I caught an interview on a National Endowment for the Arts’ podcast with Tyler Blackwell Curator of Contemporary Art at the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky. Blackwell talks about how he is working to increase representation for race and gender identity through his work at the museum. What caught my ear was the museum’s … Read more
Continuing from yesterday’s post about the Wallace Foundation’s evaluation of their five year audience building and sustainability initiative, In Search of the Magic Bullet, the best summary of the findings was report author Francie Ostrower’s statement: …our analyses highlight that expanding audiences may happen, but not necessarily on the organization’s original terms. An overarching message to … Read more
Last Monday, Ruth Hartt sent out an email newsletter noting that the Wallace Foundation’s five year, $52 million Building Audiences for Sustainability Initiative basically failed to identify any definitive way to achieve that goal. I have been following Wallace Foundation efforts for years so I was surprised I had missed this news. But sure enough, … Read more
I recently received an email which directed me to a 2021 study funded by the Wallace Foundation called, What They Say And What They Do which essentially looked at whether people who say they will return to a venue actually do. Bottom line is yes, the more strongly people express a desire to return, the … 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
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
A couple weeks ago, I wrote about American Theatre’s reporting in May on a Wallace Foundation supported audience building effort at Opera Theatre St. Louis. American Theatre just published another piece about a different Wallace Foundation supported effort at Portland Center Stage (PCS). As I wrote in my earlier post, one of the things I … Read more
Back in May, American Theatre had an article about audience building efforts Opera Theatre St. Louis (OTSL) undertook with funding from the Wallace Foundation. In my experience, there is always something to learn from these projects funded by the Wallace Foundation, especially since the case study reports tend to be honest about what things didn’t … Read more
Earlier this year, I wrote about studies funded by the Wallace Foundation that helped Ballet Austin gain some insight about their audiences. Recently I discovered the Wallace Foundation had supported a similar study by the Seattle Symphony. The piece is a short read, but if you don’t even have time for that, watch the accompanying … Read more
A little while ago I came across a presentation by the Wallace Foundation that seeks to aggregate a number of studies to provide insight for building millennial audiences. If you have been following the research about performing arts audiences for any length of time, there probably won’t be much in the presentation that will surprise … Read more
My Twitter feed delivered me two great resources for arts professionals on the same day this week. The first came courtesy of Sydney Arts Management Advisory Group. I guess I should have known that when they talked about a guide developed for “WA Artists” they meant Western Australia and not Washington State. In my defense, … Read more
I will be back from vacation soon, I promise you! In the meantime, have a gander back in time once more. In 2005, the Wallace Foundation commissioned a study which came out, “Gifts of the Muse – Reframing the Debate About the Benefits of the Arts” Artsjournal had a week long discussion about the study. … Read more
In this trip down memory lane, I harken back to an entry I did mirroring one of my responses to Arts Journal’s conversation on the Wallace Foundation’s Gifts of the Muse study. Mostly I addressed some minor proof of the idea that people have an intrinsic need to surround themselves with beauty and even big … Read more
Waaay back in June, I saw this piece on the Cultural Commons website on partnerships that I meant to write on and never did. So here I go. Essentially, the Urban Institute did an evaluation of the Wallace Foundation’s Community Partnerships for Cultural Participation (CPCP) initiative. While some organizations involved in the initiative found the … Read more
As I was reading the Rand report yesterday, it seemed that the report itself just expounded a bit more upon the summary at the beginning of the document. As a result, I chose to publish my blog entry. However, when I reached the section on future initiatives by State Arts Agencies (SAAs), I realized there … Read more
Thanks to Artsjournal.com, a study of state arts agencies done by the Rand Corporation came to my attention today. State Arts Agencies 1965-2003: Whose Interests to Serve by Julia F. Lowell took a look at how 13 state arts agencies were fulfilling the purpose for which they were created. The report feels that the recent … Read more
Even though it often feels like promoting arts and culture as a non-profit entity requires inventing entirely new methods wholecloth because our emphasis and motivations are not driven by a profit motive, I am encouraged when I see commonalities in research findings and advice. We are, after all, dealing with the same set of human … Read more
Two years into a six year research project, Ballet Austin has started learning things about their audiences that run contrary to their assumptions. While the audiences in every community are different, what they have learned provides a lesson that you may not know your audiences as well as you think you do. One of the … Read more
Scott Walters says I feel it. Since that is about all I saw of his entry on Technorati, I was wondering what it was that I feel. Turns out that I, among others feel that change in the theatre/arts is nigh. In looking at what the other bloggers cited were saying, I came across some … Read more
Two articles shared the same webpage over a Artsjournal.com today. The first is one talking about Pittsburgh Ballet’s decision to perform to recorded music to save money. The decision was made to preserve the ballet’s budget. They aren’t the first ballet company to go this route and according to the article, they probably won’t be … Read more
My state arts council sponsored a meeting with a Jonathan Katz, CEO of the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies yesterday on the topic of arts advocacy. The state arts council and the gentleman were working together on their presentation and this was the first time they had delivered it so it was a bit … Read more
As I am looking over my web statistics, I have noticed amidst all the trash links, (ones that supposedly indicate that people are visiting me via links on poker, viagra and sex sites), I noticed that the blog is attracting visitors from interesting locations. I have cited Worker Bees blog a couple times in the … Read more
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