In a post-lockdown economy with rising prices, wealth hoarding, and dissipated government support, how can performance spaces - especially in rural regions, far from big cities - get people in the door, keep those doors open, and make sure musicians are fairly compensated?
In an effort to meet these goals, and match their practices to their values, some venues in and around Windham County, both old and new, are offering sliding-scale admission and sometimes even charging no cover at all. Others are not, simply because they can't, but they find other ways to introduce equity and access into their programming and keep a local economy chugging along.
"Any work that is aimed at creating vitality - creative, economic, and social - helps to create a functioning local economy," said Sharon Fantl, who has worked in the nonprofit arts sector for more than 25 years and has served on boards for numerous area arts venues.
"There is increasing awareness and experimentation within organizations about how they can increase or strengthen accessibility, what role they can play, but how they do this is dependent on their mission, audience, capacity, location, and more," said Fantl.
Reducing or removing a cover charge creates obvious tension. Money is necessary to keep a venue open and pay artists, so where will it come from?
Fantl noted that there is not a "one-size-fits-all approach to sliding scale or reduced ticket prices."
"The decision to change the pricing structure may start as an internal discussion among staff and board, built on observation, anecdotal feedback, patterns of audience behavior or more formal assessment," she said.
For some venues, offering reduced-price or free tickets is not feasible if artists are still going to get paid. The math cannot support it.
What does support some venues, and provides access to the arts, is a labor of love: volunteering.
Stage 33 Live in Bellows Falls (stage33live.com) is one such operation. All of its staff are volunteers, from the person collecting money at the door to Executive Director Mark Piepkorn. Volunteers working an event do not pay to get in.
But with scant few exceptions, the audience pays a set rate to attend a show.
"Since we don't have a bar or kitchen or any other income, ticket sales are the only money coming in to pay the performers - and we firmly believe that even though we're all volunteers making the thing happen, the performers absolutely shouldn't be," Piepkorn said. "They get shit on enough everywhere else."
Ticket prices are set mostly by the performers at Stage 33 Live, he said, to try to "get them at least the lowest amount suggested by the Traveling Musicians Union for the smallest venues in the worst markets."
Fantl explained that foundations typically offer grants for programming, and artists' compensation is included in an organization's programming budget. Fewer grants are available for operating expenses, such as salaries or a building's rent or mortgage.
Piepkorn said grants have been out of reach for the venue.
"I'm totally jealous of those places that have managed to get grant money or sponsors to offset potential dings against the performers' pay," he said.
He noted he has "written half a dozen grant proposals for a performer guarantee fund that would allow sliding scale without potentially hurting the performers, and to pick up the slack when ticket sales are low, but awards are hard to come by for a one-trick micro-venue in a little rural village."
Raising the ticket prices is an option, said Piepkorn, but in his experience, "ticket sales fall off when they're over $20, even for performers that regularly sell out proper theaters with higher ticket prices in larger markets."
"Plus, the higher the ticket prices," he added, "the more it excludes the significant number of low-income locals, and that goes against our principles as well."
Eat, drink, and support a musician
Other area venues, such as those with a bar and a kitchen, simply let everyone in and hope they spend money eating and drinking.
Marigold is one of those. The performance venue, café, and bar that recently opened in the former River Garden on Main Street in Brattleboro lists multiple upcoming events with free admission.
"Whether or not a cover is charged at the door is often worked out between Glenn [Alper] the owner and the band or the person booking the show," said Wyatt Andrews, Marigold's audio engineer, who books some of the shows. "I will say that Marigold really wants to be a focus on being a place for local community and musicians and a spot where music and performance is financially accessible."
"I like working there because I know and have seen Glenn really value making sure artists are compensated for their work," Andrews added. "He shows a real willingness to work with artists individually and make sure they feel like they're being compensated fairly."
The Rendezvous (thevoo.net), a restaurant, bar, and music venue at 78 3rd St. in Turners Falls, Massachusetts - a building that has been a public gathering space since about 1890 - has a similar open-door policy.
Rather than collect admission, "The Voo" encourages an old-fashioned "passing of the hat," except the hat is usually a big jar.
"In a nutshell, the Voo encourages bands to set and collect a 'suggested donation,' and keep 100% of it," John McGuigan, who books acts for The Voo, explained. "If the bar sales hit certain thresholds during the event, the Voo then has a few different tiers of bonuses to compensate them above that."
The Voo also promises an audio engineer and robust promotion in print and online media.
McGuigan noted these policies have been in place since 2023.
"Before that, we used to have all shows free, with a guarantee of $50 and a bonus of $50 if 20 people showed up, and another $50 if 50 people showed up," said McGuigan.
This was not a viable system, though.
"The Voo was losing money under that arrangement, as many times people would come out for a show but not spend any money at the bar to make up for that guarantee [plus] bonuses, plus paying the sound person, promo, etc.," McGuigan said.
The new structure, he said, was "our attempt to make things more transparent, less of a liability for the venue, and to compensate bands directly for people who come to see them, by the people who come to see them."
Fundraising fills the revenue gap
Another venue that primarily relies on directly compensating musicians by the people who come to see them, but with other sources - including sponsorship and a slightly more collective approach - is the Vermont Jazz Center (VJC) at the Cotton Mill in Brattleboro (vtjazz.org).
Executive Director Eugene Uman explained the math behind ticket pricing and how the nonprofit's fundraising efforts smooth out the numbers. Most of their donations, he said, comes from individuals and sponsors.
"If one divides the artist fees of musicians who play here by the number of seats sold, the average value per ticket (seat) is between $50 and $60," said Uman. "However, because VJC wants jazz to be accessible to all, we subsidize our ticket prices by finding sponsors for most, if not all, of our concerts."
"All sponsors are aware of the fact that the money they give toward reducing artist fees are a way to subsidize ticket prices and even the playing field," Uman said.
Only 10% of VJC's income comes from grants, so the sponsors and donors make up over half of the organization's revenue, he said.
"We don't rely on other sources to help pay for concerts," Uman said.
The VJC charges a base fee of $25 per ticket, said Uman, "yet [we] invite people to pay up to the $60 value of the seat. The amount over $25 then becomes a donation to the Jazz Center." This system, said Uman, "allows for philanthropy on a local level."
Whether they pay the regular price or can donate beyond that, attendees can "feel that they're economically contributing to our efforts and still getting to hear jazz" of a quality that is almost impossible to find anywhere else nearby, said Uman.
"We feel everyone should have access to the joy that comes from hearing music live and feeling the energy in the room and being exposed to music," he added.
Maria Basescu, who until recently served as interim director for Putney's Next Stage Arts, said that ticketing, access, and compensating musicians is "always a very challenging balance for a nonprofit arts venue to navigate."
"We rely heavily on ticket revenue to help with expenses, and even when it's working well, that only covers about 25% of our costs," said Basescu. "The balance is derived from grants and individual donations."
Next Stage is "committed to paying our artists as well as we can," she said, acknowledging that "still, of course, [is] a fraction of their worth!" The venue also is committed to "being as accessible as we can to our community [and] audiences," she said.
Although Next Stage was founded in 2010, Covid provided an opportunity for the organization to expand its programming and access to it.
As a "creative adaptation," the Bandwagon Series offered music outdoors in a variety of settings around Windham County, providing "a way to still present public events in a socially distanced, outdoor environment," Basescu said.
"The reception to those events was terrific - people really appreciated the opportunity to still gather and share cultural experiences, and the artists appreciated the chance to continue to perform," said Basescu.
This series continues, post-lockdown and "continues to have an enthusiastic following," she said.
For Bandwagon shows, Next Stage offers free passes to 19 public libraries throughout Windham County.
Basescu noted that individual donors and charitable foundations support the organization because "they recognize the value of culture [and] community and of Next Stage as an overall economic engine in the region."
"Some of our grant funding is specifically designated to enable discounted or free passes," said Basescu. Next Stage regularly sends free tickets to the Putney Foodshelf, Putney Family Cares, and Landmark College.
This is consistent with Fantl's experience as a long-time fundraiser for the arts.
"I will say many funders are looking for some level of community engagement and for the organization to play a significant role in the community," she said. "Typically, they want to understand the impact of their funding, even when the size of the grant or gift is not very large."
Funders and foundations "want to know they are making a difference, too," said Fantl.
Grants help some local venues
Two area venues that have leveraged grant funding to encourage expanded access to their programming are Brattleboro's Epsilon Spires and Keene's Nova Arts.
For the past three years, Epsilon Spires (epsilonspires.org) has offered sliding-scale tickets, ranging from $5 to $25 or more, for almost every event at its arts and performance space. This includes films with and without live musical accompaniment, as well as musical performances. Sometimes multiple acts appear on one bill.
This sliding-scale program is a result of a $10,000 grant from the Ben & Jerry's Foundation's Equity & Justice program in 2022.
"We have always made an effort to bring programming of the highest possible quality to the Brattleboro area, and that can be expensive for us as an organization," Epsilon Spires's Executive Director Jamie Mohr explained in a 2022 news release. "But, while the funds for this new initiative last, we will no longer have to pass that cost on to our audience, which will greatly expand our outreach and accessibility."
This summer, Nova Arts started a pilot program to do nearly the same. Starting June 6, the initiative, "Access for All," allows attendees reduced-fee - or even free - admission to the venue for every show.
For patrons wanting to buy tickets ahead of time, they visit the venue's website (novaarts.org) and select the show they want to see. They choose "Access for All," and enter the amount they can afford.
For those who prefer to pay cash, or use a credit card at the door, the website instructs attendees to "just come out to a show and you can donate whatever you like."
Neither method - paying ahead of time online or at the door on the day of the event - requires any sort of application or means-testing.
"We don't want to attach a stigma to this," said Director Eric Gagne. "Nobody needs to ask permission. There are no special tickets. No questions asked."
"Basically," he said, "it's 'just come in to the show.'"
When determining how much money to request from the foundation, Gagne made sure to include performance fees. Artists have gotten paid as they did before the program was implemented, said Gagne. "Our costs haven't changed."
The response?
"People are using it! We're seeing new people at shows," Gagne said, and the feedback has been positive.
The initiative might also help Nova Arts access additional grant funding. "We're actually removing barriers" to the arts, said Gagne. "Right now, Nova's board of directors is discussing how to extend this program.
"Either way, if the room is full of people, that's what we want," he said. "The more people are here, the more people have a collective experience of hearing new things, having radical acts of joy together."
Smash the system
Gagne explained that he has been thinking a lot about ticket pricing for his venue's events within the larger context of capitalism.
"Every system we have now is not serving people equally. Medicine, health care, child care," he said. "I think we can all do better."
Gagne points out the barriers to the arts created by generational poverty. "If you grew up too poor to attend arts events, how would you think that's for you? Everyone should have creativity in their life. Not thinking this will f- you up."
In taking a look at his role - running a nonprofit arts organization in a small town in New Hampshire - Gagne is "trying to figure out how to make these structures, these systems work for people."
Gagne said that in the past, he bought into a belief named by British philosopher Mark Fisher: "capitalist realism." It is the notion that capitalism is the only viable way to organize society, including its political and economic systems. Not only does no alternative exist, but capitalism's tenets pervade all sectors of life, including cultural production.
"I used to always feel like, 'We have a lot of costs. We need to sell tickets,'" said Gagne.
"We have to really deconstruct everything," said Gagne, "and take apart the hierarchy." This system is "heavily guarded," he noted. "We can't dismantle it head-on. It won't happen."
"These systems are so deeply ingrained, it's hard to expect someone to risk their livelihood and security," said Gagne, asking, "Who will throw themselves into the gears of the machinery? We must start to figure out how to make this world the best for everybody."
In small, local ways, people and groups can work together, "and through action, circumvent these systems," said Gagne.
This conversation - how to make their shows free and cover their costs and compensate musicians - had been ongoing for Gagne and the Nova board.
"We have the space," said Gagne. "Why not extend the welcome? How can [we help] people feel it's for them?"
One solution is to take money from an enormous financial institution. TDBank, the domestic subsidiary of Canada's Toronto-Dominion Bank, had, as of 2022, $430 billion in total assets. The bank's charitable foundation has awarded over $361 million to nonprofit organizations since 2002.
In 2025, Nova Arts was one of them. The nonprofit wrote a grant requesting a full year of funding for the Access For All program. "We got it just for the summer," said Gagne.
He explained, "I don't want to devalue art. It's valuable. But, as we explain [to attendees], 'If you have the money to pay full price, please do. If you can't, that's OK, too.'"
Since implementing the Access For All program, Gagne has seen entire families of parents and their children come to events and put $10 in the jar to cover admission for them all.
This is the desired effect.
"It's good for us to hear new ideas and sounds. It's easier to access empathy and kindness when we do," said Gagne.
This Arts item by Wendy M. Levy was written for The Commons.