An Exciting And Busy Week

This week includes a major milestone for that project I mentioned several months back about the new ticketing and CRM platform my company has been developing. As such, I’m taking part of the week off from blogging. The good news is tomorrow’s Shop Talk and Friday’s Last Call episode have been finished and in the hopper for more than a week so they will go out on schedule.

This episode’s featured guests include Zak Vassar, President & CEO of the Toledo Alliance for the Performing Arts; and Jeff Vom Saal, Executive Director of the Spokane Symphony & Martin Woldson Theater at The Fox. Be sure to tune in tomorrow when the episode goes live.

About Drew McManus

"I hear that every time you show up to work with an orchestra, people get fired." Those were the first words out of an executive's mouth after her board chair introduced us. That executive is now a dear colleague and friend but the day that consulting contract began with her orchestra, she was convinced I was a hatchet-man brought in by the board to clean house.

I understand where the trepidation comes from as a great deal of my consulting and technology provider work for arts organizations involves due diligence, separating fact from fiction, interpreting spin, as well as performance review and oversight. So yes, sometimes that work results in one or two individuals "aggressively embracing career change" but far more often than not, it reinforces and clarifies exactly what works and why.

In short, it doesn't matter if you know where all the bodies are buried if you can't keep your own clients out of the ground, and I'm fortunate enough to say that for more than 15 years, I've done exactly that for groups of all budget size from Qatar to Kathmandu.

For fun, I write a daily blog about the orchestra business, provide a platform for arts insiders to speak their mind, keep track of what people in this business get paid, help write a satirical cartoon about orchestra life, hack the arts, and love a good coffee drink.

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