Best Business Event Venue: Luther Burbank Center for the Arts

lbc-plaza-9042019
lbc-plaza-9042019

“It’s important for us to continue to reach more and more people and provide this space for businesses, individuals and organizations throughout the community.” —Rick Nowlin, president and CEO

The Luther Burbank Center for the Arts is the North Bay’s premiere arts and events center, presenting world-class performances, nationally-recognized education programs, contemporary visual art and many popular community events.

Built in the early 1970s, the building was originally a church owned by Christian Life Center, but it went into receivership. Around the same time, the Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce was discussing its vision for the future of the community. One goal was to develop an arts center, and the members gave the task to the Santa Rosa Rotary Club, which formed a committee to look for a space.

Eventually, all three rotary clubs joined together and established the Luther Burbank Memorial Foundation as the nonprofit entity to own and operate a new center. They took notice of the church, and 12 founding families donated personal funds and acquired a loan to pay for the building in full. As the only cash bidders, the center’s founding families purchased the property for $4.5 million. The doors opened to the public in 1981 with debut performances by the Santa Rosa Symphony and performing artists such as Anne Murray and Steve Allen.

Today, the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts is more than an esteemed performance center. It also serves as a community gathering space for businesses to host events and has been deemed Best Business Event Venue in NorthBay biz’s BEST OF the North Bay readers’ poll.

“We’re all honored and proud,” says President and CEO Rick Nowlin. “It says a lot about the center as a gathering place—not only for arts, entertainment and education, but also for other community and business events. It also says a lot about the quality of the staff here and their commitment to service, community and providing a great experience overall, whether it’s a live performance, a major trade show or a small, intimate wedding.”

Annually, the center hosts about 800 events, meaning space rentals. “The gamut ranges from a small classroom teaching excel or business writing to a company that has multiple branches bringing together all employees for an annual meeting in our 1,600-seat Ruth Finley Person Theater,” says Nowlin. “There’s an incredible amount of versatile space on campus.”

With pandemic restrictions lifting, the center is looking forward to welcoming back annual favorites such as the Beerfest—The Good One, Sutter Health’s Catwalk for a Cure and others. “We want to be nimble enough and resilient enough to come back and serve the community and continue to grow our programs throughout our organization,” says Nowlin. “It’s important for us to continue to reach more and more people and provide this space for businesses, individuals and organizations throughout the community.”

Nowlin adds that community support is essential to the center’s operations. “The biggest challenge for us as an organization is wanting people to understand that this is a nonprofit arts organization, and what we do is mission-based,” says Nowlin. “Presenting world-class touring artists is about bringing that level of artist into the region for our community members to experience, as well as the arts education work that we do, reaching 50,000 students a year. So, the memberships are vital to helping us provide everything that we do for our community.” He adds, “Someone may go to a concert and pay $150 for a ticket, but they may not realize that 90% of that ticket cost goes to the artist as part of their fee, and the balance that’s left—organizational overhead, marketing and all of the other costs associated with it—are up to us to pay. Our members really do make it possible by helping to provide support.”

lutherburbankcenter.org

[Photo courtesy of Luther Burbank Center for the Arts]

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