Summer Camp Prep: 3 Arts Education Leaders Share Tips & Tricks

For arts organizations that offer summer camps, preparation starts early. Parents begin shopping for camps for their kids in January and February, which means your summer catalog should be ready to go by the end of the year. 

While this year’s camps are still fresh, now is the time to evaluate what worked, what needs to change, and what you want to try next season.

Recently, we sat down with leaders from three thriving arts education programs to get their insights on the most important things they prioritize to make sure their summer programs are successful.

Over the course of an hour, Jamie Thome, Executive Director at Hive Center for the Book Arts, Drew Francis, Managing Director at Red Mountain Theatre, and Christopher Brazelton, Executive Director at Woodstock Arts shared their summer arts camp tips, tricks, and strategies.

Here are the highlights from that conversation.

Want all the good stuff? Watch the full conversation below or click here get a recording of the webinar delivered to your inbox.

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About the panelists and their organizations

Jamie Thome, Executive Director at Hive Center for the Book Arts: A young book and literary arts organization in Evanston, Illinois. Hive has offered children’s camps for two summers and recently piloted its first adult camp.

Drew Francis, Managing Director at Red Mountain Theatre: A Birmingham teaching theater that runs ten weeks of camp and serves approximately 1,000 summer students across two locations.

Christopher Brazelton, Executive Director at Woodstock Arts: A multidisciplinary Georgia arts center offering theater and visual arts programming, with approximately 650 summer camp registrations in its most recent season.

How to: Evaluate your recent summer camps

Panel takeaway: Capture observations and feedback while the experience is fresh but distinguish between changes you can make immediately and ideas that require deeper evaluation and are better suited for next season.

• From Jamie: Schedule your post-camp evaluation meeting before camp even begins. Get it in the calendar so you’re able to gather feedback from staff while details and emotions are still fresh.
• From Drew: Combine formal participant and parent surveys with informal conversations. Simplify surveys where possible (Drew likes Net Promoter Score-style questions!)
• From Christopher: Consider sending surveys as part of your consistent weekly camp update to make it feel like a habit and increase response rates.
• From Jamie: Adapt your feedback method to your audience. This past season, Hive asked adults specific written questions but evaluated its children’s camp primarily through instructor observation.

Hot tip from Christopher: While camps are running, differentiate between “gauging” and “evaluating” and act accordingly.

• Gauging identifies something that can be changed during the current summer. For example, Woodstock Arts got early feedback requesting more artistic variety and were able to adjust the curriculum during the season.
• Evaluating captures larger ideas that should be considered after the season, when staff have the time and perspective to assess them properly.

Woodstock Arts maintains a shared document where staff record observations throughout the summer. Following a week of rest, the team reviews the document, identifies strategic recommendations, and presents them to the board.

How to: Prioritize improvements for next camp season

Panel takeaway: Start with changes that can create meaningful impact, then check them against your organization’s mission, long-term goals, and practical capacity.

• From Christopher: Look for repeat feedback that you can’t afford to ignore moving forward. For example, Woodstock Arts heard repeatedly that older teen campers want to go “deeper” into the material; they plan to build their one-week camp into a two-week camp next season to address this feedback. This also aligns with a broader goal to keep teens engaged in their programs.
• From Drew: Return to the purpose of your program. Camps at Red Mountain Theatre exist to teach theatre skills. Every participant should leave with new skills, confidence and a meaningful sense of progress. If feedback indicates otherwise, changes need to be made.
• From Jamie: Hive wants to offer more children’s camp but, right now, their space is the primary constraint. Theirs is a young and growing program which means, right now, Jamie is more focused on learning from established peers and testing manageable ideas than aggressively growing the program.

How to: Differentiate your camp offerings

Panel takeaway: Stand out through a distinctive learning experience, clear positioning, and a strong understanding of what families need.

• From Drew: Give campers an active role in creating outcomes. This year, Red Mountain tested a “devised theatre camp” where students explored a theme, wrote a script collaboratively, devised the production, and performed the production — complete with lights, sound, entrances, and cues.

• From Jamie: Differentiate through timing and subject matter. Hive found a week-long gap between the end of other local camps and the beginning of school, so; they scheduled their children’s camp for that week, filling that scheduling need for parents. Hive also benefits from the specialized nature of what they do: book arts are already fairly differentiated!
• From Christopher: Treat parents like participants in the camp experience. Woodstock Arts gives caregivers a one-page summary with questions to ask their campers at each pickup. This replaces “how was your day” with a more meaningful conversation. Another webinar attendee from Alliance Theatre shared that they do something similar called “Rehearsal Reports”.

“We’re giving our parents tools to have conversations with their kids. They not only get to have a more fruitful conversation with their kids, but they have a very clear picture of what’s happening in our camps through their kids.” – Christopher Brazelton

How to: Put the right camp infrastructure in place

Panel takeaway: A smooth camp season depends on early decisions about space, schedules, staffing, communications, and registration, not just strong curriculum.

• From Drew: Because Red Mountain Theatre shares facilities with performances and other events, the most important foundation for summer camps is confirming the space. They start taking summer camp registrations in December in part to understand demand early to make facilities decisions.
• From Christopher: Woodstock Arts is particularly focused on nurturing a healthy teaching artist team. From compensation to backup coverage to training and team-building, they believe a healthy teaching artist team is their best bet to a stellar camp season.
• From Jamie: Previously, Hive was managing summer camp registration manually using a combination of Google Forms, docs and spreadsheets. They recently brought on CourseStorm to manage workshop and camp registration and Jamie is looking forward to a strong tech foundation including centralized records, custom forms, easy participant community, and more time for teaching and development.

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How to: Turn campers into long-term participants

Panel takeaway: Summer camp is more than an isolated seasonal experience, it’s an accessible entry point for first-time “triers”. Make sure you have a pipeline in place to turn first-timers into repeat participants.

This “how to” came out of a detour with Red Mountain Theatre where Drew shared their pathway to turn campers into repeat participants. Throughout the year, they offer:

• Playmaking camps
• Year-round classes
• Master classes
• Junior productions
• Performing ensembles

When it comes to campers, it’s not necessarily about moving every participant through a sequential funnel. But they are trying to make sure that campers can clearly see a next meaningful way to engage with Red Mountain Theatre.

“We’re really looking at: Do we have something next for that student, too, to continue them along some kind of path?” – Drew Francis

Final takeaways: Advice for 2027 art summer camps

Keep learning from peers

‍Jamie shared how important it is for their growing program to listen to other leaders, borrow ideas from other organizations and use conversations like this one to expand their thinking.

Listen, but stay grounded in the mission

‍Christopher recommended flexibility and active listening but emphasized that improvements should stay centered on your organization’s vision and distinctive value.

Remember why camp matters

‍Drew closed by describing camp as a formative experience. Young people spend sustained time with new people, encounter different perspectives, and learn about themselves. Arts organizations have the opportunity to create the environment where that transformation happens.

“Camp allows that space for you to be able to learn more about others and learn more about themselves, and they will be changed by the end of a week.” — Drew Franci

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