PrintThe Arts Alliance will become Creative Albuquerque on Jan. 1.
But it will be much more than a name change, promised Kevin Hagen, the alliance's board president.
After the first of the new year it will be a larger umbrella organization for the arts in the Duke City.
That means, Hagen said, it will continue to represent the interests of traditional arts organizations - theaters, music and dance companies - but also for-profit groups such as art galleries, the film industry and video gaming in the city, Hagen said.
"And we are embracing also individual artists, painters, musicians," he said.
The alliance arrived at this plan for expanded representation after 18 months of town hall meetings and consensus building.
Hagen said he would like Creative Albuquerque to overcome some of what he called fragmentation and duplication of efforts. As an example, there should be a consolidation of "a dozen different event calendars in town and every one is maintained by somebody who hand-enters the information ... Why not one calendar that is user-friendly to organizations, to artists and to audiences."
Another idea would be to bring together various ticketing businesses into a single one.
"I know there are software packages other than the behemoths like Ticketmaster that could offer low-cost options to organizations to sell tickets to their customers," Hagen said.
A third issue of interest is political advocacy.
The alliance has been active in supporting public arts programs and arts education, but it should broaden those efforts, he said.
"The broader the organization the more powerful," Hagen said.
Critical to all three of these plans is networking, "bringing individual artists and organizations together so they know what the others are doing," he said.
As a result, Hagen said, networking will require a stronger sense of cooperation.
He wants Creative Albuquerque to be "a powerful, effective, go-to organization to advance the interests of the creative community."
Meanwhile, the organization plans to hire a new executive director within the next six to eight weeks. Its longtime director, Cricket Appel, resigned earlier this year.
And the 2010 Bravos Awards, which the alliance has presented annually, will be postponed from this spring to probably sometime next fall.
In addition, the organization will move from its longtime office in The Courtyard, at San Mateo and Lomas NE to a Downtown location in the new year.
According to its Web site, the alliance provides information, programs, services, advocacy and recognition for dance, theater, visual music and literary arts in the metropolitan area.