The Largo Cultural Center uses many hands to transmit its marketing message. What's needed is one clear beacon from a single source, a job now vacant.
By LORRI HELFAND
Published June 27, 2003
LARGO - The Largo Cultural Center has been having a hard time bringing in audiences the past few months.
Cultural center manager Richard Haerther said the problems boil down to a job vacancy.
The center lost its marketing specialist in March when Karen Barth left the position to become Largo's communications and marketing coordinator. Her old job wasn't filled because the city put a hiring freeze on all positions four months ago, meaning the center has not been getting the word out about its performances.
"When we lost continuity, we lost momentum. We had a lot of productions that didn't get the attention they needed in order to be as successful as they needed to be," Haerther said.
Marketing duties were assigned among a few people, so there wasn't a single contact for advertising or promotion. While the employees took out the ads, wrote the press releases and produced posters, they weren't able to build comprehensive relationships, Barth said.
"It's difficult if you have three different people in three locations working on three different parts of the puzzle," Barth said.
Until this spring, the center's Tonne Playhouse has shown steady increases in attendance. But over the past few months, attendance on a show-by-show basis has dropped. Haerther highlighted the problem in a report he prepared for the city manager.
But during this quarter, per-show average attendance went from 167 people in the same period last year to 164 people this year. Attendance was 14 percent less than projections, which amounts to about a $15,000, Haerther said.
Haerther said he and Barth expressed their concerns to city leaders.
"I saw just how big the job was and how big of a part it played in the revenue and I wanted to keep moving forward," Barth said.
Haerther thinks his report made a difference.
Although the center cannot fill its marketing job, City Manager Steve Stanton said the center can reassign its marketing duties to a city marketing employee, who has yet to be hired.
Barth said she expects to fill that position fairly quickly.
"I'm hopeful, because over the last three years I've met a lot of people in the arts community and the PR community," she said.
The impact of the job freeze was felt by all departments, Stanton said.
"Every time we put positions on hold there are consequences, and you do the best you can to manage those consequences," Stanton said.
