘digital’). They recognised that the Internet would create new opportunities for cultural distribution and engagement but, at the same time, would jeopardise the traditional means for creators to earn a living through royalties. SDAE was given two central tasks: digital rights management and helping the members of SGAE to generate revenue through the Internet. On the promotional side, SDAE created La Central Digital, a service which digitises audio and video material and distributes it via digital outlets such as iTunes, Napster, Last FM, etc., including mobile phone networks. Once the ARTeria venues are open, this service will take feeds of high definition recordings from the venues and make them available digitally – sometimes for simultaneous broadcast. Digital content will form one part of ARTeria Digital, the online manifestation of the ARTeria project. The vision of ARTeria Digital is as a meeting point for creators and audiences. It will offer ticketing, access to downloads, and an online shop, but it is also conceived as a social networking site. It will help the marketing of the venues and vice versa and amplify and strengthen the ARTeria brand.