RSO Board To Musicians: It Is for Your Own Good

The news out of Richmond, VA continues to march along at a furious pace. The latest development centers on a 1/28/2012 memo from the Richmond (VA) Symphony Orchestra (RSO) board of directors to the RSO musicians about the organization’s involvement vis-a-vis proposed legislation that would bar musicians from receiving unemployment benefits during non-employed weeks.

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In Richmond, The Plot Thickens

On 1/25/2012 we examined a developing situation in Virginia about a state delegate from Richmond, G. Manoli Loupassi, who was proposing legislation (HB 1254) that would prevent professional orchestra musicians from collecting unemployment benefits during weeks they were not employed. One unanswered question at that time was how Loupassi became involved in the matter to begin with but we now have an answer.

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Smart QR Code Design For Maximizing Conversion From Mailings

It’s always fun when unrelated items converge in just the right way at just the right time to uncover something useful. Case in point, I received four single show sales mailings from performing arts organizations (one orchestra, one opera, and two performing arts centers) and a domain name renewal notice and when all five pieces were strewn across the desk, it was tough to miss how the renewal notice was vastly superior in conversion-oriented design.

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Can You Have Ticket Deals That Are Too Good?

Following up on last Monday’s Placebo Pricing article, the ever sharp Lisa Hirsch from Iron Tongue of Midnight started doing some digging around in her neck of the woods on ticket price issues and turned up some very intriguing results. In a post titled Pricing and Audience Resentment she provides a few apt observations on timing and steep price cuts.

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Another Orchestra vs. Unemployment Incident

The 2011-12 season seems to be the year of pushing back against paying musicians unemployment benefits for some orchestras. In Louisville, the orchestra association fought hard to get their state’s Office of Employment and Training to revoke musician unemployment benefits and to pay back what they had received in 2011. Now it looks like the Richmond (VA) Symphony Orchestra (RSO) has decided to deal out a little damage of their own.

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