Now it'll be known as the Highmark Mann, after naming rights went to the Pittsburgh-based insurance company for an undisclosed sum.

by Peter Dobrin | The Philadelphia Inquirer

The Mann is getting a new name. With a major sponsorship in hand, Philadelphia’s arts center in Fairmount Park will now be called the Highmark Mann Center for the Performing Arts.

The Pittsburgh-based Highmark insurance company will join the Mann nameplate starting immediately under the terms of a 12-year deal.

“This investment will absolutely help to ensure that the Mann will continue to be an evolving, creative, living, inviting premier destination for our region, for all the artists that we present, and for the audiences that come. This is really an exciting next step for us,” said Catherine M. Cahill, president and CEO of the arts center.

Cahill and Highmark declined to discuss how much the company paid for the naming rights and other financial details. “Substantial” is how Dan Tropeano, market president of Highmark Blue Shield in Southeastern Pennsylvania, described the amount of money the company will pay to put its name on the venue.

He noted that Highmark had entered the Philadelphia market recently — in 2023 — and that the company saw an alignment between its customers and the Mann’s patrons.

“They offer programming that appeals to the entire demographic of the folks here in Southeast Pa., whether that’s the orchestra for folks that like that kind of thing, whether it’s other music festivals that cater to other types,” said Tropeano, who recalled attending his first Mann concert in 1991 (the Allman Brothers Band). “We find it to be one of the most diverse venues that really exposes us to the entire community, not just one defined segment.”

The arts center will use the moniker Highmark Mann for short.

The new name was announced Wednesday afternoon in a ceremony marking the start of construction on a renovation slated for completion in the spring. The project is part of a $70 million campaign that will also boost endowment and fund operations and artistic projects.

Among the changes coming to the Mann are a new main entry canopy and a plaza three times the size of the current one. A section of the Mann’s angular shed will display a 4,900-square-foot LED screen animated with video and kinetic artwork. Digital pillars, landscaping, lighting, and new way-finding features are on the way.

To date, nearly $60 million has been raised toward the $70 million total, said Cahill, who declined to specify whether the money from Highmark would be paid in one lump sum or in installments over years.

“This is an important component of this campaign, but we still have more work to do. We still have more money to raise,” she said, adding that she expects the $70 million goal to be reached by February 2027.

The new name is the center’s fourth. Called the Robin Hood Dell West at its opening in 1976, it was renamed the Mann Music Center in 1979 for philanthropist Fredric R. Mann and then, in 1998, the Mann Center for the Performing Arts.

The new name will apply not just to the physical campus — which includes the main shed named for TD Bank and a smaller stage at the top of the hill already named for Highmark — but also to the organization itself.

(The name change is a rebranding; the center is not changing its name legally.)

Some major naming opportunities may be spoken for, but others remain, Cahill said.

“We have the plaza that can be named. We have backstage spaces to be named. We have programmatic things to be named. We have a whole laundry list of naming rights.”

Though officials declined to quantify the cost of the sponsorship deal, Cahill said the amount was in line with similar ones elsewhere.

“We did national benchmarking about the world of naming rights, and I can tell you we are absolutely confident that where we landed in this deal is exactly where the Mann should be.”