Philanthropy Today
Philanthropy Today
Art Press Fund on the GMCF Community Hour Show Episode - 220
The Art Press Fund is transforming Manhattan's cultural landscape by bringing diverse events to the community while renovating a historic Art Deco building into a 400-person indoor venue to complement their successful outdoor space.
• Eric Kleiner, musician with Headlight Rivals, leads the organization alongside Derek Richards and his sister
• The fund's three main goals include providing affordable/free entertainment for all ages, bringing diverse music genres to Manhattan, and creating year-round entertainment options
• The historic Ag Press building renovation will create a 400-person indoor venue expected to open in early 2025
• Arts in the Park concert series, now in its third year under Art Press management, continues a 50-year tradition of free community concerts
• The venue will host more than concerts, including art showings, speakers, and community meetings
• The organization seeks community support to continue growing its cultural offerings
• People can find information about upcoming events and support opportunities via "The Press" on social media platforms and the Art Press District website
Philanthropy Today is brought to you by the Greater Manhattan Community Foundation. In this episode we feature a recently broadcast segment of the GMCF Community Hour as heard on NewsRadio KMAN. Back with the second segment on the GMCF Community Hour here on NewsRadio KMAN. Yes, we originate the show in Manhattan and I, dave Lewis, and in Key West, florida. It's a vacation, but I am taking, you know, an hour and a half or so to do this little gig, and so it's always fun and challenging to go through all the technology. So special thanks to Felix for all the work he's doing to navigate that world. Speaking of navigating a world, how about Eric Kleiner? Eric Kleiner is joining us here on the program. He is with the Art Press Fund and this is our. I think this is our first time to visit. About Art Press, or Art Press, eric, tell us what Art Press is.
Speaker 2:Well, the Art Press Fund is a non-profit that aims to bring different events of all kinds to the area. I excel in the concert and the rock and roll side of things, but we have a few different workers that deal with different stuff. We do all kinds of events and we're trying to make them bigger and better for Manhattan.
Speaker 1:I feel like so, eric.
Speaker 2:Go ahead, sorry.
Speaker 1:Eric is the band. Is what? Sorry, eric is a musician. You are the band. Is what? Headlight Rivals? Yes, uh-huh.
Speaker 2:That is.
Speaker 1:So you are a musician but you also coordinate a lot of musicians at a lot of bands and you also work with Manhattan Parks and Recreation on bringing the Arts in the Park concert series to town.
Speaker 2:We do. Yeah, we've been doing that, for this is our third year doing that and it's a blast it's. We're lucky to have a tradition of 50 years of music in the park for free. We were very happy to be part of it and I think we've improved it quite a bit as well.
Speaker 1:I think everybody has a different great memory of arts at the park over the past. I mean, we've seen some. Blake Shelton was there when he was, you know, just getting started we had Chuck checker, my gosh, we've had some real legends there, you know. And you know Martina McBride came and did a benefit concert after the 93 flood. There was all kinds of great stars that we have had and we got a lot of local talent. That's just wonderful. And and art center park is always just and he waved for juneteenth. How about that that would have been. I wasn't able to go to that, but that would have been a blast.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's really cool what Juneteenth has done down there. I'm glad I think that everything went okay with that, but I don't think it rained at all. Usually we get recursed on Fridays and just pop up rain, but we're getting lucky this year.
Speaker 1:Well let's get back to the Art Press Fund. You're a new entity and let's talk a bit about who all is involved, who the players are and what you all hope to achieve.
Speaker 2:Well, there's many people involved. The top three players are myself, my partner Derek Richards, who owns the Ag Press building with his wife Corey and the press building, and then my sister is also on the art press board and she does a lot more of the paperwork side of things. I'm kind of the big idea show guy.
Speaker 1:So what are your let's just say your top three goals with art press. We'll come back and talk about the ag press building here in a little bit, which is a great story in its own right too. So you've got some goals.
Speaker 2:Our number one goal is to bring you know affordable or free entertainment that can be great for everybody. You know we're definitely not for dividing the crowds. We want kids and adults and older people and all people to like the events that are going on. The second thing would be to bring in diversity to Manhattan amongst the genres of music. You know we're lucky in Manhattan where we have quite a rock and roll and country thing going on here, but we want to keep bringing in different genres of music and and different, you know, levels of artists. And the third thing you know would would probably be, you know I mean, arts in the park and the president is is awesome, but we we do have like an off season right now, but when our building is completed we don't want to take time off from having events. We want there to be a constant stream of entertainment for the people in Manhattan.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about the Art Press building or the Ag Press building, and it's, you know, original form, now with a new name. Apparently it's registered as a historic building because of the Art Deco type. Look that it has the architecture world. It's just a neat building and it's been well maintained and it's just got so much potential and I know Derek had just really had this great vision about trying to make something special out of this for the community yeah, and and it's going to be amazing.
Speaker 2:You know, we we run the outside venue right now and we've had shows up to about 600 people there and we've had events as small as 50 people there. The inside will be a 400-person cap, which, for a promoter like me, it makes your job a lot easier to have indoor shows and outdoor shows. As much as I love Arts in the Park and the Press's outdoor venue, we have a lot of weather variables, um, so it'll really take the stress off of me promoting and we'll be able to get bigger acts and, as soon as the building's done, have a roof over their head.
Speaker 1:So I'm very excited for that absolutely well, there's, uh, is there a time frame that you have with the uh, the building itself, to do a lot, lot of the improvements that you want to be able to incorporate?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, derek would know a lot more about that than me but they're expecting to have it open in this next year. So hopefully, by hopefully after New Year's or in the spring of next year, we will have an indoor venue. On Yuma of next year we will have an indoor venue on Yuma.
Speaker 1:So you have established the Art Press Fund to help assist financially with this. You had, like you had, acknowledged you're a non-profit.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about this fund and how that's starting to come together. For the effort, oh, you know it's been great. Um, you know, our, our, our goal besides, you know, bringing different art and, um, different shows and events to the area is to. You know, I'm a musician and I kind of get to see things from both sides as a promoter and I've seen hundreds of venues and played hundreds of shows and I and I know how this works. But we want to ensure that the audience, the artists, the production teams, anybody involved or going to these events are taken care of and everybody is treated very well.
Speaker 2:You know, the Art Press Fund basically started out of when I was in high school and then I went to college. I started booking bands and, uh, derek started coming to our shows and liking the way that we were doing things and you know, it got to the point where the shows were getting pretty big that Derek had thought we could do something with them. So the art press fund kind of spurred off of just me trying to bring bands and book my own bands here in Manhattan and we have a bunch of things Fantastic.
Speaker 1:This is a rather large undertaking, with the work that you want to do, and it's not just live music that you want to see happening there at the art press building in the future.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know we want there to be. It's more than just a concert venue. It's an event space. You know we want there to be art showings, speakers, you know, community meetings. However, the building can be used to benefit you know, the people that want to rent it or the events in the community. That's what we'll use it for. But yeah, it's far more than just a rock and roll venue, that's for sure. It really it's four acres, you know, in the middle of town. It's kind of unbelievable that it exists and the promise it has yeah, do you have some things in the works for fundraising events?
Speaker 2:yeah, you know, um, with arts in the park, you know we try to um, you know, have benefactors for every show and and we try to to not only raise money, you know, to have our events, which we're very lucky to have, you know, a good community support behind us. But, um, one of the inspirations for the art press fund was this organization out of kansas city called the mmf, the midwest music foundation, and I they help bands out all the time to get insurance and things like that for touring musicians. They were a big, you know, inspiration for ours. So right now, during our arts in the park season, it's kind of awesome because we kind of get to help those through them being our benefactors, help them raise money alongside us for our events.
Speaker 2:So so like, we're helping organizations and you know non-profits in kansas city and and all over manhattan here do their thing too. Um, but you know, in a non-profit when you're trying to do events we're always looking for, for support in the community, for sure let's jump back a little bit to like um arts in the park for a little bit.
Speaker 1:Uh, because you know, you, you obviously have a lot of the connections, you know, with the talent that we have in the area and and much of what you have done there is is pick out local talent, which I think is just a wonderful aspect that you bring to arts in the park. But what's that selection process like to determine? You know, because I know you got goals. You got so many different people that are into different types of music. But you know, when I go out and I see you know several hundred manhattanites there for arts in the park, that their representation, their age group, does not necessarily define the type of music. They just want to be entertained and take advantage of something that's just really unusual and unique about Manhattan.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, arts in the Park is cool because there is everybody, from, you know, babies to people that are, you know, 80s or 90 years old and a lot of the like. Via Christi brings their from the nursing home, brings a lot of people out for the shows. So, you know, when, as a promoter, when I'm looking for bands, you know, or entertainment, you know, the first thing is, you know they have to be a credible artist, like they have to have generally recorded music or, you know, somehow show us that they're, that they're good, a live band, you know, or have cds or or whatever, however they distribute their music. Um, but you know A lot of local bands I'll go see, because some of these college bands that do have a good pull around here and do bring people out, they might not have that. So a lot of the discovering bands will be, you know, as far as local talent, going out and seeing them yourself sometimes help, but not so much anymore.
Speaker 2:Um, for me, you know, even if we get bigger bands, and I always want to have local artists and local bands be part of arts in the park, because that's really what it's all about. You know a lot of these people are patrons for years that go to arts in the park and we do have a lot of local talent. That's really good. So I I do like to showcase that and I think that you know a lot of people compare manhattan to places like lawrence and kansas city and and I think that we, we do have a competitive market and have a lot of good musicians and a lot of those musicians from those areas really like playing in manhattan.
Speaker 2:So so booking manhattan and you know especially the press in the park stage is very fun and there's a lot of eager people to play there. So we we try to be selective, very selective, but but we try to balance, you know, different genres with locals and touring acts as well. We don't just want one simple recipe for anything you know.
Speaker 1:We've got a great story to tell and we're pretty excited about being able to share it here on the GMCF Community Hour. How can people find out more and, if they got a notion to help out with the Art Press Fund, what's the process like?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can search the press on. All forms of social media will be there. Media will be there. The art press district um website is a really good place to find all of the shows, all the events, the, the goals and the vision of the building um. But really, you know now we we advertise on radio and we use every avenue, but I personally think most people get a lot of information from facebook and instagram. So facebook and instagram the press are probably the best places to go to to find information absolutely, eric.
Speaker 1:We've covered a lot of things here, anything that we didn't touch. Based on that, you want to make sure that we share no, I don't think so, you know.
Speaker 2:I think we're on to something really good in manhattan and since I was a, I've seen a scene and entertainment go up and down, and I think we're on our way up, so I'm pretty happy about that.
Speaker 1:Definitely, so definitely. Eric Kleiner is here representing the art press fund. What a great story to tell. So we'll find out more about them in the future and you, as our listeners and supporters of the community foundation, we certainly hope that you'll lend him an ear and also get out and help support them and and efforts in the future all right eric have a good day, and when we come back from the break, we're going to be visiting with some folks from salvation army.
Speaker 1:we had a little bit of a change in our plans here mid-show, so we've got, uh, carla and, I believe, sarah that are going to be here and we're going to be sharing the Salvation Army story coming up here in just a couple of moments when we return from the break. On the GMCF Community Hour, which is brought to you on KMAN every Monday morning at 10, sometimes and mostly in Manhattan, but this week in Key West Florida. How about that? Huh? Always find out more about us at the website, which is mcfksorg.