BY MICHELLE L. QUINN, Post-Tribune correspondent
GARY -- Substantial budget cuts in arts programs everywhere around the state are requiring those programs to come up with new ways to bring in eyeballs to their works, and young people could be the biggest help in that revival.
A particularly jarring cut comes courtesy of the General Assembly, artists and arts program directors learned Friday during the fourth annual South Shore Arts Regional Summit at Indiana University Northwest.
Funding for arts programs has been cut by 20 percent over the next two years, to $3.2 million from $4 million, said keynote speaker Michelle Anderson, deputy director for the Indiana Arts Commission.
As a result, programs everywhere, including the Northwest Indiana Symphony, have had to become creative in both cutting their budgets to keep things going as well as bringing people out to patronize, South Shore Arts executive director John Cain said. A panel later in the conference detailed successful tactics groups everywhere can use.
Appealing to youth -- especially "Gen Xers," who are highly gadget-oriented -- is one way to engage a new group of patrons. Tetia Lee, executive director for the Tippencanoe Arts Federation based in Lafayette, thinks the demographic has been poorly served thus far.
Using social networking sites like Facebook are an invaluable tool in reaching that group, Lee said, as is asking for their guidance in getting them engaged. For example, Tippecanoe Arts Federation enlisted the help of Purdue University marketing students to find out how to get the college population to make the 15-minute trek to downtown Lafayette from campus.
"Young people have always learned that going to the theater or other art event requires them to file in quietly facing one direction, then sitting facing one direction without having to talk, then filing out after it's over, and that's not how they want to interact," Lee said.
Putting a less high-brow spin on programs like the symphony also help entice a new demographic, said Lee Bauman, executive director for the LaPorte County Symphony. "Beer, Brats and Bach" has been a successful event for them.
"You have a woman who wants to go to the symphony, but perhaps her husband doesn't know what to expect. Then he finds out he can drink beer and eat a brat, and he discovers a new experience," she said.
Others, like Charlie Blum of the Radisson Hotel at Star Plaza, use more cutting-edge ideas. And nothing is off limits. "We've been known to place ads for acts like Bobby Vinton in the obituaries because that's where older people are reading," he said.