The member-facing framework moves from the changes we are watching, to what those changes mean for members, to the reciprocal opportunities APAP can help members build and access.
Understand disruption. Help members shape and use emerging tools. Identify new formats, smarter ways of working, revenue possibilities and protections.
Translate growing recognition of the arts' health value into ongoing partnerships, programs, funding and work for artists and presenters.
Establish arts organizations and professionals as essential partners in trust, belonging, community vitality and civic life — and resource that role.
For 70 years, APAP has connected the people who make the performing arts possible—artists, agents and managers, presenters, producers and other professionals across our field.
We have created a marketplace for artists and their work. We have brought people together to build relationships and conduct business. We have advocated for the field, shared knowledge and strengthened the people and organizations that make this work possible.
That remains at the heart of APAP.
But the world around our members is changing—and what it takes to build a thriving career, organization and performing arts ecosystem is changing with it.
Our next chapter builds on what APAP has always done well, while widening the circle of people, partners, ideas and resources connected to our field.
And that changes the question we are asking.
Not only: What can the performing arts contribute?
But also: What should come back to the people and organizations making that contribution possible?
At the center of this work are APAP members and the arts workforce—with the capacity, resources and relationships to create, present, tour and sustain great work.
And around them is a series of reinforcing circles:
APAP has long helped members discover new ideas, learn from one another and adapt their work and organizations as the field changes.
Artists and arts organizations should not simply be consumers of the technologies reshaping our world. Our field should have a hand in shaping them.
That means creating opportunities for artists and arts professionals to engage with AI, technology and innovation in ways that serve people and creative practice—and exploring how those tools can help members work differently, reach audiences differently, reduce unnecessary costs and create new forms of artistic and commercial opportunity.
New tools · New creative possibilities · New revenue · Stronger operations
APAP members have always understood something that the world is increasingly recognizing: the arts change how people feel, connect, heal and experience their lives.
What if that value were reflected not only in applause or impact reports, but in the systems and investments that support health and well-being?
There is growing opportunity to connect artists and arts organizations with health systems, community partners and others investing in well-being—creating pathways for arts experiences to become sustained parts of how communities care for people.
For our members, that can mean something very practical: new partners, new settings for the work, new audiences and new sources of sustained engagement and investment.
New partners · New bookings · New investment · Sustained work
Our members do more than present performances.
You create places where people gather. You bring people who may see the world differently into shared experiences. You help communities tell their stories, celebrate who they are and imagine what they might become.
APAP has long advocated for that value.
Now we want to help translate that value into stronger relationships with the institutions and leaders investing in communities.
That means helping members connect with civic, philanthropic, business and community partners who may not traditionally think of themselves as part of the performing arts ecosystem—but whose goals intersect directly with what our members make possible.
New relationships · New investment · New community roles · New opportunities for artists and organizations
This is not APAP moving away from what members know us for.
It is APAP building outward from it.
You know APAP as a marketplace.
We remain a marketplace—and we want to expand who sees value in what our members have to offer.
You know APAP as a connector.
We will continue connecting our field—and bring more partners from outside our traditional ecosystem into that circle.
You know APAP as an advocate.
We will continue making the case for the performing arts—and broaden that case around the many ways our members contribute to the priorities communities are already investing in.
You know APAP as a place for learning and professional development.
We will continue that work—and bring members the ideas, tools and business models that can help them adapt and thrive.
You know APAP as a community.
And we will use the collective knowledge, creativity and reach of that community to help build what none of us can build alone.
The performing arts have always created extraordinary value.
The next chapter is about ensuring that more of that value circulates back into the field—strengthening the artists, organizations and professionals who make it possible.
Because a stronger performing arts ecosystem doesn't only create more art.
It creates greater capacity to serve communities, take artistic risks, employ people, build audiences, experiment, adapt—and create what comes next.
Whatever the avenue, members should experience APAP's work through three core forms of value:
Relationships, community, collaborators and partners that members can build with and through.
New work, bookings, markets, audiences, investment, revenue and applications for members' expertise.
Staff support, shared research and practical tools — less time chasing grants, more time for the work itself.
Showcases, EXPO, meetings, discovery, learning, deal-making, relationship-building and encounters with ideas and partners members might not otherwise access.
Community, knowledge, resources and opportunities that help members act on what they learn and sustain relationships beyond January.
Practical tools and insight for navigating technology, business-model change, partnerships and emerging areas of practice.
Connections within the performing arts field and beyond it — to health, technology, civic, philanthropic, public and private-sector partners.
A stronger public and policy case for the performing arts as vital infrastructure — and for investment in the people and organizations delivering that value.
Here's what's behind this framework, and what we're committing to as we build it with you.
These are consequential forces reshaping society, markets, institutions and how value is created.
You'll understand how these shifts affect your work and where new possibilities are emerging.
Traditional pathways, funding sources and operating assumptions are changing; durability requires adaptability.
You'll gain ideas, partners, tools and models that can support a stronger organization, career and revenue.
The arts create value far beyond entertainment or decoration, and that broader value creates new relevance.
You can enter new partnerships, markets and applications for your work without diminishing your artistic purpose.
The field has often been asked to demonstrate what it gives without receiving proportional investment in return.
We're seeking pathways through which value returns to you as work, resources, bookings, partnerships, investment and capacity.
This becomes useful only when you can encounter people, ideas, tools and opportunities and act on them.
You'll connect, discover, learn, do business and build relationships that carry forward after the conference.
The 70th anniversary is a natural moment to honor what APAP has built while preparing the field for changing conditions.
You're invited to shape what comes next — and to build the adaptability and relationships needed to thrive within it.
As we develop language, sessions, partnerships and programs around this work, here's what we're holding ourselves to: