Breaking Down the Walls: Advocating Together for the Future of Entertainment and the Arts

by Lisa Richards Toney , President and CEO of APAP, the Association of Performing Arts Professionals

I recently lead a conversation at the NIVA - National Independent Venue Association 's second annual conference titled “Breaking Down the Walls: Advocating Together for the Future of Entertainment and the Arts”. Although it was noon on a Monday, a couple hundred representatives from across the live arts and entertainment industry gathered at cocktail tables at a local Washington, DC venue, fortuitously called Union Stage. There were no windows, but we were ready to break down some walls.

After welcoming the panel, I set the stage for our discussion. I’ve since had additional time to reflect, given the multiple crises in the world---and the headline news in our world---the arts and entertainment industry. Surely, there is always more news to inform my perspective, but the seed of the kernel of this message is the same.

We are stronger together.

I first joined the APAP team just over three years ago. As the new President and CEO of Association of Performing Arts Professionals, an organization with a six-plus-decade-long legacy, I was taking the helm of an established entity, a known quantity, with a legendary convergence of the performing arts industry, in New York City every January.

I think back to July 2020. Our members---the people who make the performing arts presenting, booking and touring world go round---the professionals on stage and the many, many more behind the curtain, in the box office, curating and promoting and fundraising and keeping lights on---were at our doorstep. More precisely, our people were at APAP’s Zoom doorstep, begging, pleading, for us to do something. Our industry, known for operating on a razor’s edge, had fallen off a cliff.

I entered that time of crisis willingly and with eyes wide open. It was nonetheless jarring for APAP, and for all entities in the performing arts, national or local in scope. You see, we already had our missions, we had work that we usually did---and did well. But what we were all called to do in 2020 was something deeper, better, and different.

I understood that call. And despite a raised eyebrow or two, that call is why I took the job. There was opportunity born of crisis—to serve in a collective time of need.

My first strategy was to listen to our members and talk with other leaders in our field. For the first time in a while, we raised our heads up out of our silos to periscope the surface. What was obvious to me in looking around was what surrounded us. Notice “round” is part of both words? That’s because we are a circle, not a hierarchy.

I observed that if we—the industry—started to work together, really work together, we could furnish our best solutions. No one had a manual for how to manage 2020, so we had to talk, connect, scratch our heads together often in our Zoom rooms. NIVA, which came into being in 2020, and led the “Save Our Stages” bill which became the $16 billion Shuttered Venues Operations Grant program is an outstanding example of how we could work together. NIVA, a loose assemblage of independent club owners, became an unstoppable force of a network. And then, the NIVA new kid in town asked us established organizations to become friends.

Working together as an industry was all the things – outstanding and revelatory, inevitably exhausting, and at less favorable times, we resembled “crabs in a barrel”.

Once we realized that going to Congress one-by-one wasn’t enough, we were on our way. Congress couldn’t make sense of us. “Who, how, what are you doing?” We’re still the little guy, as is David in the Goliath story. But all our Davids together created a shadow bigger than Goliath! Together, we got the $16 billion and saved our stages. It’s not because we each individually knocked on Congress’s door. We were successful because we approached Congress as an ecosystem. Our future power is in maintaining that unified front.

Moreover, what’s remarkable is that we weren’t all advocates in the before-times, but now we (the collective we) are in the conversation. And we need to stay in conversation, with each other and with the powers that be (who, lest we forget, are empowered to represent us all).

We were reminded that we must show up for each other. One issue or another may not affect you directly. But when a petition comes around and explains that your colleagues and their businesses are being impacted, we must stand up for one another. Your presence has value for others.

We are an ECOSYSTEM. Non-profits, for-profits, presenters, agents, artists, producers, venue managers, sound techs, lighting designers, musicians, dancers, actors, writers, creatives---all of us, the list goes on and on because we are all connected. There is no separation when it comes to fighting for our industry.

And there is also no shortage of crises or opportunities. We are currently working to “FIX The TIX” through comprehensive ticketing reform and to continue to stave off visa increases to ensure we don't cut off touring at its source. And we absolutely will come together to ready ourselves for what’s next. Why?

Because we know that we are stronger together and we are worth it!

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#advocacy #artsadvocacy #performingarts #artsprofessionals #livemusic #artsandentertainment

Americans for the Arts , SoundExchange , National Independent Talent Organization , Folk Alliance International , National Performance Network , A2IM (American Association of Independent Music) , Artist Rights Alliance , Black Music Action Coalition , DICE , Eventbrite , Future of Music Coalition , International Association of Venue Managers , Music Artists Coalition , NAPAMA , The Performing Arts Alliance , The Recording Academy , SAG-AFTRA , Seattle Theatre Group , Eventim USA , Songwriters of North America - SONA , Tixr , Universal Music Group , Wasserman