When Peter C. Sutton is asked about the Bruce Museum”™s rivals in the arts world, he has to smile. It”™s not as if the corporate model applies.
“We think of them as our sister institutions,” says Sutton, executive director and CEO of the Bruce in Greenwich. “Together we edify, educate and entertain.”
A case in point: the Fairfield/Westchester Museum Alliance, which is celebrating its first anniversary by adding two members ”“ The Barnum Museum in Bridgeport, and Wave Hill, a public garden and cultural center in the Riverdale section of the Bronx.
They join the Bruce, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers, N.Y., the Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art in Peekskill, N.Y., the Katonah Museum of Art in Katonah, N.Y. and the Neuberger Museum of Art on the campus of Purchase College in Purchase, N.Y., in offering visitor perks. Members of any one of these institutions are entitled to free admission and a 10-percent gift-shop discount at all of the others. Nonmembers can pay admission to one ”“ less than the price of a movie ticket ”“ and get a same-day pass to the others.
“We”™re expanding all the time,” says Sutton, whose museum opens a show on Warhol prints on May 29. “It”™s a good way of giving people more benefits for their buck.”
But is it good for museum business?
“I think it”™s helped in two ways,” says Michael Botwinick, director of the Hudson River Museum, which specializes in interdisciplinary exhibits on the Hudson Valley. “It”™s certainly contributed to attendance. We get a fairly steady return from this. And it”™s given us a benefit to give to our members. It makes membership in the Hudson River Museum all that more valuable and makes (members) greater consumers of museum culture.”
Certainly, that”™s what Kathleen Maher, executive director and curator of The Barnum Museum, expects for her institution.
“One thing we”™ve paid close attention to is how broad our reach is ”“ into Westchester, New York City, New Jersey and even Long Island, because of the ferry,” she says of the museum, which celebrates the 200th anniversary of founder P.T. Barnum”™s birth with an exhibit on his life and legend opening July 25. “Barnum”™s story is not local. We get emails from all over the world.”
In joining the alliance, Maher says, The Barnum Museum is merely taking a page from the wily showman, who would position elephants and workers dressed in colorful costumes along his Long Island Sound property as the New Haven-bound train passed by.
Arts institutions aren”™t cueing the elephants just yet, though sometimes it seems as if it may come to this. In this volatile economic climate, corporate underwriting is MIA and government support has been gutted.
“The future has to involve some corporate sponsorship,” Sutton says.
In the meantime, museums are slashing their budgets and turning inward to their own collections and sister institutions.
Arts and historical organizations are also reaching out to their partners in tourism ”“ restaurants and hotels.
This year for the first time, the Caramoor International Music Festival in Katonah is teaming with the Tarrytown House Estate & Conference Center in Tarrytown, N.Y., for weekend packages beginning at $219 that include overnight accommodations, full breakfast for two and two preferred tickets to a Saturday-evening performance for the length of the festival (June 26-Aug. 11).
The Pops, Patriots & Fireworks Package features overnight accommodations on July 4, a concert with Caramoor”™s chief executive and general director Michael Barrett leading the Orchestra of St. Luke”™s in a program capped by fireworks and Tchaikovsky”™s “1812 Overture,” a Yankee Doodle breakfast and a Gallic treat ”“ pâtes de fruits, or sugary fruit jellies.
For Tarrytown House, partnering with the arts sweetens the pot. For the last couple of years, it has joined forces with two Historic Hudson Valley properties, taking advantage of the classic tour at Kykuit, the landmark Rockefeller family home in Pocantico Hills, N.Y., and “The Great Jack O”™Lantern Blaze” at Van Cortlandt Manor in Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y. ”“ an event that can be described as Christo”™s “The Gates” for the younger set.
“Since partnering with great arts and historical venues like Historic Hudson Valley, our leisure package sales are higher than ever,” says Steve Sackman, regional director of sales and marketing at the Tarrytown House. “We see Caramoor furthering that success.”
