It is with great alarm and concern that we read about the plight of Midlands Arts Marketing (MAM) (ArtsProfessional issue 8, August 27).
Clearly the facts are not fully revealed in your article, but the only conclusion to be drawn is that MAM was not worth saving in the minds of East Midlands Arts, which appears to feel no sense of responsibility towards an agency which it effectively owned, and to the staff who as innocent parties are now facing redundancy. It makes you wonder that if MAM was a regional theatre in financial difficulty, would the action have been quite so brutal?
In an era where the buzz words ?audience development? run rings around funders and clients alike, it seems staggering to kill the primary source of skills, experience and information that a region possesses. If the organisation had problems, could they not be addressed with less radical action? Wouldn?t it have been prudent to ask for the views of the arts organisations who use the agency? Are MAM?s services redundant in this region, or is there a whole host of marketing managers who now have nowhere to go for low cost skills and services from an agency with a regional focus? As the Director of a regional audience development agency I fully understand the juggling act required to keep such an organisation afloat. The bottom line has to be the level of demand for an agency?s services. Is it the case that the East Midlands no longer needs the services of a specialist, regional and subsided agency? I guess only time will tell.