October 2015 – Page 4 – Adaptistration

Don’t Wait, Start Thinking About The End Of The Season Now

Friday, October 9th, 2015 by Drew McManus

Sure, even though the 2015/16 season is barely out of the gate you should begin thinking about the end of the season, in particular, putting together a Year-in-Review microsite to help document what your organization will achieve along with serving as an enormously valuable development resource tool. In order to help you get on the right track, I published an article ArtsHacker.com today that examines the issue in more detail along …

At Least It Isn’t A Work Stoppage

Thursday, October 8th, 2015 by Drew McManus

There’s an intriguing development in the Philadelphia Orchestra negotiations in the form of a six-month consultancy that introduces former John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts CEO Michael Kaiser into the mix…kinda. The Philadelphia Inquirer published an article by Peter Dobrin on 10/6/2015 that reports Kasier will be employed for a period of six months to provide advice for the orchestra’s strategic planning and capitalization campaigns. Setting aside for a …

Sometimes It’s Difficult To See The Low Hanging Fruit

Wednesday, October 7th, 2015 by Drew McManus

Since launching Venture Arts Incubator* last July, a number of applicants have discovered that coming up with solid idea is sometimes harder than they initially imagined. At the same time, there have been some genuinely inspired ideas as well but some recent conversations with colleagues have inspired me to begin compiling a list of business ideas that we already believe some degree of need exists but has yet to see a …

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back For Musicians And Airports

Tuesday, October 6th, 2015 by Drew McManus

Just when it looked like it might be safe to dip a toe in the waters of airline travel, a recent incident involving the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and flutist Jessica Schmitz at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport should bring some old fashioned Jaws level anxiety back to the process. Norman Lebrecht detailed Schmitz’s account in SlippedDisc article from 10/4/2015 and it is a genuinely stomach wrenching account involving what appears to …

Florida Orchestra and Milwaukee Symphony Settle

Monday, October 5th, 2015 by Drew McManus

We have two new entries in our list of mid to large budget orchestras with expired agreements that managed to ratify a new contract without resorting to a work stoppage: The Florida Orchestra and Milwaukee Symphony. Florida Orchestra A new three-year agreement begins reversing several rounds of concessionary agreements with annual improvements in base musician wages and number of weeks per season. 2015/16 26-week season (four half weeks at 75% scale) …