Nothing Says Safe Like Floor Stickers (Seriously)

The ever thoughtful Joe Patti published one of those right topics and the right time posts at ArtsHacker that examines the value of thinking about updating your venue images now that we have some vaccinated light at the end of the pandemic tunnel.

Even pre-Covid the general guidance for promotional images and text was to focus on the audience experience. Regardless of whether the venue you perform/show your work at is allowed to open, that is doubly true now.

Perhaps the most important factor and tallest order in all this is a required communal effort by every arts and cultural venue, from the largest performing arts center to the smallest gallery or bar. If potential audiences are seeing or hearing about live experiences that undermine their confidence, the ripple effect impacts everyone.

What I especially like about the article is that it focuses not only on the big, obvious stuff but it gently reminds venue operators about all of those images at your website and print collateral you tend to overlook because you’ve seen them so many times.

And since you should be taking new photos soon, pretty please with sugar on top, make sure the photographer is getting most, if not all, of those in landscape aspect ratio.

Work On Those Re-Opening Venue Images

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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