Presentation

Actes if is a regional network of new cultural venues (Ile-de-France)

Unique experiment in France, the network actes if, created in 1996, is a regional network of 17 multi-field cultural venues in the area of Paris and surrounds.
In 1996, six small concert halls in Ile-de-France gathered into a network to share their artistic, economical and structural experiences.
Today, 17 members from different aesthetic fields (theatre, music, dance, multimedia or circus) are part of Actes-If. The network helps those venues by promoting their choices, acting as a real lobby.

Main characteristics of Actes-If network members

These venues were born because they are not established, institutional or commercial, and question a dominating system. So they create alternatives in the artistic way, in the operating modes, and in the way they relate the territory.
Actes if federates cultural venues of creation and diffusion, all different by their artistic identity, their size, their activities, their tools, around similar artistic, social and economic question.
In an artistic autonomy, these venues base their projects on artistic creation and promotion of emergent cultures / young cultures.
Taking a socio-cultural action on peripheral territories (suburbs, sensitive districts), they create a relation of proximity between artists and public, and of user-friendliness with the spectators. Because they take risk promoting young artists, they have a mode of management in mixed economy (private and public fundings), with also an important part of own resources (ticketing, hiring, services...).

Difficult to find the appropriate name...

If we said that these venues were “alternative“, “new“ or “intermediaries“, the common denominator between the members of Actes-If resides today rather in the concept of “solidarity“.
Experience sharing questions establishment, causes imagination, creates synergies, from which the will rises to exchange, and even to put projects together.

The force of the network, together in diversity

By accompanying the venues in their operation (professionalism, putting resources in commun, knowledge and experiments, financial solidarity, observatory, advice) and by constituting a platform of exchanges and communication, the network reinforces this common reference index.
These at the same time structural, economic and artistic convergences make it possible to develop concrete actions within the network.

Objectives of the network

Actes-If aims at :

 developing projects, actions, operating modes of the members,
 supporting the know-how and experiment, exchanges of information between members,
 contributing to the construction of a collective reflection around the principal issues of the cultural sector, in particular the relationship to other networks.

Missions of the network

Enhance professionalism

Since the beginning, actes if has provided services to support the management of his members:
 Professional training: Different trainings sessions are organized each year by actes if to help teams to consolidate their activities, and become more professional. The lessons are adapted to small cultural places. The subjects relate to all the professional branches (build and use communication’s tools: publishing desktop, press, technique, safety in theatres, how getting private or European grants, learning different ways of managing... )
 Pay slip service: This service consists in issuing the pay slip for the personnel, permanent or intermittent, of the staff of the members of the network and accompanying them and their tax steps (thus it allows the structuring of the venues by avoiding the moonlighting).
 Advise and permanent information

Mutualisation

The network’s mission is focused on getting benefit from sharing the different place’s resources:

 Economies of scale: the network is between people receiving subsidies and clients, and ask for several clients so it can have some reduction in cost per unit resulting from increased production or centralized orders to providers (insurances, printers, distributors of programs, inspectors of extinguishers...) known for the quality of their services and low prices.

 Exchange of knowledge and experiences, system of the referents: That consists to find in the network qualified people in a field which makes profit from their experiment and knowledge with other members from the network.

 Thematic Meetings: They are organised between theatre’s teams and deal with procedures, knowledge and experiences. They can be focussed on issues specific to each professional branch or can deal with a particular set of themes (financial mutual aid fund, observatory, venues in Paris). These meetings allow actes if members to collaborate on different needs and resources (i.e technical support or artistic advice), develop internal competences, and help to define actions together.

 Financial Mutual aid funds: In order to mitigate the financial difficulties of the economic situation of members, actes if created financial mutual aid funds. Immobilized on a specific and remunerated bank account, a sum coming from actes if and its members (on a voluntary basis) constitutes a "deposit" and helps the organization of credit partner to give to the network members short-term loans and to offer advantageous rate or overdrafts which can be obtained more easily.
The advantages of this system are as follows:

 the organization of credit can lend a higher sum than the amount blocked by actes if (from 5 to 10 times more),
 several structures can borrow in the same time,
 and it does not require a subsidy certificate to be able to benefit from them.

(Information-Communication-Observation Centre

Evolution of engagements of the network )