The arts have had a home in northeast Florida’s first city since the rich and famous from up north made Jacksonville a popular winter getaway in the early 1900s. New York-based moviemakers of that gilded era were attracted to the area’s warm climate and easy rail access, and lots of silent films were made in the city as producers established about 60 studios and made Jacksonville the “Winter Film Capital of the World.”
Since then, arts clout has only grown in Jacksonville, with AmericanStyle Magazine calling it one of the Top 25 Arts Destinations in the country. Festivals, performing arts events, Broadway productions, hip art galleries and museums with contemporary to Renaissance expression pieces combine to make this Southern city an arts mecca.
The good news for groups: There are many ways to access and get inside this smorgasbord of creativity.
For starters, there’s The Florida Theatre, one of the last remaining examples of America’s picture palace era of the 1920s.
“It was built in 1927, and is one of only four remaining in Florida,” says Lindsay Rossman, director of corporate communications for Visit Jacksonville, the area’s CVB. “It used to host Vaudeville acts, and was the platform for Elvis’ first indoor performance. Now we have rock, classical and a lifestyle speaking series on the roster.”
Planners can use it for really exciting events for up to 1,900 people, she says, adding that people love the great old marquee on the outside of the theater and the ceiling inside with all its paintings and colors.
Downtown Jacksonville is an arts-rich center that offers the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), many independent art galleries and small museums. Performing arts organizations, including the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, the Ritz Chamber Players, Theatreworks and the Florida Community College Jacksonville (FCCJ) Artist Series, are based downtown.
Jacksonville’s annual spring film festival celebrates current and past film projects in the city, which has doubled for jungles in Africa, cities such as Chicago and New York City, and South Carolina and Martha’s Vineyard. Jazz and blues festivals in spring and summer are also perennials. Art walks downtown and on the beaches are weekly happenings year-round. New this spring is the Riverside Arts Market along the riverfront. Artists will display and sell their creations, accompanied by musical entertainment, street performers and food vendors.
“One of our most interesting options for business groups that integrates the arts is a team-building exercise at the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens,” Rossman says.
Called Token Response, it utilizes decks of cards that people use to learn about art criticism and aesthetics. Participants place the cards on art pieces to represent their opinions about them—which they like the best and the least, which is most expensive, etc. The game is really a discussion tool, Rossman says, to examine patterns that occur, and to understand why people respond in certain ways to art as they do to work situations.
Now that’s the intersection of art and finance.
