They bring in about $5.5 million for the city of Staunton, but the arts and cultural hot spots are having trouble finding funds in a tight economy. Still officials are doing anything they can to get the word out.

They say places like the Frontier Culture Museum and Blackfriars create a couple hundred jobs, and if advertising is successful, they may be the answer to a down economy.

Erik Curren, chairman of the Arts and Cultural Council, says, "They elevate your soul and they entertain you and they inspire you, and those are things people need now more than ever. People need to be cheered up."

Curren says funding isn't coming easy. The American Shakespeare Center is still about $170,000 short of their $250,000 goal this month just to stay afloat.

Curren says, "The arts generates tax revenues that pay for fire, police, and schools for everybody who lives in Staunton. So the arts, we think, are a great investment."

So alternate ways of advertising are being utilized. Staunton Tourism Director Sheryl Wagner must work with a frozen budget.

She says, "Right now we're working some public relations, trying to get some earned media, working on social networking. So we're doing a few of the free things now, but we also have our advertising out there."

Curren says the city council is pushing the state to make an official Arts and Cultural District in Staunton.

"The Arts and Cultural Community can do a lot with that," says Curren. "We can produce a brochure, we can produce a Website, we can get the word out to tourists coming from Washington, northern Virginia, and other places, that Staunton is a great destination for the arts."

Curren says an Arts and Cultural District like this could bring the right kind of tourists to the Queen City, but now it's all about weathering the storm in this economic climate. Currently, there are nine Arts and Cultural Districts in Virginia.

The city of Harrisonburg lobbied the General Assembly for a District in 2006.