CEO Michael Kaiser and other executives of Kennedy Center visited Miami's Carnival Center early last month to offer guidance to the beleaguered center, the Miami Herald reports. The center endured an estimated $5.4 million loss in its opening year.

The mayor of Miami-Dade County, Carlos Alvarez, held lunch and dinner meetings with the Kennedy Center team to discuss finances, fundraising activities, marketing, outreach and programming, among other things.

Alvarez said he learned about the "importance of planning, ...having good art [and] good performances…In other words -- how that all relates to the ability to fundraise and the ability to generate good publicity and good marketing.''

Kaiser feels Carnival's private support is severely lacking, said Miami-Dade Commissioner Carlos Gimenez in Miami Today . Michael Hardy, Carnival president and CEO, believes the Kennedy Center's arts education program can help better its reputation and stimulate private funding.

To that end, Hardy said, Kennedy officials talked "specifically about adding high-profile programming, nationally and internationally recognized programs."

A long-range plan should be set by November.

Carnival is at work on commissioning a contemporary opera called "Macandal" in the next three years. "[We] should be doing that with five or six new programs," Hardy said Kennedy officials told him.

"The main benefit of planning is that the center has more time to find funding and build media support for major projects," Hardy said.

Miami-Dade commissioners recently approved a $4.1 million bailout in June. Carnival managers have so put in place organizational changes and a hiring freeze to compensate for losses in revenue.

"It's obvious that [Carnival needs] added support," said Gimenez.

By Kevin Shihoten