For Immediate Release

June 26, 2008

Contact: Ross Moonie, rmoonie@gmail.com, 917-690-5713   

4,000 Participants - Representing All Performing Arts Disciplines - Converge on Denver for Successful National Performing Arts Convention

Highlights include:

• Daily caucuses and concluding Town Meeting produce vibrant, engaging and thoughtful discussion and future-focused priorities;
• Networking and industry-wide solutions shared across disciplines;
• Session programming well received;
• 'ArtsTown' includes 224 exhibitors and smART Bar overflows with more than 230 one-on-one consultations;
• More than 15,000 read the official blog 'Program Notes', based on key sessions, electronically sharing beyond the convention's walls.

June 26, 2008, (New York, NY) –  Organizers of the National Performing Arts Convention (NPAC) are pleased to announce that 4,000 people attended the Denver convening, held from June 10 to 14.  The convention succeeded in bringing together over 700 performing artists and members of 30 national arts service organizations: uniting the performing arts sector to tackle their shared challenges and learn best-practices from each other. 

The centerpiece of NPAC focused on the three daily caucuses - implemented by AmericaSpeaks - that blended thousands of people from dance, music, opera and theatre and concluded on the last day with the 21^st Century Town Meeting.  Through this process every convention participant was encouraged to make their voice heard to help create an agenda that would activate the performing arts community in America. 

1,235 conference attendees participated in the final Town Meeting and electronically voted on key recommendations, culling down the material from the previous caucuses.  "The quality, creativity and thoughtfulness of the participants' contributions were remarkable in these caucus sessions - across the performing arts industry," said Ann Meier Baker, co-chair of NPAC and President/CEO of Chorus America.  "I think everyone who participated was truly inspired and NPAC has helped establish clear priorities for action toward a stronger future for the performing arts in the United States - thanks to all their hard work."

"The Town Hall Meeting identified several themes from the voting process", added Marc A. Scorca, co-chair of NPAC and President/CEO of OPERA America, "Namely, increasing our partnerships with non-arts related organizations; raising the public visibility of the performing arts community and, identifying and sharing best practices. The national NPAC co-conveners look forward to collaborating as we address the priorities of advocacy, arts education and diversity for our field and our communities."  Summarized details of the Town Meeting outcomes can be found at the NPAC blog 'Program Notes': www.artsjournal.com/npac, where comment fields have continued the discussion. 

Nearly 100 speakers and presenters of note participated in the conference, including Opening plenary speakers Anna Deavere Smith, Bill Rauch of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Denver mayor John Hickenlooper; business guru Jim Collins, Baltimore Symphony music director Marin Alsop and Venezuelan music education phenomenon Jose Antonio Abreu; Pulitzer prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel and the current and former National Endowment for the Arts chairs Dana Gioia and Bill Ivey. These keynote speakers addressed the NPAC themes that resonated with all the participating art forms, namely: sustainability; the nurturing or artists; arts education for all; broadening participation; the role of public policy; collaboration and diversity. A full list of speakers and presenters can be found at www.performingartsconvention.org. 

Examples of some of the 100 sessions ranged from Taking Art Off the Shelf: Making the Arts Relevant Again to The Art of Living, or Living for Art: A Survival Guide for Individual Artists; from The Value of A Seat to Boomers: A Blooming Audience, or Fading Flowers in the Cultural Scene?; and from Playwriting Bootcamp to Fun with Critics.  For a full list of conference sessions, visit www.performingartsconvention.org. 

In addition to the wide variety of programming, the convention center's upper level was abuzz with ArtsTown and its 224 exhibitors, live performances, a smART Bar, "public library" and bookstore, POP Cyber Café and the U.S. component of the Prague Quadrennial Exhibit.  The smART Bar alone offered over 230 one-on-one consultations with experts and overflowed its capacity.  Throughout the convention, Denver was also filled with 126 live performances in and around NPAC, offered by more than 50 performing companies, many of whom adjusted their normal schedules so their seasons coincided with NPAC.   

The official NPAC blog 'Program Notes', hosted by ArtsJournal, started with ten established arts bloggers, one per week for ten weeks leading up to the convention, writing on different topics that corresponded to NPAC sessions.  Session leaders were then provided with the bloggers' comments as a jumping-off point for their live sessions.  The second part of 'Program Notes' continued the digital effort, commenced at NPAC with 17 diverse attendees reporting their thoughts and impressions to offer readers as many perspectives on the convention as possible.  Entries on sessions, networking events and performances were posted and an open comment field existed for general discussion.  This framework provided both a "big picture" going into Denver and a "nuts and bolts" during the convention. 

Empowered by the feedback from the Town Meeting and an online survey of all participants, the outcomes and future direction of NPAC will be extensively discussed over the next several months.  During this time NPAC's full value and suitability as a vehicle for bringing together the non-profit performing arts community, and the response to the issues of concern to the sector, will be fully evaluated to guide a decision about the ongoing future collaboration and activities of the performing arts field.

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