Drew McManus on the Orchestra business | est. 2003

Drew McManus

Can You Have Ticket Deals That Are Too Good?

Thu, Jan 1, 2012
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

Another Orchestra vs. Unemployment Incident

Wed, Jan 1, 2012
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

I Wonder Which Gins Are Available At The Concession Stand

Tue, Jan 1, 2012
It’s always fun when two divergent steams streams of thought coincide to produce something intriguing. Case in point, I recently joined the board of directors for a period-instrument orchestra here in Chicago, The Baroque Band, and shortly thereafter hopped on board a local dinner club/think tank (DCTT) that was the brainchild of Amy Calhoun, A.K.A.

Placebo Pricing And The Ticket Price Quandary

Mon, Jan 1, 2012
Regardless of your view on whether or not the average ticket price at professional US orchestras is an accurate representation of the overall experience’s value or is artificially inflated to help pad earned income shortfalls (or a little of Column A and a little of Column B), Joe Patti presented a fascinating point of view

Science Schmience: Violinists Blast Holes In Violin Experiment

Fri, Jan 1, 2012
Since the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published a paper titled Player preferences among new and old violins which chronicles their experiment during the Violin Competition of Indianapolis from September, 2010 the results have received a good bit of attention. Initial reactions were mostly positive but that ended up being short-lived honeymoon.
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