🔒Online arts galas keep theaters afloat — and show future potential

Last March, Carla Sullivan, vice president of external relations at New Haven’s Shubert Theatre, was in the final stages of preparing for a major fundraising event when all indoor public gatherings were suddenly halted due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

“Everything just shut down,” she says, “and my initial thought at that point was ‘How can we possibly do this now?’ ”

Sullivan, like many nonprofit arts planners around the country, had to pivot quickly and re-imagine what fundraising — including big annual galas, which are major revenue sources — would look like during an indefinite sequestered pandemic. But over the course of the year, New Haven arts organizations saw new online events not just as fundraising lifelines, but as future income and audience outreach platforms.

Moving Shubert’s event from April to May, Sullivan was able to keep several sponsors as she worked to create a virtual fundraiser.

“We partnered with our restaurants to put together a party box filled with cocktails and goodies, managed a contact-free pick-up, and presented an online show featuring an interactive trivia game, performances from young Broadway talent and us talking about what people can expect when we reopen.”

Though the new ad-hoc event brought in less revenue than a year ago ($35,000 vs. $75,000), it was still valuable, providing much-needed cash while helping local restaurants.

Staff at Shubert Theatre, which is a presenting house set up for touring shows, quickly learned how to become producers themselves and subsequently had follow-up, online events in the fall and December for the purpose of engagement and fundraising, each one raising a bit more in donations.

The events were crafted differently to keep patrons interested: one featuring performers from shows that had been scheduled to play in New Haven during the season; another for children during the holidays; and an adult event planned in February as a couples’ “date night” near Valentine’s Day.

“We’re trying to be creative,” says Sullivan, realizing that audiences might tire of the same type of online offerings. She notes that interactive online events make Shubert’s engagements different from those being offered by other arts groups.

“It’s no replacement for being in the theater but it keeps us in touch with our folks and it’s definitely connecting us to new people,” she said.

Sullivan said the online events in 2020 helped raise nearly as much money as the theater made in its 2019 fundraiser.

Long Wharf Theatre

Long Wharf Theatre’s big annual fundraising event was scheduled for June and it was supposed to include a live concert featuring Broadway and television star Matthew Morrison.

But it couldn’t happen in-person due to the pandemic.

Instead, Long Wharf presented an online gala featuring celebrity performances, including from Morrison. Though it didn’t make the anticipated $250,000, it still netted around $180,000, says Managing Director Kit Ingui, “which we were still pretty damned thrilled about.”

One of the big benefits of the virtual event, she says, was being able to offer affordable tickets ($20), making the fundraiser more accessible and not limited to just the several hundred big-ticket spenders who could fill the theater.

“It’s not going to cost us any more money to have more people come to the online event,” she says. “I think we can continue some of that model moving forward, finding ways to create access for these quote/unquote ‘exclusive events.’ That way the fundraising event can be for the whole community and the online platforms certainly allow you to do that.”

New Haven Symphony Orchestra

The New Haven Symphony Orchestra was more fortunate with its annual gala, which was held in February at New Haven’s Omni Hotel before the shutdown began, and raised $66,000 among the 280 people who attended.

Its next gala is scheduled for February and will include both a virtual and in-person component, as long as state COVID-19 guidelines allow for it.

“Our 2021 gala is planned for Feb. 6 and we’re designing it to be a hybrid model,” says CEO Elaine C. Carroll. “People can join us virtually — which is an exciting option for us because they can then join from all over the country.”

The gala will also be presented in-person for a limited number of guests at Woodwinds, an events venue in Branford. The plan is to have around 60 people attend, which represents about 10 percent of the facility’s banquet capacity.

The goal is to raise about $43,000.

“I do see the hybrid model going beyond 2021 because it gives people an opportunity to participate from afar,” says Carroll. “All of us have learned that there are ways to use technology to bring us closer together. We know how to put on a gala but what’s different is putting on a broadcast. That’s something new.”

Theater executives say COVID-19 will forever change the way they operate.

“We’re not going to go back to the way we did things before,” says the Shubert’s Sullivan. “I think there will be some virtual component to much of what we do from now on. But it’s going to require different skills.”

Online efforts will also help in transitioning audiences back to the theater, she says.

“There are people who can’t wait to get back in person but there are others who are going to be perfectly comfortable enjoying these other types of things we do online from their homes, at least for a while,” Sullivan said.