What is the Red Chair Project?
The Red Chair Project is a public service designed to increase participation in the Central Florida arts and cultural community by building awareness. As a collaborative campaign involving arts and cultural organizations from Brevard, Lake, Orange, Osceola, Seminole and Volusia counties, Red Chair Project is the ultimate resource for learning what to do and where to go for everything cultural. A nonprofit service, the Red Chair Project strives to increase participation by providing methods to increase ticket sales, increase arts education opportunities and promote arts and cultural philanthropy.
How did the Red Chair Project get its legs?
In 2002, United Arts of Central Florida commissioned a study of Central Florida’s arts & cultural community (funded by the Elizabeth Morse Genius Foundation). It revealed many quality cultural offerings were not adequately promoted due to lack of financial and human resources.
Also, although rich with artistic assets, only 11 percent of Central Florida households attended arts and cultural events.
In early 2003, the Central Florida Performing Arts Alliance (now known as the Arts & Cultural Alliance), Orlando/Orange County Conventions & Visitors Bureau, and United Arts of Central Florida formed the Cultural Audience Development Initiative (CADI) to address several opportunities outlined in the research to stimulate greater participation within Central Florida’s arts and cultural community.
As one of the first steps, the CADI partners selected Knight Images as the marketing company to direct the creation of an overall awareness campaign. After many creative sessions, Red Chair Project was born and Orlando’s cultural movement began. Redchairproject.com is at the heart of the entire campaign. It is the ultimate resource for everything cultural in Central Florida.
Why the awareness building campaign is called the Red Chair Project?
The fact that you asked the question is part of the reasoning behind the name. We want people to be curious about how to participate in arts and culture in Central Florida; what better way than to start with an intriguing campaign name? For those of you with the desire for deeper meaning, the chair is also central to how we absorb most art forms. In performing arts we generally sit and observe and in many galleries and museums, we can study a piece more profoundly by sitting down. The empty chair is symbolic that there is a seat waiting for you to experience arts and culture in Central Florida. The color red evokes passion, which is the heartbeat of arts and culture.
Founding Partners
Arts & Cultural Alliance
The Arts & Cultural Alliance is a nonprofit, membership-based trade association that exists to increase participation in the arts and culture in Central Florida. The Alliance, through its programs and services, seeks to increase participation through cultivating audience members, visitors, volunteers and donors, communicating results and stimulating collaboration. Over 200 arts and culture companies throughout the seven counties of Lake, Orange, Osceola, Polk, Seminole, Brevard and Volusia are members of the Alliance. The Alliance is the project manager for Red Chair Project.
Orlando/Orange County Convention & Visitors Bureau
The Orlando/Orange County Convention & Visitors Bureau, Inc. (Orlando CVB) is the only officially recognized sales and marketing organization for the Orlando and Orange County area. Chartered in 1983 as a private not-for-profit organization, we represent more than 1,450 private businesses that make up the area's tourism industry. We are dedicated to promoting the area as one of America's great vacation and meeting destinations and providing comprehensive, unbiased information to all travelers. Its role is to help increase the awareness of the cultural destinations in Central Florida through redchairproject.com and orlandoartsgetaway.com.
United Arts of Central Florida
United Arts of Central Florida is a dynamic collaboration of businesses, governments, foundations, arts and culture organizations, school districts, artists and individuals. This partnership works to enhance the quality and variety of cultural experiences available throughout Lake, Orange, Osceola and Seminole counties. Since its inception in 1989, United Arts has invested over $83 million in local cultural organizations and cultural education. United Arts championed the Audience Development Initiative research that revealed only 11% of Central Florida households participate in the arts. The illuminating facts from the research formed the backbone to the creation of the Red Chair Project. United Arts currently provides funding to the Red Chair Project.
Major Contributors
City of Orlando
The City of Orlando provided financial support to Red Chair Project by contributing to the technical improvement of box office software and technology for seven different arts organizations. Their support was passed on to arts organizations through Red Chair Project in the form of small grants to help these groups increase their technical capacity by purchasing new or upgraded box office software, allowing internet box office capabilities not previously available.
Darden Foundation
The mission of the Darden Restaurants Foundation is to maintain a spirit of volunteerism, philanthropy and ethical business practices as defining characteristics of Darden Restaurants. The Darden Foundation has contributed to the over all advancement of the Red Chair Project development.
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts is a public agency dedicated to supporting excellence in the arts, both new and established; bringing the arts to all Americans; and providing leadership in arts education. Established by Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government, the Endowment contributes the nation's largest annual funding of the arts, bringing great art to all 50 states, including rural areas, inner cities, and military bases. This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Orange County Arts & Cultural Affairs
The Orange County Arts & Cultural Affairs office is responsible for administrating Orange County's investment in the arts and culture of the community. The office works with the Arts & Cultural Affairs Advisory Council to study ways to promote artistic excellence in the County; to review funding requests for the arts; and to recommend allocation of funding for arts and cultural events, activities and facilities from both designated Tourist Development Tax (TDT) funds and general fund revenue. The Orange County TDT has provided funding to Red Chair Project to 1) enhance the Orlando arts brand, 2) reward the quality of the project and 3) promote tourism.
