ERIN MENDENHALL BEN KOLENDAR MAYOR DIRECTOR EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, RDA
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
CITY COUNCIL TRANSMITTAL
Lisa Shaffer (Aug 4, 2021 14:35 MDT) Date Received: 08/04/2021 Lisa Shaffer, Chief Administrative Officer Date sent to Council: 8/12/2021
TO: Salt Lake City Council DATE: August 4, 2021 Amy Fowler, Chair
FROM: Benjamin Kolendar, Director, Department of Economic Development
SUBJECT: Cultural Core (The Blocks) Year 4 Overview and Year 5 Budget Plan
STAFF CONTACTS: Felicia Baca, [email protected], 385-256-5588
DOCUMENT TYPE: Written Briefing
RECOMMENDATION: n/a
BUDGET IMPACT: n/a COORDINTATION: The Blocks, Salt Lake County Arts & Culture
BACKGROUND/DISCUSSION:
In 2010, the City and County of Salt Lake formed a partnership to promote and develop arts and culture in the Cultural Core and established a taxing district to provide a reliable revenue source for a 20-year period. In 2011, a series of community conversations with stakeholders established foundational goals for the plan including creative placemaking - physical development of the district, and Creative programming - marketing, promotions, and audience development. The City and County’s Interlocal Agreement for the Cultural Core is governed by a six-member advisory Budget Committee, with direct oversight from City and County staff. A public RFP process resulted in a 5-year contract with Downtown SLC Presents (The Blocks) which is active through July 2022. The annual appropriation from Salt Lake City (approved for FY22) is $250,000 with Salt Lake County also contributing $250,000 annually. This briefing on budget and plans is a requirement of the Interlocal Agreement.
Additionally, the County Council has since voted in favor of restored funding for year 5 of the contract, after a temporary pause in year 4 due to the economic effects of COVID-19.
4 YEAR PERFORMANCE AND YEAR 5 PLAN The Cultural Core Budget Committee has reviewed and approved the plans and budget for Year Five of the Cultural Core initiative which is part of the approved FY22 budget. Below is an executive summary of year-4 performance and year-5 plans.
From Lucas Goodrich, The Blocks, Program Director
YEAR-4: July 1, 2020 through June 30, 2021 Though campaign tactics, placement, timing, and format was adjusted due to the pandemic, THE BLOCKS continued to heavily invest in marketing and promoting arts and culture programming in the cultural core. During the pandemic a specific focus was put on digital ads, social media, and online and streaming content. These efforts resulted in consistent growth of public awareness of cultural offerings, THE BLOCKS programming, and drove a 525,000 increase in total campaign impressions year over year. Total campaign impressions in year 4 came in at 24,841,816.
Success was validated with data collected through our website, media partners and social media channels as well as feedback from the creative community, the Cultural Core Arts Advisory Committee, and venues. THE BLOCKS worked hard to highlight the people, spaces, places, and opportunities to engage with the arts during the closure of key venues. Video shoots at UMOCA and Fice Alley that were then shared online, increased physical banners across our city, and highlighting artists and arts groups that were reimagining programming during the pandemic, increased brand awareness and gained market share for THE BLOCKS.
THE BLOCKS invested in placemaking, programming and partnerships to reinforce downtown as the cultural core of the intermountain west. We continued to invest in THE BLOCKS Public Art and Mural Trail app with videos, photos and artist information on over 60 pieces of public art and murals within THE BLOCKS. We recently added County venues to the app and are working to add additional venues as well as place QR code stickers in all cultural core venues. These efforts resulted in a 25% growth of new and returning users to our app. We invested in street pole banners to promote organizations producing programming within the cultural core and partnered with the Utah Cultural Alliance on a campaign aimed at reigniting visibility for arts, culture, and entertainment.
As venues shuttered and programs and events were cancelled or postponed, we quickly repurposed our Main Street Kiosks. These kiosks provide more than $80,000 in advertising value each year for cultural core programmers. Rather than keep the windows bare, we created Exhibitions on Main, an opportunity for artists to showcase their bodies of work. This was an opportunity to increase the visibility, quality, and quantity of visual art in our city. This new program featured artists from across Salt Lake City. Year over year we doubled the number of direct artist support to over 200 artists, makers, and creators creating content downtown.
Last Hurrah, an annual legacy event was reimagined as a hybrid event with in-person and online participation opportunities. Over 600 attendees in person and 3000 viewers tuned in via YouTube. Going forward we hope to keep the online streaming component to more broadly share the opportunity. Locally Made, Locally Played, a new partnership with KUAA radio to feature local musicians was created. This program, airing twice a week, reached viewers internationally, nationally, and throughout our state. 48% of listeners tuned in from Salt Lake City. Large scale art installations were brought to the Gallivan Center. These installations were especially popular during the holidays. Combined efforts with downtown holiday lighting drove audiences to the cultural core. Finally, Open Streets was piloted in the fall. The closure of Main Street, creating a pedestrian promenade and allowing businesses to expand their premises to safely serve additional customers was a huge success. THE BLOCKS programmed heavily during the event and were proud to not only feature the breadth and depth of our creative community, but to provide an opportunity for artists from across the county to showcase their talents. For a majority of them this was their first paid performance since the pandemic broke out. We continued our outreach and engagement with arts and culture stakeholders and identified needs within the creative community so that we may provide targeted marketing and promotion support and programming and event support. This outreach also enabled us to shore up our physical assets so that programmers and organizations have the needed materials to produce events and programs. Utah Arts and Museums, the State’s art agency, was very helpful in connecting us with additional local arts agencies that previously had not engaged with THE BLOCKS.
Year-5: July 1, 2021 through June 30, 2022
Though programming within Salt Lake’s Cultural Core was significantly impacted due to COVID-19, reactivation is quickly taking place. Continued investment in the individuals, organizations, and venues programming in the core continues to be a priority. We will focus efforts on building audiences and growing awareness of the vast arts, culture, and entertainment opportunities in THE BLOCKS.
Not only is it vital to the creative community and the substantial legacy of world class offerings, itis crucial to the economic vibrancy of our City, County, and entire state. Throughout the pandemic, the creative community showed their ability to innovate, reimagine offerings, and find impactful and meaningful ways to ensure the rich artistic and cultural heritage is maintained. These efforts will continue to be supported by THE BLOCKS in year 5 and beyond. In year 5 THE BLOCKS will focus on promoting existing arts organizations’ programming and investing in placemaking throughout the cultural core. Our marketing and promotion strategies will continue to target audiences across the County, State, and Intermountain west. As more and more organizations recognize the viability of online content and virtual programming, we will continue to invest in photographic and video assets. This will ensure not only a rich asset bank for use in our ongoing promotions and marketing campaigns, but will help THE BLOCKS and the creative community have a greater online presence.
Program and event expenses are focused on increasing artist opportunities, supplementing existing arts organization programming, working closely with arts organizations to curate content and offerings, audience development, and providing opportunities for our creative community to program through the continuation of various placemaking projects and strategic deployments of the BLOCKS Truck and assets.
THE BLOCKS moved quickly to adapt over the last 18 months and reimagined much of what we do. We emerged out of this pandemic better than when we went in and gained market share through our marketing and promotion efforts. We also achieved growth in partnerships, artist support, programming. The work completed, investments made and overall impact in year four of THE BLOCKS have had great support from our creative community stakeholders, Cultural Core Budget Committee Representatives, downtown businesses and audiences. THE BLOCKS reach, brand awareness, and overall impact continues to grow and the implementation of the Cultural Core Master Plan is on target. The partnerships that have been forged will continue to strengthen and grow, creating exciting opportunities for Arts and Culture to flourish and guide THE BLOCKS over the coming years. Thank you for your support.
Attachments:
Cultural Core Year 4 Overview Year 5 Budget and Plan Year 5 Cultural Core Proposed Budget (City & County) Year 5 Cultural Core Salt Lake City Budget
Cultural Core Year 4 Overview & Year 5 Budget and Plan
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The Cultural Core Budget Committee has reviewed and approved the plans and budget for year-five of the Cultural Core Initiative.
Year 5 Cultural Core Operating Budget: $535,000
Personnel: $200,000* Marketing and Promotion: $200,000 Programming: $103,000 Office & Administrative: $32,000
*80 percent of personnel expenses are programmatic
Personnel, Office & Administration $232,000 PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT & ARTS GROUP ENGAGEMENT: 47% (Planning, placemaking, events operations)
PROMOTIONS: 33% (Advertising, Website, social media, ad agency management)
ADMINISTRATION: 20% (Accounting, meeting management, compliance and contractor management)
Marketing and Promotion: $200,000
Program Advertising $96,000 Web and mobile ads, social media, broadcast media, outdoor advertising
Content Production $104,000 Photographic and video assets, blogs, social media content 24.8 million campaign impressions since July 2020 525,000 increase over same period in 2019!
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30 blog posts this year
With 7,500 views on average
If you've ever strolled downtown New Orleons, Nashville or Son Francisco, you're aware of how street performers-aka buskers-add 0 to the cultural richness of those cities. This weekend, Salt Lake's heart will thrum with a similar energy when more than 60 buskers BLOGdescend on downtown as part of the third annual #’s SLC Busker Fest.
"The lineup of performers for this year's event is really the best we've had," says Kim
Angeli, owner of Primrose Productions, SLC Busker Fest presenter, which was held previously in 2018 and 2019. "I think it will not only be on amazing experience for attendees but a really valuable learning experi ence for local talent as well."
Singing and/or playing an instrument is probably the most common form of busking But the really cool port about !..!:ll.i~ is how much more diverse its genres tend to be compared to what you'd typically see in a brick-and-mortar setting. In addition to musicians and vocalists, performers booked for SLC Busker Fest include sword swallowers, puppeteers, aerialists, mimes, jugglers, hula hoopers, lassoists, comedians and magicians
Radio ads drove an 18.5% increase in website traffic
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KUAA LAA,,tAH 99.IFII ~ D YouTube
103.9 9 Kvnu 610 AM • 102.1 FM Locally Made, Locally Played
Partnership with KUAA
52 live shows
52 artists and arts groups
40% of listeners were outside Salt Lake City, but within Salt Lake County
Programmatic Expenses $103,000
EVENTS: $36,000 Urban Plein Air, Open Streets, Last Hurrah
PROGRAMS: $30,000 Main Street Kiosks, Exhibitions on Main, support for artists, Mural Trail, Locally Made, Locally Played
PROJECTS: $20,000 Busking initiatives, temporary art installations
ADDITIONAL SPENDING: $17,000 THE BLOCKS truck, cube activations, artist supplies, asset maintenance Main Street Kiosks
Y4 Overview
➔ Advertised 20+ events, and programs = $80,000 in advertising value
Y5 Vision
➔ Promote 40+ programs ➔ Outdoor Exhibition Gallery ➔ Mural Trail QR code promos
'Raytures of Inaia '.Bfiaratanatyam dancer 'veena '.By 'Durga 'Ekam6aram
I believe that any form of art is a n exp re ss io n of unspoken words. My art ist ic pursu it s s t arte d at a young age, admiring and lea rni ng from my Bh;1r.it;m iltyiil m is iil n ilncie nt moth e r, who is an art is t in India. I der ive dilnce form niltive ta the inspiratio n from anyth in g and everythin g around stat • of Tamil Na du in southern Ind ia . It is one of me. My work inclu d es drawing, paint i ng, mixed the old @st dance fo rms in me dia, and chalk art. I lo ve to express my et hnicity In dia. Th• danc a rs depict an d culture through my art. I be lie ve art evolves ri!'li,ious thl!'mes and as a person evo lves in life. Creativity is a paralle l spiritual idl!'as, usin, universe , where expre ssion s cannot be contained symbols and facial •xpr ■11ion1. Th• psturas by hurd les of the rea l world. The harmo ny I used in Bha 111bina ty.llm ara e xperie nce betwee n the brush and my fi nge rs callad Mudru. TMda nc■ra while creating my work al ways gives me joy and p4irform to th■ C..rniltlc sat isfact io n, As an arti st, I fe e l that there is style of music. orchnnt.d nothing mo re gratifying than watching paint dry. bylnstrurn■nts suc:h •• Vlolln, Vn na, •nd
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" Kiilt h.ikilli" is iln lndiiln dance form that falls under the st ary plily 1enre . Kiilthiilkilli orililineted ln the 17th century and has its roots in Hindu mytho lo c:ies . It is performed predomina ntly in th• b@a ut iful st,11t• of Ku • l,111 in South India . This art form is uniqu• 1y distingu is h• d by th ■ colorful m,11ke-up, costum•s, ,1nd face mHks worn by the
-1rtists, Typic -1lly, ,1 Kiilt h-1k ii1l i traupe tilkes severill haur s to prepiilre fo r iii pley, I n t he olden diilys, the performencas stilrted ilt dusk and cont inued throu1h dawn. The modern kathakali nl!!! perfor mances ■ much "The My5,0re Palaceu is o ne of th e most beaut ifu l pa laces in Ind ia. This palace is kx ate d in the city of shorter. Myso re. Mysore is popularly known as t he '"City of Pa lace s".The domes in t he pa la ce .ire built in the "l ndo-S arace nic." style . This is a ble nd of I ndia n a nd Goth ic .styles . The pala£e is en tir e ly lit duri ng the Dasara fest ival e ach year. The beautiful archite cture of this palace draws more t ha n 6 millio n visitors eac:h year. Gallivan Installations
Direct Artist Support
Y4 Overview
➔ 200 artists and arts groups ➔ 100% year-over-year increase
Y5 VISION
➔ Maintain direct support ➔ Increase partnerships and programs Public Art and Mural Trail
Y4 Overview
➔ 65 murals featured on app ➔ 25 % increase in users :ast West Central The Gateway County Venues ➔ County venue pages added •
Y5 VISION
➔ Add new works ➔ Increase awareness ➔ QR code stickers in venue windows
The Rose was born from a dream by the Performing Arts Coalition, a group of local arts organizations in 1997. The Rose is a vibrant, active hub for emerging and established artists and arts. Performances range from edgy to elegant and provocative to traditional. In addition, the Rose is an active film venue, hosting Utah Film
Year 5 Cultural Core Operating Budget: $535,000
Personnel: $200,000* Marketing and Promotion: $200,000 Programming: $103,000 Office & Administrative: $32,000
*80 percent of personnel expenses are programmatic
QUESTIONS?
Cultural Core Action Plan Implementation and Management Services Contract No. 08-1-17-9279
THE Downtown SLC Presents Year Five Contractor Services for: July 1, 2021 - June 30, 2022 BLOCKS SALT LAKE'S CULTURAL CORE
Year 5 Disbursement Request: $500,000
$250,000 Salt Lake City
$250,000 Salt Lake County
Year 4 Carryover: $35,000
Year 5 Budget: $535,000
PERSONNEL EXPENSES: $200,000
PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT & ARTS GROUP ENGAGEMENT: Planning, placemaking, events operations
PROMOTIONS: Advertising, website, social media, ad agency management, content development
OFFICE & ADMINISTRATIVE EXPENSES: $32,000
ADMINISTRATION: Rent and shared services, office supplies, accounting, budget preparation, meeting management, compliance and contractor management
MARKETING & PROMOTION EXPENSES: $200,000 Marketing expenses July 1, 2021 - June 30, 2022 are focused on promoting existing arts organization programming through the continuation of digital, broadcast, print, environmental and outdoor/transit advertising. The continuation of an innovative arts coverage program is also planned and budgeted. There are also investments for the continuation of capturing photographic and video assets to build a rich asset bank for use in our ongoing promotions and marketing campaigns.
PROGRAM ADVERTISING: A. Digital Advertising (Display & Mobile) - $45,000 B. Social media content-Haley - $8,500 C. Reactivation Projects-Emphasis on Placemaking - $8,000 D. Broadcast Media - $12,000 E. Salt Lake Tribune Arts Coverage: Previews, Reviews and Articles - $22,500 CONTENT PRODUCTION: F. Photographic and Video assets - $15,000 a. $7,500 earmarked for Reactivation Projects-Emphasis on Placemaking G. Benchmark Report and Research Survey - $8,000 H. Agency Fees - $60,000 I. Blog/Content Production-Melissa- $16,500 J. Liiingo Hosting - $4500
PROGRAMMATIC EXPENSES: $103,000 Programmatic expenses July 1, 2021 - June 30, 2022 are focused on supplementing existing arts organization programming and audience development and providing opportunities for our creative community to program in THE BLOCKS. Funding for direct artist payments and interactions are prioritized.
EVENTS: $36,000.00 A. Urban Plein Air 2022 B. Open Streets #3 C. Last Hurrah 2021 D. State of Downtown 2021
PROGRAMS: $30,000.00 A. Supplemental Support for Artists and Arts Groups B. Main Street Kiosks - Advertising C. Main Street Kiosk Artwork D. Exhibitions on Main E. Public Art and Mural Trail F. Locally Made, Locally Played
PROJECTS: $20,000.00 A. Busking initiatives B. Temporary Arts Installations
OTHER SPENDING: $17,000.00 A. Artist Cubes B. THE BLOCKS Truck / Assets C. Contractors D. Other expenses Cultural Core Action Plan Implementation and Management Services Contract No. 08-1-17-9279
THE Salt Lake City, Year 5 BLOCKS Downtown SLC Presents Year Five Contractor Services for: July 1, 2021 - June 30, 2022 SALT LAKE'S CULTURAL CORE
Year 5 Disbursement Request: $250,000
PERSONNEL, OFFICE & ADMINISTRATIVE EXPENSES: $98,500
PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT & ARTS GROUP ENGAGEMENT: Planning, placemaking, events operations
PROMOTIONS: Advertising, website, social media, ad agency management, content development
ADMINISTRATION: Rent and shared services, office supplies, accounting, budget preparation, meeting management, compliance and contractor management
MARKETING & PROMOTION EXPENSES: $100,000 Marketing expenses July 1, 2021 - June 30, 2022 are focused on promoting existing arts organization programming through the continuation of digital, broadcast, print, environmental and outdoor/transit advertising. The continuation of an innovative arts coverage program is also planned and budgeted. There are also investments for the continuation of capturing photographic and video assets to build a rich asset bank for use in our ongoing promotions and marketing campaigns.
PROGRAM ADVERTISING A. Digital Advertising (Display & Mobile) B. Social media content C. Reactivation Projects-Emphasis on Placemaking D. Broadcast Media E. Salt Lake Tribune Arts Coverage: Previews, Reviews and Articles
CONTENT PRODUCTION F. Photographic and Video assets G. Benchmark Report and Research Survey H. Agency Fees I. Blog/Content Production J. Liiingo Hosting PROGRAMMATIC EXPENSES: $51,500 Programmatic expenses July 1, 2021 - June 30, 2022 are focused on supplementing existing arts organization programming and audience development and providing opportunities for our creative community to program in THE BLOCKS. Funding for direct artist payments and interactions are prioritized.
EVENTS A. Urban Plein Air 2022 B. Open Streets #3 C. Last Hurrah 2021
PROGRAMS A. Supplemental Support for Artists and Arts Groups B. Main Street Kiosks - Advertising C. Main Street Kiosk Artwork D. Exhibitions on Main E. Public Art and Mural Trail F. Locally Made, Locally Played
PROJECTS A. Busking initiatives B. Temporary Arts Installations
OTHER SPENDING A. Artist Cubes B. THE BLOCKS Truck / Assets C. Contractors D. Other expenses
*The Cultural Core Budget Committee has approved the above budget and disbursement.