Drew McManus on the orchestra business.
The Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra (FWSO) just crossed another major threshold in their ongoing work stoppage in the form of cancelling all remaining event activity through the end of 2016. For orchestras this size, the winter holiday season is one of the most lucrative earned income opportunities over the course of the season so the decision to cancel the entire lot two months in advance is a bad omen for wrapping …
Last September, we examined the results from a survey designed to learn more about what influenced orchestra managers to change jobs in a pair of articles (part 1 and part 2). The results were fascinating enough that I ran a similar survey at ArtsHacker.com to gain a broader perspective beyond the orchestra field. I published an article there today with those results and there were decidedly differences when compared to the …
Granted, with all of the election coverage, you may have missed last week’s big news item about the “Doomsday of DDoS attacks” and if your organization’s site wasn’t impacted, then you probably made it through blissfully unaware of the havoc unfolding elsewhere. Nonetheless, this wasn’t a one-off event so here’s what you need to know about DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks, why this is different than usual, and how to …
The last few years have been big for podcasting. Though podcasts have been around for over a decade old, the launch in 2014 of Sarah Koenig’s hit podcast Serial pushed the medium into the spotlight. Serial received over 40 million downloads by the end of its first season, and the success of this show helped usher podcasting into mainstream life. An estimated 46 million Americans listened to at least one podcast …
The 10/20/2016 edition of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette published an article by Elizabeth Bloom which takes a Forward 1 Somersault Straight right into the heart of issues we examined earlier this week via the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (PSO) work stoppage. Bloom’s article provides additional examples illustrating what is perhaps best described as counterproductive entrenchment such as musician claims that the employer refuses to release economic data for the most recent fiscal year. …