Drew McManus on the orchestra business.
While I can let a number of habits slide when it comes to audience behavior, one that continuously drives me insane is when audience members talk during the event. Sure, announcements about silencing phones is common but I can’t recall the last time I heard one that included a STFU component. If nothing else, imagine the pre-concert message you could create by incorporating some of the stories musicians and staff have …
Even though I’ve been working to debunk it for the past several years with a mountain of research, one of the strongest stereotypes about tech adoption and demographics persists to this day: older patrons don’t use tech. One of those research resources, the Pew Research Center, published an article on 1/13/22 by Michelle Faverio that quantifies how important the online space is to all demographics (h/t Ceci Dadisman). Their latest installment …
We’ve lost so many good people from the arts and culture sector over the pandemic but the news of Terry Teachout’s passing is especially sad. I was fortunate enough to begin communicating with Terry in the early 2000’s and our email exchanges were always thought provoking. You just knew it was going to be an interesting day when a message from Terry about something you wrote arrived in your inbox. While …
This week has featured some been a pretty heavy topics so let’s wrap things up with something on the slightly lighter shade of dark humor. First up is the gem from @ArtsAdminSay: Arts orgs daily since the beginning of the pandemic pic.twitter.com/9TEJhHQK3K — Shit Arts Administrators Say (@artsadminssay) January 12, 2022 The second entry from CurnowCartoons focuses on the same topic but from the patron point of view:
Over the course of the pandemic, several orchestras have been developing programs that focus on mental health of patrons. That’s a very good thing but it never hurts to remember that we need to keep an eye on one another behind the scenes. All stakeholders are feeling an enormous amount of pressure which manifests in as many ways as there are individuals. An article by Kelly Greenwood and Julia Anas that …