Spotlight On: Tom Gabbard, President & CEO, Blumenthal Arts
November 2024 — In an interview with Invest:, Tom Gabbard, president and CEO of Blumenthal Arts, talked about how the company leverages immersive experiences to attract new audiences. He also talked about the importance of the company’s network to attract high-quality, international exhibitions to Charlotte, and the expected impact of the company’s recently inaugurated Blume Studios.
What are some of the key milestones and achievements for Blumenthal Arts over the past year?
We bring more touring Broadway to our city than any other city in the country. We punch way beyond our weight class on that front and bring remarkable shows to Charlotte so that people have a full range of opportunities to enjoy the best of Broadway. Our Charlotte International Arts Festival continues to grow since its creation in 2022. Well over half a million people participated in that festival over 17 days last year. That created an opportunity for us to push beyond our typical uptown home and put the arts into neighboring communities. In Ballantyne we helped to open their new amphitheater and focused a lot of our programming at Ballantyne’s Backyard, which is a beautiful park.
What trends and developments are emerging in the arts and culture sector and how are they impacting Blumenthal Arts?
It is a time of incredible transition for all of us, and the arts have certainly been a part of that. Coming out of COVID-19 some groups were waiting for things to reset and return to the way they were before. We understood that they would never be like they were before but were changing for the better in many respects. The kinds of experiences that people are looking for have really changed. They are much more interested in a full experience that goes beyond sitting in a theater seat and passively watching a show.
People lost the opportunity to be together and have an experience during the pandemic, so there is a heightened appreciation for that sense of community. People are coming back into arts and entertainment with a renewed vigor of how wonderful it is to be with other people. Netflix and the streaming services do a fine job, but nothing replaces sitting with friends and neighbors with a drink in hand being able to hear a story being told shoulder to shoulder.
How has Blumenthal Arts worked to capitalize on the growing interest for immersive experiences in the arts?
That is the big news for us now and in the future. Coming out of COVID-19, we did an Immersive Van Gogh production that attracted over 300,000 people in just over six months. Of all the digital art shows that were being done all over the United States, ours still ranks as the largest. We had incredible success with that show, but needed to find a permanent home. It took a couple of years, but in April 2024 we announced the creation of Blume Studios. That is a beautiful home for us to set up shop and get started again. Now that we have the facility piece figured out, we can embrace it in a big way. We will open a show on Sept. 20 called Space Explorers: The Infinite, and we have a couple of years of productions lined up after that. Blume Studios is located in a wonderful warehouse on the historic campus of Charlotte Pipe & Foundry, which is being rebranded as The Iron District.
What kind of impact do you expect Blumenthal Arts’ Blume Studios will have on the area where that facility is located?
It marks the start of redevelopment of the historic Charlotte Pipe & Foundry campus, which is about 55 acres of privately-owned land. Given its location adjacent to Uptown Charlotte and how it connects Center City with South End, it is a critically important piece of real estate. We are the first tenants to help redevelop it, but the process might take 30 to 35 years. We are honored to bring an entirely new life to this property. It is also a tremendous opportunity and responsibility to infuse the arts into what will be known as the Iron District. We want to act quickly and assertively 30 to 35 years from now. We want to see how we collectively energized a massive real estate development and made the arts integral to its character.
With Immerse Van Gogh we found that over 30% of the visitors came from more than 90 minutes away. We have an exciting pipeline of things that we are bringing from all over the world. If we continue bringing both high-quality and novel productions, people will have a reason to travel, stay overnight and enjoy our restaurants.
How is Blumenthal Arts leveraging technology to provide immersive experiences for its audience?
Blume Studios is where technology will converge with the arts and community. Space Explorers: The Infinite is a virtual reality experience where people put on wireless Oculus headsets and wander a section of the Blume Studios. The imagery of it is as if they were on the International Space Station. All the footage was shot by the astronauts on the ISS using a specially created 360-degree camera. As people wander, they can touch orbs to learn more about the section of the ISS they are in, and view a video where astronauts explain things. The physical space used for that experience is identical to the ISS, so the audience gets a sense of exactly how big it is. Space Explorers represents the high-touch experience that a lot of people want. There will be other things that go along with that show that are free and open to the public. The art project Gaia consists of a giant Earth where people can enter and chill out. People want to experience these things with their family and friends but even also with people they do not know. Blume Studios intends to nurture that. People are inherently creative, but they express creativity and want to interact with it in different ways. It is crucial that we get out of our traditional theaters and create opportunities to engage people’s creativity on their own terms.
How is Blumenthal Arts engaging with artists and creators in lieu of the changing needs of the arts industry?
One of the unique things about our approach is connecting international and national artists with our local artists. Nobody else does that with these kinds of shows. It represents the gold standard to take an impressive exhibition that may come from overseas but then surround it with lots of local art. In the two years that we have been looking for a space, we have been active nationally and internationally in trying to connect the different pieces of this immersive industry. That includes everything from venues to content creators and promoters. These exhibitions can cost millions of dollars, but the network of venues and creators can help monetize them. It takes a village of presenters and venues to be sustainable. We are proud to create these connections and bring exciting things to Charlotte.
What are the top priorities for Blumenthal Arts and the arts industry in the next couple of years?
Our focus is continuing to expand who we serve. Around 80% of those who came to the Van Gogh exhibition had never bought a ticket from us before. It caught our attention that while we had this incredibly loyal group of theater fans, there was a whole segment of the community whom we had not tapped into yet because the product or the place were not right. We are determined to continue growing our family of arts supporters by finding fresh new things that get them off the couch and into our venues.
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