To address the call for examination of academic and professional approaches to arts entrepreneurship, we summarize the academic arts entrepreneurship programs in the State of North Carolina and conduct a pilot study with data gathered from arts entrepreneurs who attended the 5th annual Southern Entrepreneurship in the Arts Conference in Greensboro, North Carolina. Our review of the descriptive data reveals that arts entrepreneurs face a variety of needs and challenges, which are psychological (e.g., peer support) as well as technical (e.g., start-up skills). These findings suggest that, as prior literature stresses, arts entrepreneurship education programs should entail both the “entrepreneurship mindset” aspect and the “venture creation” aspect, so we advocate a holistic approach that combines both these perspectives with other related courses. We conclude, based on our exploratory study, that collaborative and flexible approaches, such as cross-campus programs for arts entrepreneurship education in higher education, could have beneficial outcomes for art entrepreneurs. Implications for future research are discussed.

Creative and performing arts schools are increasingly facing the challenge of developing curricula to address an employability agenda in higher education. Arts entrepreneurship education is thought to address this need because it supports the unique nature of the work circumstances of creative and performing arts graduates. As an emerging area of research, arts entrepreneurship education faces the challenge of not only being relevant and important to creative and performing arts education but of being robust enough to contribute to a “paradigm shift” (Beckman, 2011, p. 29). With this in mind, this article attempts to clarify a recurring theme of arts entrepreneurship education, this being the development of an “entrepreneurial mindset.”

We argue that if an entrepreneurial mindset is to be considered an essential aspect of arts entrepreneurship education, educators need to have a good understanding of what it means and how it might be taught. We examine data from four interviews with arts educators who have responsibility for teaching arts entrepreneurship in creative and performing arts schools. Their experiences enable us to clarify the meaning of an “entrepreneurial mindset” in a creative and performing arts context in higher education and to make suggestions about teaching and learning.