4. Striving for Viability in CCIs

The fourth online Training Hotspot by Social Impact Ireland & Limerick City and County Council - Culture & Arts Office from Limerick, Ireland.🎭
The aim of this fourth TrainArt event is to share and apply basic principles that can assist with driving towards developing sustainable working models. This was done by utilising practical peer group mutual learning, in order to assist those with strategic responsibility for varied Arts-oriented enterprises to:
• Bring strategic thinking to the sustainability challenge;
• Understand potential ‘business models’ within the sector;
• With whom and how to gain engagement with those critical to implementing a
successful strategy;
• Understand the synergies that are possible from nurturing a small community of
contacts within the sector to provide mutual support, understanding and objectivity.
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TRAINART is a EU-funded project developed and implemented by seven European partners: Consorzio Marche Spettacolo (Italy), Welcome A.p.s. (Italy), Teater Nu (Sweden), Kulturanova (Serbia), Haceria Arteak (Spain), Limerick City and County Council (Ireland).

TRAINART aims at:

• Strenghtening the competitiveness of the European Performing Arts sector and shaping new skills for cultural operators interested in developing innovative business models in the Cultural and Creative Industries;

• Giving new skills to cultural operators/artists by focusing on two particular fields: management models of cultural spaces (Field A) and artistic interventions in non-conventional contexts (Field B).

*Field A: New management models
for cultural spaces.

The need for performing arts center executives to exhibit strategic leadership and strong change management capacities may be best addressed by developing a systemic capacity building approach, based on the development of five key change management capacities. Engagement with international touring and presenting, as well as engaging diverse cultures within the community, requires the capacity to manage international cultural interactions and to represent cultural identity. Shifts in audience behavior and the constant increase of competition from diverse leisure activities require the capacity to promote innovative methods of audience development and to experiment participatory governance approaches. The diverse revenue streams involved in the management require the capacity to foster a sustainable mixed funding system. Most important, performing arts center leaders must exhibit effective strategic leadership, including constant strategic awareness and an entrepreneurial focus on changing environmental demands in the international, domestic and organization spheres of engagement.

*Field B: Artistic interventions
in non-conventional contexts.

TRAINART intends to provide cultural operators with adequate training to meet the demand for artistic interventions in unconventional contexts as quickly and effectively as possible. Artistic interventions in non-conventional frameworks (enterprises or public bodies) allow artists to open new markets and to reach different audiences, but also to gain new inspirations from unusual work environments: artistic interventions represent new opportunities for artists for experimentation and growth.