Moreno Solinas, 26 January 2013 Participants: Jacqui, Felix, Kate, Alice, Lea and James Is the distinction between artist and administrator clear? Marketing, development, budgeting etc can be extremely creative and also a lot of people earning their living with an administrative job title are also creating their own art. There is a disparity between the % an organisation will spend on salaried staff and artists - is there a vast layer of middle management that could not exist? Is there a tacit understanding that these ‘administrative’ roles are subsidising artists to create their own work? Does art thrive on a salary? Do we create better work hungry? Is this really about value? Very difficult to quantify the value of art, much easier to quantify the success of a marketing campaign, a development campaign, or a production manager's budget savings. There is also a supply and demand disparity between artists and administrators. If you can get actors for free, why pay them? You can't get a good press or marketing rep for free. What is the point of the work being staged if no-one sees it? So, if we are not happy about it - what can we do to change it? Ensure everyone is being paid equally when we make our own work - which may mean everyone gets paid less, but their work is valued, at least in financial terms, the same. Company wages across the board - the director and producer salary being tied together and being the cap on all other fees for the production. Accept that your budget allocation tells you something about your artistic priorities and perhaps re-evaluate accordingly. Tags: economics, Director, Theatre, Producer, money, Money, Art, director, producer, theatre, art, Economics Comments: 1 Chris Grady, 28 January 2013 Is it about writers they say that you can make a killing, just not a living. Well there is an element of feast and famine for actors I suspect. When the feast is happening then the administrative support is vital. When the famine is there then the administrative support is vital - this time to seek funding, chase audiences, make the project come to realistic life. Sadly administrators have to be there day in, day out, and there's not much chance of them making a killing. So somehow they have to make a living. And even that is tough. Almost noone works in arts administration in order to retire with a pension, or indeed retire at all. We work to try and pay the rent, and survive from month to month. The challenge for the whole community is surely not to pay anyone less in order that another gets crumbs, but rather to work together to create opportunities for more funding, income, support, and recognition for the arts sector as a whole. As an actor ages they come into extraordinary roles to play. As an administrator ages they find their way to the archives. Happy days Cheers Chris