(gentle music) - [ Announcer] Thank you for joining us for, This is Just Intermission, with Vivian Hua, Erin Johnson and Tim Lennon, moderated by Margo Vansynghel.

Before we begin, thank you to our session sponsor, Amazon.

We'd also like to thank our founding sponsor, the Kerry and Linda Killinger Foundation.

(upbeat music) - Hi everyone, welcome to the Crosscut Festival.

I'm Margo Vansynghel, I'm the Arts and Culture Reporter for Crosscut.

Today we're talking with Vivian Hua, who is having some technical difficulties, but she's still here with us, Erin Johnson and Tim Lennon, and they have all been steering arts non-profits through the choppy waters of the pandemic.

Vivian Hua is the Executive Director of the Northwest Film forum, Erin Johnson is the Interim Artistic and Managing Director of Velocity Dance Center, And Tim Lennon is the Executive Director of Langston, a multidisciplinary center for black arts and culture.

Hi, everyone, it's so good to have you all here.

- [Vivian] Hello.

- Hi.

- Thank you.

I wanna start off by taking us back to the spring of last year.

Could you describe when you first realized that this virus thing was gonna be really serious, that it wasn't just a couple of weeks that the arts and culture scene was gonna be shut down.

What was your first thought, and what was the first thing you did?

Whoever feels compelled can start us off.

Erin, do you wanna start?

- Sure, yeah, I mean, we had performances scheduled, and we started canceling shorter and then longer and longer, and longer, and artists, so much of dance is a alive endeavor, and so canceling that in person kind of connection was a big blow to artists, and I think artists they were like, what is going on?

What is my life?

And for Velocity, we spend a lot of time in the same room together, rehearsing, performances, classes, and so our kind of offerings shifted basically overnight.

- And Tim, what about you?

Can you like take us back to that moment?

Do you remember how you were feeling(laughs) and- - Yeah, - How much panic it was in your head.

- It was definitely the case of about a week's worth of total uncertainty from hour to hour, out into the day.

I think March 11th, we had our monthly phone screen paper black screening and panel discussion scheduled, we canceled that probably two hours before show time, three hours before show time.

And that was on a Wednesday, and by Friday we'd have canceled every...

Canceled or postponed everything for the rest of the year.

It was pretty clear that it was happening, and it was gonna be for a while, and so we had to pretty much clear the calendar.

And I think over the course of that, between the 11th and say the 16th or 17th, we were also in early talks with Ijeoma Oluo about hosting an event to support her Seattle Artists Relief Fund.

Our thought on the 11th was, we're gonna do a big telephone style of arts.

Every day the restrictions on gathering folks in doors were tightened more and more, and so by a week later, we scrapped any plans to do any sort of live event.

And then at the same time agreed to take on all the administration work of the fund.

So that was, Johnson will get to that later, but hugely transformational for our condition.

- Vivian, can you hear me all right, - [Vivian] Yeah, - At least you're here.

Do you wanna talk a little bit about how you were thinking about what was happening at the Northwest Film Forum and what this would mean for the arts and culture scene and for the organization.

- [Vivian] Well, we have, I'm sure like everyone, a fun, a seesaw back and forth conversation about when do we close, when do we open?

And we had to cancel the second weekend of our Children's Film Festivals Seattle, which afterwards we were like, oh my goodness, thank goodness.

Because we would have been like, all these little germ(laughs)up here, but ultimately we also had a festival happening the next weekend and we just decided to basically move everything online in a week rather than canceling it, and it ended up being a great move.

- And as you all know, at the one year anniversary mark of the first bans on gatherings, we conducted a survey among more than a hundred local arts organizations.

And many folks indicated that they were running low on cash, particularly because revenue, from events had dropped.

Does that reflect what happened at your organization or was it different?

Vivian, you wanna start us off?

- [Vivian] Well, certainly the revenue did drop in terms of earned income from screenings and events, obviously, but there was more than enough that made up for it, in grants, in very generous donors giving in new streams of income that we weren't really expecting to have participated in such as like big virtual events, and becoming a grant making organization.

All these kind of random things that came up that helped offset I think the loss that we would have felt otherwise.

- And Tim, how about you?

- Yeah, for us, we were extremely fortunate going into the pandemic and the shutdown.

Our organization was essentially created as a public private partnership in a very forward thinking model with the City of Seattle.

So long story short, we didn't have rent that we had to cover for the closure time, we have had not to that point then heavily reliant on earned income, so ticket sales never covered the cost of any of our programs, which is kind of not uncommon across the industry.

But for us, the period of March and April especially, where so many of our peers were really scrambling to figure out how to just keep the lights on and keep payroll, we were, thanks to the Public Private Partnership.

We were not having to worry about rent, We had enough savings that you could cover payroll, which gave us the flexibility and freedom to start thinking really creatively about how we were gonna live our mission in the absence of any kind of in-person program.

- And then Erin, your last, you and I talked earlier this year and back then.

So this was like three, four months ago, that at the time Velocity was running really, really low on cash.

You obviously had to leave your space on Capitol Hill.

Don't wanna speak for you, but, you are pinning your hopes on fundraising, government grants.

Could you tell us a little bit about what the situation is like now for Velocity, and are you on the lookout for a new home, perhaps?

Yeah.

- Yeah, yeah, we were scrambling.

We were one of those those folks.

Velocity operates on about 60, 40 on a good day, or at least contribute to 60%, contributed 40% earned income.

And all of our earned income streams were connected to space use, so whether that's folks renting for rehearsals or for classes, income from in-person classes and performances and events.

So it was a pretty big, rug out from underneath a few moments.

And we sustained for a little while through, we received emergency funding through Arts Fund, and then also a few kind of government, emergency COVID grants, but looking kind of into the future, into this year, it was unclear, in December when we were making the decision to leave our space, we didn't know when we would be coming back to it.

And so if we were potentially looking at another year of not making any revenue off of the space, it was just untenable.

It was impossible to imagine.

And what would have had to happen is like canceling all programming, really going into like full on, survival mode for the time that we were operating.

And we just felt like, we couldn't do that to the artists that we were working with, and they were creatively coming up with strategies for pivoting online and we wanted to support them in that.

And so that's really the decision we made was to stick with artists and to pay the people who were making the work still happen.

And what that has allowed us to do, is really dream about what it is we want from a space.

And what is we like, maybe don't need from a physical location and artists, dance artiste especially are really, having so much ingenuity about how to use spaces, how to use different spaces, and they have been for a while.

And this is just kind of an opportunity for philosophy to double down on that with them and to say, what is the space that you want your work to be within?

How can we make that into the place where the art happens, as opposed to being like, well, it has to happen at our venue because we're paying for it(laughs) so that's where it needs to go, so that's a really exciting thing.

And I think space, a new space is in the cards for Velocity in the future.

And we'll see what that is.

- And you mentioned kind of a couple of things that you don't necessarily want, in a space, maybe are there any things that you are looking for or things that you definitely are leaving behind?

- Well, I mean, I think this is a great opportunity to think about partnership and to think about space sharing, and I think Tim and Langston, they have a really good example of how to utilize the space that exists in the city to activate it with art and programming.

And so I'm hopeful about that, and in Velocity's future, and, there isn't a dedicated center for contemporary dance in Seattle, as there is with some, most of our major cities here in the US.

And so maybe this is the time to do that.

And I think, I'm gonna dream big because my community is, and that's really exciting.

- Okay, and now I'm kind of hoping to talk a little bit about pivots, some of us might be a little tired of hearing the term, but I'm still interested in hearing how your organization was able to adapt to the circumstances of the pandemic.

What kind of emergency measures did you take, what was successful and what wasn't, and then a similar question, what do you plan to keep around, and more kind of pivots do you hope to never see again?

Tim, do you wanna start us off?

- Yeah happy to.

For that first couple of weeks in March, we really, we were panicking.

We didn't know what we were going to do, so much of the work of Langston is really just, just centered on being in this historic building with black audiences, celebrating black art.

And so the idea for us, of translating that to something online was kind of a head scratcher.

I remember thinking like, how are we gonna compete with the entire history of recorded media that's available for free on the internet.

And I was gonna tune into a little show when they could watch "City Party do it," or "Ballrooms do it."

I got over that pretty quickly.

And all the credit is due to our program manager, Jasmine Scott, who very wisely recognized that what we have that nobody else has, is our relationship to Seattle community, Seattle Black communities specifically.

So our first pivots into the online programming was a partnership with Maniway, another amazing black arts organization here in the Central District, doing a very deep dive into the history of Seattle hip-hop, and so really creative program, sort of taking inspiration from the plethora of DJ sets that sprung up on the internet all the times.

We had two diffuse in competition with one another each sort of exploring a different era of Seattle hip-hop history, whether it's a time period or a scene or certain agencies.

And then the folks who participated in those sessions of the scene in dialogue over the music, and so it was very much like the people who were there who made Seattle what it was.

In this neighborhood talking to one another, we live in the glory days in some cases, Diving deep into some of the challenges of living locally, but it was all Seattle.

It was all local Black artists telling their own stories, I mean, it's what we did in person, and it's what we did online and so it really resonated with folks incredibly well.

Taking inspiration from that, we continued to just build on existing programs, create new programs.

We had to scramble to get this hundred year olds, former synagogue with 18 inch concrete walls up to snuff for it or streaming online.

So there's a lot of investment in internet technology, and infrastructure that we never really imagined we'd be doing.

And then we move into the funding space.

We realized that without artists, there's no reason for there to be arts organizations.

And so we put all of our energy and attention into making the Seattle artists really fun and success that it was.

And that meant essentially learning how to be a whole new kind of organization.

We were grantees.

And then we became grantors as a result of this.

Stunningly we became the largest individual funder, the largest funder of individual artists in Washington State last year as a result of(faintly speaking) So really just trying to give back to the community, the artists we fund was created by black artists, we saw this is taking the work that we do on our stage to a much bigger stage, in the sense of producing and presenting and co-creating with black artists and amazing feet of cultural power and that certainly fit the goal for the sailors were really fun.

- And Tim, how do you look at creating community and being in community with folks over through digital media?

Did you feel like that?

Of course it doesn't replace it, but did that work for you?

Do you feel like that was successful?

And do you feel like that was something that worked for the organization?

- Absolutely, yeah, I'll use the example of our Seattle Black Film Festival, which is our biggest annual event.

We just wrapped last week on this reservation, but we postponed it to July last year, made it all free and found online, and didn't change the formatting of the programming too much, was more or less the same concepts, but delivered online.

And what we realized is that there were hundreds of folks who were able to tune in from Renton, Auburn, Kent, Federal Way.

Basically the second district asks for folks who have been displaced from this community over the last couple of decades, who in the poor times, couldn't get to our venue, just because of Seattle traffic, like coming to see a show in Seattle from the Federal Way.

That's a commitment, it's a heavy lift.

And so we were able to reconnect with community to reach folks that weren't able to come join us in person in a really major way.

And although last year's festival, was free, you can just log in and watch all the films whenever you wanted to.

We actually did better in terms of folks just donating to the festival, to the organization during the festival, then we get a ticket sales to you prior.

So I think that the community's appetite for connecting, however they can connect is always gonna be there, and we were able to provide, not an ideal situation.

It's like the power of being in fellowship in this space with our community is unparalleled, but to be able to get as close to that as possible, if we use computers really paid off.

- And speaking of virtual film festivals, Vivian, do you wanna talk a little bit about how the Northwest Film Forum pivoted, and then I'd like to hear, from you and from other folks, what are some things that you don't, when we go back to quote and quote normal, that you don't wanna go back to, I think that you don't want to do with pivots that you want to leave in 2020, 2021.

- [Vivian] How much time have you got Margo?

(all laughs) So I think for pivoting, I spoke a little bit about just moving everything online really quickly, and that I think was just sort of, we didn't know how we would do it, but it's just like we got to do it, and made it happen as a result.

But I would say the other thing that I feel like we did well early on was sticking by our values of taking care of our staff.

And everyone on staff before we found out how the pandemic was gonna play out we just decided that we would keep everyone on staff rather than laying off people, which a lot of cinemas around the country did.

And so everyone on staff, including our leadership team just went to half-time just to make sure everyone could stay on payroll.

And then when PBP came through and then we could bring everyone up to full-time, but it was nice to see that, I mean, not to say that this doesn't always happen, but that sticky Meyer values could pan out for the better, and in that period simply because we existed, and we were the few that existed, it create a lot of potential for opportunities if that makes sense, because there weren't that many people who had capacity.

In terms of like long-term stuff.

I would say, like, those are less pivots and more just like evolutions of self exploration through the past year.

I think the racial reckoning definitely, obviously brought up a lot of things, but in general, just thinking about equity in terms of the bigger picture as well, not just race, but also accessibility has been a big thing for us because that has been a huge weak spot in our organization, and moving forward, just sort of being honest with ourselves about all the things that we are lacking and not beating yourself up cause that just happens, but looking forward to the ways to use this time to change and adapt to be better by the time we do open.

- And Vivian you talk about accessibility, and I'm hoping you could just give the folks who don't have a background in arts.

What does that mean when you say accessibility, and how did you find out that that's something you could work on during the pandemic?

- [Vivian] Yeah, I think, disability justice has had a bit of a moment during the pandemic just because everyone, all of a sudden is even aware of the very basic thing of, oh, your streams should have captions or maybe signing.

And those aren't like super advanced and there's so many other ways to look at disability justice, for instance, we have like assisted audio recordings in our physical space, but we don't advertise it, and that's one of the main things like saying up frankly, do have so that people who are in need of it don't need to ask for it or know that it's welcoming to begin with.

So just more of those types of practices.

And again, we're still learning, but we're doing like, we're just learning as a group, and thinking about it as a group and dedicating resources to it when we reopen.

- And then Erin, I wanna get to you too.

And then to Velocity in terms of pivots things you wanna leave in 2020, 2021, things you wanna keep doing.

Talk to me a little bit about what Velocity has been doing.

- Well, we moved all of our classes online and I feel like you haven't lived until you've taken an online dance class.

I like(laughs) it's definitely a unique experience.

It's like freeing because you get to move around your house, and it's also like you're in a teeny tiny space and you might knock over the lamp.

So I love it, and I also am really excited to be dancing in person together.

It's really solidified my personal, and also I think Velocity is love of in-person live experience, like there is something that is created that is greater than all of the sums of us separately when you're in space together, and that is really become abundantly clear.

I'm ready to let go of some of the zoom meetings on my schedule, and I think some of the artists that I work with are looking forward to that, to getting together and being able to collaborate with each other.

Some people have continued to create dance virtually in their homes, which is like an incredible lift to completely shift perspective and to make the frame of your work become a screen, as opposed to a live performance is like a big step for in-person performance artists to take, and so I'm excited to let people who wanna do that, continue to develop that, and to let people who don't wanna do that, to not have to do that anymore, to be able to be expressive in person again.

Yeah.

- Okay, thank you.

And kind of going back to something that perhaps we discussed a little bit before, but basically, with this survey that CrossFit did found, was that a lot of organizations were saying like, "Oh, we're running low on cash," but there's a huge asterisk that comes with that because that was the case even before COVID, right?

Just really thin margins.

And with that in mind, could you talk a little bit about how you were able to bring in funds, money in the past year, and we've just touched on it briefly, but talk a little bit more about how that worked, how you do that.

- [Vivian] I would say (group chatters) - Go ahead.

- [Vivian] Oh, I just wanna say, I think we're really fortunate in a lot of ways to be in Washington state.

There's a lot of relief funds available relatively speaking to a lot of other states.

So for us, that was a big source of money.

And then the other one that was like a totally amazing thing was Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie, did a random fundraiser for us, which was quadruple match, and that was like(laughs) (all laughs) Quadruple match if anyone can get it.

- Erin, you were there.

- Yeah, I mean we went for all of the COVID relief.

We did two rounds of PPP.

We've applied for the shuttered venues, operators, grants.

We've received money from Arts Fund, and from other foundations, our existing foundations are supporting.

We're in a kind of a size of organization where a lot of our funding is like under 10k per gift, and so it's piecemeal, it's like put it all together, patchwork style, and so I think that was what we continued to do in this case.

- For us, it was a slightly different story.

We certainly came up in our competitions around your article, Margo.

We did really well last year by all metrics.

And I think that a lot of that had to do with starting off in a really good position, we have this public private partnership.

So we were in our overhead was lower going into the pandemic than a lot of our peers, But more importantly, we threw all of our resources into supporting the broader ecosystem through artists from the fund, through the programs that we continue to run virtually ensuring that we were continually paying black artists for work, giving them reasons to stick around in town, and continue to create wherever possible and however possible.

But with the relief fund especially, we gained a level of exposure with donors and funders foundations that we were hoping to get to many years from now, we were just embarking on our journey to create a whole development program within our organization in 2019, and the hope was that we'd be able to cold call some of these folks, and they might return our calls in a couple of years, but they were calling us.

They they're saying, "Wow, we saw what you guys are doing with the relief fund.

How do we get to that?"

And politically, once they got to know our organization through the opportunity to support individual artists, a lot of donors and funders really liked what they saw or regular programming and became part of our organization.

So I think at the end of the year, we came out well ahead of where we had hoped to be pre-pandemic for 2020, and I think that's a direct result of us showing up and showing up strong for the broader Washington artists community.

- And that's kind of an extraordinary situation, I guess, to be in a sense or more unique, and this is maybe related a little bit to something that we found in the survey, which was that, the Black Lives Matter movement prompted donations to black led arts organizations, and I'm curious to, how do you see that moving forward?

And then a question kind of related to that, what other impacts of the Black Lives Matter movement have you seen on the cultural scene and do you see kind of going forward?

- Yeah, there's so much there.

Like, we can say, how much time do you get.

I do wanna say that yes, like our organization definitely benefited in some ways from that.

I don't know.

Internally among other these of black arts organizations, we just kind of scratched our heads and we don't really know how long this is going to last.

Funders are notoriously fickle, and they change their minds about what they're gonna be jumping to at the drop of a hat.

And then there's something awful.

There's something awful about this sort of influx of cash following the murders of our crews at the hands of the government.

And so, that's a weird one.

That's that one's wrong.

I do wanna say though, that certainly in Seattle, there were a number of other organizations that rose to the occasion to support the protesters, to support the folks who were out on the streets.

And I wanna give a special shout out to Vivian and the platform, also to some other local businesses and organizations in the kind of Chaz Chop region.

We heard a lot of statements, equity statements, and like we're all in this together statements for the pandemic, and whether racism is bad from, in light of George Floyd's murder from a lot of large organizations and businesses, but companies like Vermilion, organizations like Northwest Film Forum, collectives like Sweet Gum studios, actually showed up for folks in the streets.

They were putting their resources in servicing community in a way that was truly inspirational.

So hopefully they've benefited as much as they benefited the community in that regard, but it was very inspiring to me, to see a lot of organizations, not non-black organizations, really giving 110% to surface difference.

I think that long-term, that's where I take inspiration, and that's where I think we're gonna be better off as a sector as organizations like mine, organizations like Vivian's, and so many others that put everything aside, and find new ways to live our missions in service to what community needed at that moment, are the future of this industry in this sector.

And hopefully our peers, a larger arts organizations can take a lesson from that.

- I just wanna jump in and say that we have a quick reminder for the audience.

We will be asking some of your questions soon.

So if you have them, make sure to add them to the chat, and we'll get to those in just a minute.

I wanted to see if anyone else on the panel wanted to add anything to what Tim had just said, or if there's any thoughts that you might have on the impact of Black Lives Matter on the local arts scene and what that might look like also going forward.

- [Vivian] Yeah.

I would love to speak to just the Black Lives Matter, and the ripple out like long-term effects of organizations having to deal with racial equity in their organizations by being brought to the mat, so to speak.

And I just think in general, the time for speech is over, and the time for action is now.

And that people aren't really gonna get away with just saying the words anymore.

- You're right.

- I just wanna make sure that I get one more question, and before we have to get to the audience questions, we've titled this panel, This is Just Intermission.

And what I'm wondering, this can be whatever you want it to be in terms of an answer, but I'm wondering, what do you hope will happen when the curtain goes back up?

In what way do you hope things will look and operate differently.

If any wanna start(laughs) - [Vivian] Yeah, I know we had some questions, we didn't get to it yet, but talking about space, that's the big thing, we need space, and we need people who know how to navigate the challenges of space to step up and assist because not most of us in art organizations don't know that field, don't know what we're doing, don't know the opportunities that are available.

And really, if we're gonna keep arts and culture in Seattle long-term, space is such a huge part of it.

- And what might be some things that you hope that will happen in the next, as we look towards recovery that you hope will happen so that people and arts organizations and artists can afford a space in Seattle.

- [Vivian] Yeah, so the City of Seattle of arts and culture helps spearhead the Pedi Cultural space agency PDA.

And the goal is that it can help fundraise to be able to help purchase cultural space, but the problem is that without a project identified, I've heard that it is difficult to fundraise, and I kind of wish that the vision itself of being able to purchase space, cultural space, regardless of whether it's been identified or not, because that's just so far long down the road of a process, I wish that people could invest in just the vision of a PDA and this thing, this entity hoping to purchase art space for the betterment of the community, rather than waiting for the details.

Why are we waiting for the details?

I think the idea needs to be funded.

- Yeah, I can speak to that a little bit.

Been working on the Cultural Space Agency with a lot of folks in community for the last few years, and it's a really powerful tool, and I think it's one that will both in terms of housing and in terms of commercial space for non-profits for small businesses in the creative space, will be a game changer, and will enable us to push back on a lot of the identification, and just the ridiculous nature of Seattle real estate.

I mean, it's hard for any culture business to survive in this town, given the way land use tax code, speculative investment has shaped the city, the countries over a century and a half, this is the first chance that we have to really do something a little bit different.

And I'm really excited about that.

So your question Margo, now we're gonna go to Q and A I understand, but I'd like to see more people of color in leadership at all levels of management in all arts organizations.

So I think there's a lot of organizations that have taken enough trainings and enough workshops, and hire enough consultants over the last couple of decades, but they really need to show and prove at this point.

- Thank you, Tim.

Okay, I wanna make sure that we get to some of the audience questions before we run out of time.

And I'm gonna start with the first one here on my screen.

What more can I do to support the arts, but the audience.

So we talked about a little bit city level funding, and so what can individuals do to support the arts?

Erin, do you wanna start off?

- I mean, I think just continue to come, like continue to come see new work specifically, take a risk, pick something you've never gone to before and give it a try, go to a place you've never been because these like small organizations are putting a lot of money into helping artists create new work, and we just need them to feel the love.

We need them to feel like people are coming and caring about the work that they're doing.

- Yeah, I would say as audiences and patrons, the best thing folks can do is to show up first and foremost, See me works.

You see stuff by local artists, also talk to the large institutions that are presenting artists, there was so much talk last year about, how we're gonna come back better, and whose equity and love our various communities when those national touring arts come back and find out why in the music space, find out why there aren't local openers.

When we have these big Broadway productions coming to our theaters, find out what they're doing to work with local actors and local stage technicians.

Like, make sure that the local artists and local culture workers are supported by the big institutions across, all of arts and culture as those big institutions are relying on us as a community to support them, and it's now time - Vivian, I'm curious if you have anything to add to that.

- [Vivian] I agree with all that, and I would also just say, people have various kinds of accessibility to different communities and also skillsets, we in the arts community have specific skillsets and there are others we need.

And if you are someone who believes in the arts and have a background in law or real estate or tech, any of these things are all very useful.

And if you care about any of these organizations, we would love to talk to you, I'm sure.

- Then I have another audience question, which is, if you had a do over, is there anything that you do differently in how you've had to pivot over this last year?

I know looking back can be a little traumatic at times, but... - [Vivian] I'm not a rude person.

- No regrets Vivian.

- [Vivian] Yeah.

- Okay.

- Yeah, every day was like a whole new world, and we all made the best decisions we could with the permission we had at any given time.

So, I mean, beyond raise more money to help more people, hire more artists, find the money to pay more artists, to do their thing or to not do their thing.

It's a really hard time for artists to get into the head space and create, so take care of more people, but we did.

So nobody bets on that.

- Yeah, I mean, I think Velocity, if I could wave a magic wand, it would be to have left the space sooner, just to move those resources into artists sooner.

I think it was like a balancing act, and I obviously couldn't have done it any different, but if I could go back, that's what I would do(laughs) - Okay, I'm gonna ask one final question and that's, what do you think will be the lasting impacts of the pandemic on the art scene?

It's a huge question, but I'm curious as to what you all think.

- I think optimistically, which is not characteristic for me, this last year, I mean, this one's like a 16 month year at this point, As a field, there's no more emphasis.

All the crazy ideas.

All of the risky moves that we considered taking when the old normal went away, there was no excuse not to try those things.

There's no excuse not to actually diversify your organization.

No excuse not to close up shop and shift those resources to better serve your community, creative in not interpretations, but creative manifestations of our mission statements was what got us through these times, And I think that, we got so stuck on the way we were supposed to do things that this year and previous to that, we were able to just try to do the right thing at every opportunity.

and that meant doing things differently than we were able to do before.

And hopefully that the risk reward, risk reward calculus going forward will be shifted so that we don't feel that inertia that just like not in a certain way, no one has done anything the regular way for the last 18, last year and a half, let's keep it that way.

And the last impact is that, folks who did try new things and succeeded, be able to inspire other folks to continue to try(faintly speaking).

- Okay.

Erin or Vivian, do you need to add anything to that?

- I think it just became clear that we have more resources than we thought we did in some ways, and that if we reach out to each other, there was a renewed investment and like, yeah, let's make this work.

Like, what do I have?

What do you have?

Let's do it.

And I am really excited to bring that forward into the possibility of being in person too.

- [Vivian] I think this panel maybe speaks to it.

I think it's not decided yet.

I think what the impact is, has not been fully written, and that we're still in the thick of it, and that we should be still actively working towards finding the outcome that we want to see, if that makes any sense.

- Yeah, and that's a nice wrap-up.

Thank you, I appreciate that.

And so, unfortunately, we're out of time and I wanna thank you all so much for a great conversation.

Really I appreciate you being here.

Thanks so much.

- [All] Thank you.

- Yeah, thank you.

- And thank you everyone for joining us.

I hope you get a chance to see some of the other festival sessions.

Tomorrow, Crosscuts arts and culture editor, Brandon Davis will be talking to some amazing local artists about creating art in response to 2020s events in a session called Art in a Year of Unrest.

That's tomorrow at 11:00 am, and it should be really great, but for now, have a good rest of your day.

Thank you.

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