Large, multi-disciplinary arts complexes are built for many reasons: local pride, political visibility, historical legacy. Above all, they are conceived to create a public space for a large audience to be confronted with artistic expression. These imposing spaces can play a unique role in the city by concentrating cultural activities in and around themselves. They can open out onto a diversity of artistic tastes and disciplines and they can attract audiences from diverse communities, ages, and backgrounds. Or they can monopolize public subsidies and sponsors, stick with a popular or elitist program and be inflexible due to tradition, bureaucracy, and staff complexities. Do these complexes have a responsibility to support and offer space to young and emerging artists and new art forms? Or does the responsibility of reaching a wide audience and being financially viable keep them from innovating and taking risks? This challenge has led to some creative and exemplary solutions that will be presented here.