Michael Taormina, managing director, Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, Atlanta.
After more than 40 years in performing arts, Michael S. Taormina, CFE, managing director of the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, Atlanta, is retiring at the end of the year.
Taormina came to Atlanta in 2006 to complete building construction, develop venue programming, hire staff and open the new $142-million Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre located in the Cumberland Galleria area in northwest Atlanta.
It was the fourth venue Taormina opened, but perhaps not his last. “I come in on time and on budget,” he said. “It’s a big job to open a building; fraught with details.”
He also opened the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts in Houston and Benedum Center for the Performing Arts in Pittsburgh. He started his venue managemement career at the New Orleans Cultural Center in 1974 when he was only 26. Taormina started out on this path as a drama major, earning his bachelor’s degree at Southeastern Louisiana University and his graduate degree at the university of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
“I’ve always been in theater,” Taormina said. He is very active in the International Association of Venue Managers and in IAVM’s Performing Arts Managers Conference. Taormina will be in Baltimore at VenueConnect Aug. 1-4.
“My health is fine,” he said, noting the only things retirement will bring is a change in level of stress and pace. He has several projects in mind postretirement, including writing a book, and likely helping to open a few more PACs, but from a consulting point of view.
“The industry is changing at warp speed,” he said. “I feel passionate about regional markets and working together as communities.” In Atlanta, for instance, the botanical gardens and the zoo have sheds and concert series. The new Falcons stadium will book concerts.
“Is there enough to sustain it all?” he wonders, and his answer is that venues work together regionally to be certain the needs of the community are met and that everyone sees the big picture.
He had firsthand experience with the arts district in Houston and how the concentration of venues increased attendance for all of them. Pittsburgh’s Regional Asset District is also an example of a thriving arts district, he noted. Each model is different, but the bottom line is that venues are there as an economic engine that works best when working together.
Atlanta is much more spread out, meaning the model there would have to be different again. But Taormina would like to see all new venues built with the big picture and the community good in mind.
Under his leadership the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre has become a major regional asset achieving national recognition for the Centre and is the permanent home for The Atlanta Opera and Atlanta Ballet.
“After forty-plus years, I feel that the timing is right for me to make this transition in an industry that has been very rewarding to me both personally and as a profession. I would like to thank the leadership of the Cobb‐Marietta & Exhibit Hall Authority Board of Directors and General Manager/CEO, Michele L. Swann, for their continued support over these past years. In addition, I want to extend my personal appreciation and thanks to an industry of venue managers, promoters, agents and artists that I have had the privilege to call my friends. This may be my curtain call, but you never know, there could be an encore performance in my future.”
He is currently in the throes of budgeting 2016 and booking the 2017-18 season for Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre. “I’ll have two years done when I’m finished, all tied up with a bow,” Taormina said. “Everybody should do that.”
Then the board can concentrate on finding his replacement. In Taormina’s mind, the key is relationships. “The manager has to have the right relationships. The rest of it is math.”
His relationships are the highlight of his career in performing arts management, Taormina said. To the artists, “our venue is their home.”
“Michael came to CEPAC during the construction phase of the project and from a blank canvas he created a successful operating model, while developing a productive occupancy,” said Michele L. Swann, general manager/CEO of the Cobb‐Marietta Coliseum & Exhibit Hall Authority, in a press release. “He is one of the most passionate proponents of the notion that when the wider Atlanta cultural community works together that’s when they find their strength and make long‐lasting contributions to the region. Michael is leaving a significant legacy and we are extremely grateful for this leadership for the past 8 years.”
Interviewed for this story: Michael Taormina, (770) 916-2802