Eskenazi Museum of Art Live!
A one-day music festival was planned to engage local audiences.
Concerts Across Charlestonat the Gibbes Museum of Art
The Gibbes Museum of Art piloted free concerts in partnership with local organizations—in addition to its standard ticketed concert—to illustrate for a wider audience the connections between music and oral histories in the “Fighters for Freedom: William H. Johnson Picturing Justice” exhibition.
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Gibbes Museum of Art
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Charleston, SC
About
With this concert series, the Gibbes Museum of Art connected Johnson’s portraits of Black abolitionists like Harriet Tubman with local Black performing artists and songs used to transmit messages along the Underground Railroad. Concerts at the museum are typically ticketed, but to expand access and grow an awareness of these events, the Gibbes offered two additional performances for free. Over two days, the Gibbes hosted three iterations: a free off-site concert in collaboration with the Charleston County Public Library, a free preview concert paired with a field trip for Title 1 students in grades 6-12, and a ticketed concert at the museum. For these shows, the Gibbes partnered with New Muse, a collective of local musicians dedicated to live instrumental performances. The group selected songs inspired by Johnson’s work as well as folk songs dating back to the Underground Railroad.
Intended Outcome
The Gibbes had collaborated with New Muse and the Charleston County Public Library on separate occasions but used this project to combine their impact and expand upon the scale of its previous concert offering. The museum aimed to attract Title I students and teachers to its gallery concert, while it hoped to connect with library patrons and first-time museum visitors through its off-site event. Across both performances, the Gibbes aspired to reach 210 people.
Actual Outcome
Offering two additional free concerts—one at the Gibbes and another off-site at the library—was successful in expanding the museum's footprint and brought in different audiences. The museum concert was attended by students in grades 6-12, and the library concert attracted library patrons and staff, many of whom had never visited the Gibbes or been to a museum program before. Overall, the concerts were attended by 130 people.
Advice Post Project
By piloting a recurring concert format, the Gibbes was able to start tracking differences in audiences and attendance between the free versus ticketed and on-site versus off-site concerts. For experiences that would typically be ticketed, one-time performances, consider repeating it as a collaborative, off-site event to reach new audiences and build strong partnerships.
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A one-day music festival was planned to engage local audiences.
I Refuse to Be Invisible:An Improvisational Concert at the Academy Art Museum
The Academy Art Museum organized a collaborative concert in which musicians and audience members co-created music inspired by Njideka Akunyili Crosby’s painting “I Refuse to Be Invisible.”
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