You may have seen the news today that the results of the Culture Track Covid-19 report were publicly released today. While some of the data about audience willingness to return to arts and culture organizations is a little dated due to the survey being conducted at the end of April through May 19, the majority … Read more
Welcome SoundNotion fans. Come in, take a look around while you are here. I just got around to reviewing the results of the recent Culture Track Survey. As always with surveys, there were a couple interest tidbits to be gleaned. I looked at the Cultural Track report and then the longer research report. Both are … Read more
For years now I have been following and writing on the Culture Track survey. At one time the survey was being conducted every three years or so in order to measure changing trends and attitudes about arts and culture. When Covid hit, the folks at Culture Track decided it was important to closely monitor the … Read more
As I promised in my last post, I took a deeper look at the Culture Track reporting over the weekend. More specifically, I took at a look at both the Top Line deck and Supporting Data documents which are available for download. I didn’t review the raw data. The Supporting Data document is presented with … Read more
Last week I attended the Arts Midwest conference in Kansas City, MO. From what I saw of the city, it can still lay claim to the appellation, “Paris of the Plains.” The Helzberg Hall at the Kauffman Center left most attendees amazed and a little green with envy. I ended up staying at the gorgeous … Read more
Some encouraging news for all you data hungry folks. The special Covid-19 version of the Culture Track survey I mentioned last week launched today…but only for some communities. Apparently there was such a large last minute surge of interest in participating (thank to my blog post, I am sure) that they realized their servers could … Read more
N.B. I just noticed the deadline to apply to participate in end of day, Thursday, April 23 so if you have an interest, send an email to Matthew Jenetopulos listed at the bottom of the Culture Track page. Long time readers of the blog know that I am a big fan of the results of … Read more
You may recall that two years ago the number one cultural activity people indicated they engaged in, according to the 2017 Culture Track survey, was going to the park. Last week the Washington Post discussed a survey conducted by the University of Vermont which suggested that going to the park, and even the anticipation of … Read more
Carter Gillies shared the unabridged version of a piece he wrote for the Arts Professional UK on his website this weekend. As Carter is wont to do, he examined statements about quantifying and measuring the value of the arts made by Simon Mellor, the deputy chief executive for arts and culture at Arts Council England. … Read more
Hat tip to Artsjournal.com linking to an Arts Professional article all performing arts professionals should read. Hull Truck Theatre in Hull, England started regular pop-up box office hours in local retail chain locations to help address barriers to participation people had. (By the way, the barriers were exactly those identified in the US studies like … Read more
In the last week I have seen mention of Museum Hack, in both Bloomberg (h/t Artsjournal.com) and Washington Post (h/t Nina Simon). The company does customized tours of museums from a particular frame of reference. For example, their Badass Bitches Tour, …shares stories of female artists, muses and subjects. (Versions of the tour are also … Read more
The video of ArtPlace America’s CEO Jamie Bennett’s keynote at an Invest Health convening came across my feed recently. What I found valuable in his speech was that he laid out an argument for the value of the arts that didn’t pivot to economic statistics. Around the 6:50 mark he starts to talk about the … Read more
Back in October I wrote a couple posts about the newest iteration of the Culture Track report. The operative word there is iteration. The study is conducted every three years in an attempt to track the shifting trends in perception and participation in cultural activities by the general population. In my excitement to talk about … Read more
When discussion turns to how audiences were once pretty raucous but are now expected to sit quietly, you get the impression that those times are long past. Those who are plugged into the opera world are probably aware, however, that at least a certain segment of the audience at La Scala is still pretty vocal. … Read more
This weekend Margy Waller posted a guide for arts and cultural organizations to use to talk about the termination of your National Endowment for the Arts grant. The guide is based on research the Topos Partnership did about how to talk about arts with your community. Waller says not to just focus on the dollar … Read more
An article on Hyperallergic by Lise Ragbir observed that DEI hiring initiatives have started to wane in both the commercial and non-profit sector. There were a number of high profile, highly touted hires, a fair number of which were short lived due to lack of supportive infrastructure and culture. I suspect and hope that while … Read more
A few years ago I wrote a post about how actors were discovering that how many followers you had on social media was being taken into account during casting decisions. Vox recently had an article talking about how the same dynamic exists for authors and musicians. Your book or music might be great, but the … Read more
I have written before about Ireland’s plan to provide a guaranteed basic income for artists. A couple weeks ago, NBC News posted a story about the program on their website. In all, 2000 artists, including architects and circus professionals, were chosen from 8000 applicants to receive €325 ($326) a week unconditionally for three years. There … Read more
German arts colleague Rainer Glaap has been feeding me interesting articles over the last couple weeks. I was going to follow up on some content he sent earlier, but he hit me up with an interesting study today that I am moving to the front of the line. The recently released Culture Relevance Monitor shows … Read more
Last month, Trevor O’Donnell directed his readers to a post by Ruth Hartt discussing how to market the arts in a way that focuses on solving the “problems” people have rather than focusing on selling a performance. ” Because no matter the industry, customers don’t want products, or services, or concert tickets. Their purchases are … Read more
Drew McManus came out with a really strong entry in his Shop Talk podcast today. He talks about transitioning from a non-profit arts career to a commercial career with guests Marc van Bree and Ceci Dadisman, who shifted from orchestra/opera to companies which handle e-commerce shipping and real estate, respectively. Some of what they say … Read more
Last year (December 31, so technically) I had a post on Arts Hacker taking a look at the work LaPlaca Cohen and Slover Linett Audience Research had done interpreting the Covid edition of the CultureTrack survey through the lens of race and ethnicity. My post focused on the findings which indicated an interest in having … Read more
I think there is probably enough overlap between my readers and Drew McManus on Adaptistration that I am not bringing anything new to the table when I point to his most recent post. But man! It is so much in my wheelhouse that I wish I had written it. And with a title employing the … Read more
I was scanning an article on Arts Professional website and might have quickly moved on except the phrase “not for someone like me” caught my eye. That was a phrase that appeared in the last CultureTrack survey as a barrier to participation for people who didn’t normally attend arts events. In the case of the … Read more
I so frequently tell my readers that Collen Dilenschneider has made an awesome post on her blog that it makes it difficult to convey the increased urgency to read one of her pieces when she has made an even awesomer post. Despite this impediment, believe me when I say she recently made a post that … Read more
There has been a fair bit of evidence that people are not generally aware whether the place they are having their entertainment experience is a non-profit or for-profit business. An experience appeals to them and they participate. All those efforts invested in curating a balanced season of offerings may receive less recognition and appreciation than … Read more
As soon as I saw the first four lines of a post Seth Godin made last month, I knew what I wanted to write. Then he wrote a lot of it for me. Want to go visit a nudist colony? I don’t know, what’s it like? You know, a lot of people not wearing clothes. … Read more
You may have already heard that the CultureTrack report was released yesterday. Compiled and released every three years by LaPlaca Cohen, the report helps track the ways in which attitudes toward culture are shifting. I haven’t read the full report yet. Just looking at the summary on the animated and interactive site they set up … Read more
You haven’t been working in the non-profit arts and culture sector long enough or you haven’t been paying close enough attention if you haven’t heard/read someone say that an arts organization shouldn’t exist if it can’t be self supporting. If you have found yourself at a lack of response to this argument, you might read … Read more
Does anyone know of a show, comic book, cartoon series, etc that is injecting classic literature/music/art, etc in a similar manner that Bugs Bunny cartoons had classical music soundtracks? Every so often someone mentions how Carl Stalling injected classical music under the Warner Brothers cartoons. Or as in the case of classics like the Rabbit … Read more
This week Barry Hessenius wrote about the process of interviewing someone for a job. One of his points was not to use other people’s interview questions/generic questions you pull off the Internet. Just like borrowing another organization’s bylaws to create your own, those questions don’t suit the specific needs of your organization. The other point … Read more
Since the news started going around last week that the Trump administration was looking to de-fund the NEA, NEH and PBS, there have been a ton of memes circulating quoting Winston Churchill refusing to defund the arts during the Second World War saying, “…then what are we fighting for?” Except, as I wrote four years … Read more
There is a lot of conversation in the performing arts about potential audiences not seeing themselves or their stories up on stage. If this is something that concerns you, you may want to take some pointers from a New Yorker article about an immersive play experience in Chicago. Set in an old school, Learning Curve, … Read more
Recently James Doeser wrote about a program the Italian government started where they granted a culture voucher worth €500 to anyone who turns 18 before December 31. It can be used to buy books, pay for entry fees to parks, museums and archaeological sites, and instead of cash for theatre, cinema and concert tickets. The … Read more
The keynote speaker for the recent Arts Midwest conference was Oskar Eustis who is current artistic director at the Public Theater. Tweets in reaction to his speech have been Storified if you want some insight. A lot of what he spoke about centered on the value of government support of the arts and the value … Read more
A few weeks ago I posted about an orchestra in Bremen, Germany which is based out of an elementary school. The situation has been something both the students and musicians have found to be constructive and enjoyable. In addition, the partnership has helped improve the reputation of that part of town. In reaction to this … Read more
When I was at the Ohio Arts Council conference yesterday, I attended a session on finance for arts and culture. This is unknown territory for me because I am familiar with grants and fundraising, but don’t really have any significant experience with finance. One of the things I learned were the differences between Community Development Finance … Read more
One of the common elements between the non-profit arts world and the gaming industry are the long, dehumanizing hours for little to no pay. There is actually a web comic dedicated to satirizing the work conditions at gaming companies. It allows people to submit their horror stories. Incredible as it may seem, if the stories … Read more
Back in June 2013, I wrote about the release of a letter by GuideStar, Charity Navigator, and BBB Wise Giving Alliance urging funders to discontinue the use of overhead ratios to measure the viability of non-profit organizations. They felt the number was an inaccurate assessment of an organization’s effectiveness. Since then, the subject of overhead ratio … Read more
Dallas Museum of Art Deputy Director, Robert Stein recently made an argument about the value of museums, and by extension, the arts, as a counter to philosopher Peter Singer’s suggestion that philanthropic giving to the arts means that many more people are fated to remain disabled. I was actually surprised to learn that Singer is … Read more
A few months ago I saw an article by Peter Ling on History Today about how automobiles enabled a greater degree of sexual and social freedom in the 1920s. I, of course, read it for the details of the social freedom cars afforded. Ling talks about how there wasn’t really such a thing as dating … Read more
The lovely people at my state arts foundation sent me some information about National Endowment programs today that I thought I would share. The first is that there will be a webinar for the Challenge America FastTrack program on April 18. If you are thinking of applying and have questions, sign up! The second thing … Read more
Ah March, when a young man’s thoughts turn to love…or backstabbing betrayal. Those cynics among us might says love and betrayal are pretty much the same thing. However, I was mostly referring to the Ides of March upon which day Julius Caesar was famously assassinated. That fact might not be widely known if not for … Read more
I am just getting around to reading a piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education by Stephen Tepper and George Kuh (subscription required) about the need to get serious about teaching creativity. By coincidence or design, Americans for the Arts is holding a blog salon on arts in education that also focuses heavily on creativity. … Read more
I was catching up on some of the TED Talks I had marked on the old Google reader today when I came across a fun, short talk dissecting what makes a TED talk work vs. what elements people don’t respond as positively. The speaker, Sebastian Wernicke, even created a web site with a TED talk … Read more
With all the other services offered online, I have often wondered why no one is offering a procurement bidding system. Perhaps there are such an assortment of laws from state to state it is too expensive. But if Google can navigate China’s laws and politics to give away its service for free, there has to … Read more
The arts blogosphere (or at least a small corner thereof) is abuzz with joy with the news that Scott Walters received NEA funding for his <100k Project. As noted on the <100k Project site, the purpose "is an attempt to 'bring the arts back home” to small and rural communities with populations under 100,000.'" I … Read more
The President The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, There are many calling for you to create a cabinet level position for arts and culture. There are certainly many factors involved in such a decision. There is a necessity to exhibit how the country values arts and culture by providing … Read more
Some real interesting reading over at Artful Manager these days. I am especially interested in the feedback he is getting regarding his statement that the arts are overbuilt. Today’s entry has comments from one of his readers about how community arts organizations might be feeling pressure to professionalize their operations. “More generally, it seems to … Read more
Yesterday I addressed a monograph on the value of conferences in the pursuit of developing cultural policy. The authors noted that generally, with the exception of really disorganized groups, meetings of this sort were not terribly valueable. My last entry looked at the barriers to success, today I want to review the solutions the authors … Read more
I was wondering if you would enjoy that Ray.
Thank you for the post. Simon Rattle and the students made my day!
Santa Cruz Shakespeare has several tiers of benefits for donors/members. Some, like season-announcement parties, are open to several tiers. Some,…