Idaho Falls Arts Council looking at partnership with Civic Auditorium

The Idaho Falls Civic Auditorium and the Idaho Falls Arts Council may soon have a closer working relationship if an agreement is made by the City Council.

The proposal comes after it became known that the Civic Auditorium didn’t have a long term sustainability/maintenance plan, nor did it have a balanced budget.

In an open session, the Idaho Falls City Council discussed the option of creating a community partnership between the two culture focused entities. In the initial plans, the Idaho Falls Arts Council will focus on the administration, advertising, planning, and marketing side of the auditorium. This would in turn allow current auditorium staff and volunteers to focus strictly on preparing, producing, and performing shows.

“It’s what makes Idaho Falls unique in a sense,” said Idaho Falls Councilman Ed Marohn. “We have the arts council, the Civic Auditorium, we have a lot of events going on that address the culture and the social interaction of the city.”

The hope is the new system would draw in larger shows in greater numbers. This in turn would offset the bump in costs for the city to have the Arts Council provide that administration. Current cost estimates to taxpayers stand at around $70,000.

City Council members agreed to have a formal and detailed proposal written. They will then vote on the proposal later this spring.

For the people that perform and work at the Civic Auditorium, their only hope is that the City Council and the Arts Council don’t forget about the little guys.

“We would hope they would communicate with us, invite us to your committee meetings,” said Sandy Herrin, the current director of the Opera Theater performances. “That probably will start the discussion process of all the other issues that we might have concerns with.”