The Asheville Area Arts Council has officially cancelled its big annual fund-raiser, the Color Ball. Here’s the special announcement:
The Color Ball has been the Arts Council’s signature fundraising event for the past 8 years. The Arts Council is sensitive to the current economic situation nation-wide and we feel the time is not right for our annual Color Ball.
We are just taking a break this summer; plans are in motion for the Color Ball in 2010.
So what’s going on here? I thought this was the organization’s big annual fund-raiser. Seems unusual for a nonprofit to just throw in the towel on raising money during a recession.
Perhaps a new deal the organization just announced with artist Jonas Gerard is helping. Gerard is “partnering” with the arts council and his work will be displayed prominently in their downtown space. (The arts council is located on Biltmore Avenue.)
A few months ago, the organization announced that it was making some big changes. Guess this is one.
4 Comments
As a baller previously attending several colors, I am said to hear about this tragic cancellation. Maybe next year, we can have a multicolor ball to celebrate Barack Obama making it over the hump of the recession. One man, one ball… several colors.
Maybe no one with any actual money cares for the "Art" scene that everyone hypes about in this little overated town.
The Arts Council has lost its way and has no clear purpose to fill in this community anymore. Sometimes organizations outlive their usefulness but don’t have the courage to acknowledge this and go out of business.
Perhaps the Arts Council discovered that producing such a large fundraising event costs way too much money in actual dollars and in community and human resources to be effective at raising money. Perhaps they discovered that it was counterproductive to produce such a large, resource heavy event that didn’t really promote its core mission. Perhaps they got blowback because the arts council does very little, if any, funding of arts organizations in the community. Or, perhaps they realized they just couldn’t sell such high priced tickets in this economy. Who knows? What is known, by some but not by many, is that the Arts Council is an organization like any other in town and that supporting the Arts Council supports the Arts Council and does not necessarily support the arts in Asheville.