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The Long Center is Austin’s premier performing arts venue and a central anchor of the city’s cultural identity — presenting world-class touring artists alongside local resident companies and artists from its iconic campus on the shores of Lady Bird Lake in the heart of downtown Austin.
Beyond its role as a performing arts presenter, the Long Center has evolved into a civic infrastructure hub for Austin’s entire creative sector. As part of an evolving vision that reflects Austin’s rapid growth, the organization launched Create Austin — a first-of-its-kind initiative that extends the Long Center’s mission into the broader urban cultural ecosystem. Programmed and produced by the Long Center, Create Austin partners with the City of Austin to administer multiple public grant programs, distributing resources to artists, musicians, cultural organizations, and historically significant sites across the city.
Looking ahead, Create Austin is actively developing a Creative Consortium — a shared infrastructure platform designed to enable Austin’s arts organizations to pool resources, access services, and amplify their collective voice. With a business plan in place and pilot programs underway, the Consortium represents the next phase of the Long Center’s vision for a more connected, resilient, and equitable creative sector citywide.
Together, these programs position the Long Center not just as a venue, but as connective tissue within Austin’s cultural district — bridging the gap between large anchor institutions and the independent, grassroots creative community that defines the city’s character.
As Austin navigates rapid growth and urbanization, the Long Center serves as both a stabilizing force and an active advocate for the creative sector — working across civic, philanthropic, government, and business communities to ensure that culture remains central to the city’s identity, planning, and quality of life. The Long Center’s model offers a replicable framework for how performing arts institutions can expand their civic role and serve as genuine stewards of the urban cultural ecosystem in which they operate.
MISSION: For Austinites of every background, the Long Center is the community gathering place that offers the most diverse programming and stunning views of the city, so that together, everyone can experience remarkable live arts and entertainment.
VISION: All Austinites deserve access to world class arts and cultural experiences.
To connect with other cultural arts leadership for professional networking, resource sharing and think tank development. Joining GCDN will further help our teams as we continue to build relationships with the community, and promote events and programming that demonstrate that The Long Center is Austin’s number one cultural hub for everyone. We are evolving to expand our services to include support of the creative sector, managing multiple facilities and a deepened partnership with the City of Austin including the potential of creating a new cultural district. Led by women, with the support of one of the most involved, diverse, and youngest board of any major local non-profit in the area, we aim to learn from and be inspired by the best practices in our industry to help us further our mission and realize our vision.
