Bogota is a metropolitan city of more than seven million inhabitants. It has a rich tradition of arts and popular culture. Over the last few years, the institutional framework and infrastructure for cultural management has been improved substantially. Bogota is well-known for its cultural diversity and management of different public festivals, and at the same time, it is possible to find a vast variety of popular artistic expressions in the local communities. Consequently, UNESCO recognized Bogota as one of the most musically creative cities in Latin America.
This paper presents a theoretical as well as a practical model for the sustainability of the artistic and cultural expressions in the city’s public infrastructure (theaters), as well as the business model for fundraising and financial balance. Based on a systemic view of the arts performance, we proposed the creation of an infrastructure network for Bogota that integrates the individual theaters by organizational, financial, marketing, operational, organizational, logistical, human resources and fundraising processes for optimizing money and resources: in other words, to establish a public network of municipal theaters.
All the theoretical support of this paper is based around a concept: social networks in organizations and the systemic approach where every actor of the network has its own function for sustainability. That has always been a challenge for cultural managers: the financial gain as well as the cost effective cultural programming in terms of audience preferences. This paper aims to reduce this gap between effective cultural management and financial balance. Some references used to support the present research are: Granovetter (1985), Powel, W.W., Smith-Doer (1994), Scott, J (2000), Fligstein, N (2001), Boyd, (2000), Borgatti, S.P. and Foster, P. (2003), Smith-Doer, Powell, (2005).
As mentioned before, this work is based on the systemic approach to the cultural sector. We proposed five principal subsystems for its management: i) Government, ii) Planning and Intelligence, iii) Monitor and Control, iv) Coordination, v) Management of day to day responsibilities and functions. We followed a participative methodology to develop the sustainable arts and business model. In this paper we present the basis for participation of the different institutions involved, how decisions were made, and how they could be improved.
The proposed Management Model seeks to enable a proactive change process, led by e The District Department of Culture and Sports (SCRD) and The Bogota Philharmonic Orchestra (OFB) to overcome the internal operational weaknesses and to create a sustainable cultural programming for the citizens. There is an uneven and differential distribution of income within Bogota’s population, which requires these cultural agencies to create differentiated and specialized events for the public, guaranteeing that it is free for some.
To continue Bogota’s recognition as a cultural epicenter of Latin America, this process towards a new Sustainable Management Model must be propelled by these principles: i) taking advantage of cultural opportunities, ii) creating and strengthening an institutional and political coalition, iii) communicating this new vision within public institutions, iv) empowering the players, v) establishing short term results and achievements.
