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Joe Patti

I have been writing Butts in the Seats (BitS) on topics of arts and cultural administration since 2004 (yikes!). Given the ever evolving concerns facing the sector, I have yet to exhaust the available subject matter. In addition to BitS, I am a founding contributor to the ArtsHacker (artshacker.com) website where I focus on topics related to boards, law, governance, policy and practice. I am also an evangelist for the effort to Build Public Will For Arts and Culture being helmed by Arts Midwest and the Metropolitan Group. (http://www.creatingconnection.org/about/) My most recent role is as Theater Manager at the Rialto in Loveland, CO Among the things I am most proud are having produced an opera in the Hawaiian language and a dance drama about Hawaii's snow goddess Poli'ahu while working as a Theater Manager in Hawaii. Though there are many more highlights than there is space here to list.

Elected Board or Board of the Elect?

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Benjamin Melancon asks an interesting question in the comments section of a recent entry. He asks in my broader experience, how common are arts organizations with elected boards rather than recruited board members.

His particular organization, Amazing Things Arts Center has decided the “only way to begin to answer those questions of balancing money and contacts versus effort and representation, or stability versus fresh talent, or anything else, was to have our board elected by the membership.”

My answer to him is, in my broader experience, I don’t really know of any. I do know of non-arts non-profits that have elected boards–more on that in a minute. I would be interested to know if anyone else has had experience with elected board vs. appointed. Email me or add a comment.

I think perhaps the operative term in his question might be “community arts organization.” This may be something that is more workable in a smaller scale arts operation. The current capital fund drive Amazing Things is doing is for $30,000. It is easier to eschew the bucks and buddies board orientation if you aren’t in need of a great deal of money. They may find that things change in the future.

But it does bring up an interesting point worth examining. The one thing that a recruited board has over an elected one is that if you do the vetting properly, you will ensure that the people on the board are philosophically aligned with the goals and mission of the organization. If they don’t then you have no one to blame but yourselves.

You don’t have the same assurance with an elected board. The best illustration of this fact with a non-profit is the Sierra Club. The last two year’s elections have been contentious battles between factions within the club accusing each other of lying to either stifle progressives or promote a racist, anti-immigration agenda depending on which side you are on.

There are such concerns about people trying to stack the deck in their favor by getting their friends to join the Sierra Club, there are proposed amendments to their by-laws removing spaces for write in candidates from the ballot and requiring people to be members for a full year before they can run for a board position.

You don’t want to think that will happen in your organization when you are starting it up and it probably wouldn’t for many years. However, looking at Amazing Things Arts Center’s bylaws (and I am only using them as an example because I don’t know of any other arts organizations) all one needs to do is get their friends to pay the $25 membership fee the day before an election or meeting to stack the member attendance in their favor to elect or remove a board member. Since proxies are not allowed, it might be difficult to rally enough support to combat this if one sees this sort of thing coming only the day before.

That being said, the whole process in an membership elected board is much more transparent than it is in an appointed board. Also, the membership feel a greater investment if they can identify with the board member. If power shifts in an appointed board and someone is ousted, it can be difficult to get the membership at large outraged.

Whereas if a large portion of the membership is at a meeting where tensions are running high because $500 was shelled out to allow 20 new people to vote, that is something you remember the next time around. (On the other hand, it can undermine confidence in the organization much more than kicking a vaguely known board member off a recruited board)

So pros and cons to both approaches. I am other folks can think of more. On the whole though, keeping people interested and invested in your organization is a good thing. It is even better if you can get people interested and invested whose bank accounts accrue interest that can be invested.

Having the voices of a number of somewhat less wealthy people to advocate for you can be valuable as well. When I was working in South Jersey, Subaru of America which has its HQ in Cherry Hill, NJ was celebrating its 30th anniversary by giving away 30 cars to 30 causes. They had their employees vote on which organizations to give cars to and the place I was working at got one because of those votes. (I gotta say, those are some pretty nice cars)

I really liked some of what I saw on Amazing Arts Center, so much so that I am gonna devote my next entry to it.

Light Block Engine That Could

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Some of you might be a little tired of me hailing blogs as the next big thing (and if you have been reading me long enough to have noticed the trend, it just goes to prove the point.) But I was reading a story that has some good lessons/thoughts about executing blogs as a business tool.

Business 2.0 had a story about how General Motors got in to blogging. It was very interesting to me to see that the company that used to be the biggest employer in the US (Remember “What’s good for GM is good for America?”)took a very low profile approach to starting a blog. They started with a blog on the niche subject of small block engines in October, assessed the success of that project and opened another blog (Fast Lane) on a wider scale.

“People were already talking about us all over the Internet,” Wiley explains. “This blog was an attempt to get GM more involved in the dialogue and to get people talking to us. We see this as a direct line to enthusiasts, supporters — and detractors.”

True, many arts organizations only pray that people are taking enough interest in them to talk about them anywhere, much less on the internet. Heck, I’m sure I speak for all arts organizations when I say that we wish people would be as passionate about us as they are about the style of hubcaps appropriate for a vehicle–much less the carburetor.

A couple of good decisions about the blog GM has made:

One big reason for Fast Lane’s success: GM is willing to accept and post criticism. Smart move. Nobody wants to read a sanitized blog. The site is also inclusive. In addition to Lutz, the company has opened the floor to other blogging GM executives, which helps give the behemoth brand a more human, approachable, and likable positioning.

And many view the art organizations the same way-inscrutable, closed off, mysterious, intimidating. (And unfortunately there can be some truth behind the perception.)

But the company is doing everything else right. Most important, GM hasn’t advertised the blog. Rather, it has wisely allowed the site to grow organically, gaining further street cred. “We’re really committed to avoiding corporate-speak and keeping this really transparent,” Wiley says…

Blog fans are actually an appealing consumer segment for an automaker, despite their image as a gaggle of unemployed malcontents sitting around in their pajamas. According to Forrester [Research], they are most likely to be male, with an average household income of $57,900. A quarter of all bloggers are ages 18 to 24, which makes them a good long-term investment. Perhaps most important, bloggers tend to be highly opinionated and highly influential — a real benefit for a company that peddles big-ticket items in an industry where more than half of all shoppers begin their research online…

Many bloggers, being bloggers, will no doubt view GM’s experiment with suspicion, so the company will need to maintain its street cred by not micromanaging content. It also needs to let the criticism roll — no matter what.

The whole idea of maintaining your street cred resonates with my recent entry on the difficulty a theatre was having getting bloggers to review for them. And it really underscores Elisa blog post cited in that entry.

The article goes on to say while few people regularly read blogs these days, it is an up and coming. Consumers regularly reading blogs rose from 2 percent in 2003 to 5 percent in 2004.

If you are looking for a younger audience, they are starting to get into the habit of doing their research online. They may not be ready to begin attending the arts quite yet,(and maybe they never will be) but like GM you aren’t ready with an effective blog and website to provide the content they seek either. Take advantage of the situation like GM did and hone your skills and techniques while there are few people around to notice your screw ups.

Exciting World of Boards

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Artsjournal.com had a link to an interesting article on boards today because it deals with some misunderstanding and misconceptions about serving on a non-profit board.

The article from the Tacoma, WA News Tribune is pretty interesting just as a story about how boards of trustees have and have not been instrumental in the closing of area arts organizations.

But as I mentioned, the even bigger value is in first hand perceptions and actions of board members who came to realize the job was more involved than they expected or had been lead to believe. At the same time, the story is a testament to the dedication of board members. One board member took six month leave from her law office to work full time on reviving Seattle’s ACT Theatre.

There is also a fairly broad feeling about how much fundraising board members should do.

When TAG closed, board president Mike Jones said he’d seen fund raising as chiefly a staff job. He said it was a matter of principle – that requiring members to give or raise a fixed amount would amount to ‘buy(ing) their position on a board’ – unfairly limiting membership to the elite.

TAM’s board, like many, uses a sliding scale, said vice president Judith Nilan. Each donor is expected to raise or give a certain amount. The museum calculates these in advance, and can afford to admit only a certain number of members at lower levels so the board can meet its annual group donation of $100,000.

“Most boards have a give-or-get policy, and if they don’t, they should,” Donnelly said. “What are you there for, your good looks’ I’m serious. You bring your skills and talents to a board, but the organization needs resources.”

The old phrase is “give, get or get off,” and trustees’ best donations are connections, said Clare Dowdall, an award-winning fund-raiser who was development director at the Cleveland Playhouse, Alley Theatre in Houston and the American Lung Association in the Southwest.

Unfortunately, the most idealistic view is attributed to the person associated with a failed organization. There are plenty of fairly successful organizations with that same philosophy. Most organizations have to place practicality before idealism though.

I also like the article for the way it mentions the pitfalls of an unbalanced staff-board relationship- the uninvolved board vs. the micromanagers, the immovable fixtures vs. the constantly changing members with no institutional memory.

Probably the moral of the entire article is for boards not to be afraid to ask questions and really dig into the financial/managerial health of an organization.

I have discussed board resources in the past one of the best online resources is BoardSource.org. The value of their FAQ section isn’t so much in the questions it answers, but in the issues it gets you thinking (and asking more questions) about.

Interesting Origins

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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 last few weeks of course. (Okay, this weekend, I gotta add some reciprocal links in my sidebar–especially after reading her most recent entry and links about how men never link to women’s blogs)

However, I have found that my blog is listed in a Diva Marketing entry citing my tag line of “Musings on Practical Solutions For Arts Management” as a good way to carve out my niche.

I also have my first evident reader from overseas (may be readers since people have been following the link on his blog) in Peter Jentzsch who lives in Copenhagen and included my blog in the sidebar of his dance diffusion blog. He doesn’t actually say anything about me in the blog, but he did comment on one of my blog entries.

However, I did discover by reading his blog that Artsmarketing.org has recently started a blog of their own. In fact, today’s Artsmarketing.org entry links to an NPR story that addresses the RAND “Gift of A Muse” study that has spurred the debate on Artsjournal.com

C’mon, did you really think you were gonna read an entry this week where I didn’t mention it?

Writing Elsewhere Tonight

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I had a comment on the Artsjournal discussion I have been citing the last couple days. However, since the comment section didn’t register the links I painstakingly typed in HTML code in the entry, I am mirroring it here as it was meant to be seen.

The entry I was commenting on may be found here.

A week or so ago, Artsjournal linked to a Wired article that talked about people almost having an intrinsic need for art/beauty/meaning/purpose in their lives. I quoted the following bit in my blog:

For companies and entrepreneurs, it’s no longer enough to create a product, a service, or an experience that’s reasonably priced and adequately functional. In an age of abundance, consumers demand something more. Check out your bathroom. If you’re like a few million Americans, you’ve got a Michael Graves toilet brush or a Karim Rashid trash can that you bought at Target. Try explaining a designer garbage pail to the left side of your brain! Or consider illumination. Electric lighting was rare a century ago, but now it’s commonplace. Yet in the US, candles are a $2 billion a year business -for reasons that stretch beyond the logical need for luminosity to a prosperous country’s more inchoate desire for pleasure and transcendence.

Liberated by this prosperity but not fulfilled by it, more people are searching for meaning. From the mainstream embrace of such once-exotic practices as yoga and meditation to the rise of spirituality in the workplace to the influence of evangelism in pop culture and politics, the quest for meaning and purpose has become an integral part of everyday life.

And just recently I saw a great illustration of this as Target Stores rolled out their “Design for All” campaign. They know they can’t compete with WalMart on price, but they are plugging in to this craving people have. You can probably buy most of the same stuff at WalMart, but their message is, you will feel better about yourself if you shop here.

Now how the arts can manage to position themselves in the same manner against the convienence of cable TV, DVDs mailed to your home and all the rest, I don’t quite know.

If you think back to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Need, you know that safety issues like infant mortality will never be superceded by self-actualization activities like the arts, and it is silly to try as has been pointed out. At the same time, those needs Maslow cites are sort of hard wired into the human brain.

While I agree with Phil Kennicott that the current political/social environment may be making people who might have previously been just unfamiliar with the arts into people who are predisposed to view the topic with hate, they too have these deep seated needs. The closest they may ever come to supporting the arts is by attempting to fulfill the need by buying products at Target which in turn supports the arts. (I believe that was one of Ben Cameron’s jobs prior to joining TCG.)

I hate to engage in idealistic speculation that implies the utopian theoretical can be translated into the practical so here is what I think might be a doable suggestion which extends Joli’s thoughts-

Perhaps the entree for answering this need for potential audiences is the garage band approach rather than the massive performing arts center. Maybe organizations should be putting their money into storefront theatres and stand alone black boxes where insecurities about dress code and etiquette aren’t as big an issue because everyone is wearing jeans. (We tell people they don’t necessarily have to dress up, but then they arrive at the venue and the veteran attendees are looking snazzy which gives a contradictory message.)

Once people feel comfortable and good about themselves, then you point out that if they enjoyed this, maybe they want to try the mainstage over on 6th Street–or just keep coming back.

The alternative venue doesn’t necessarily need to be run by one organization. All the arts organizations of a community might go in and share the costs and use it as sort of an outreach facility. Theatre companies the first two weekends of the month, snippets of opera on the third, chamber music on the fourth.

My Arms Are Too Short

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Lots and lots of great conversation going on over at Artsjournal.com’s A Better Case For The Arts. It is somewhat heartening to see that so many people agree that the attitude arts professionals have about what they do has to change as does the approach to attracting and retaining audiences in this day and age. (The disheartening thing of course is that no one has the answer.)

It is tough to comment on the breadth of the discussion at this point, but since part of it had some significance to the experience of the last couple days I have had, I wanted to cite them. (They are also among the more interesting discussion and commentary) One of the post and accompanying commentary is titled The Public View. The other came under the heading The Enemy?.

The latter was very interesting because it pointed out in the changing political landscape that seems the harbinger of a culture war, people who have not been exposed to the arts may no longer be uninformed with the potential to be an attendee once introduced to it, but instead may be pre-disposed to be hostile to the arts.

A sobering thought, but still, education and exposure is the best solution for a great many of the world’s ills. (Though some will point out there are plenty of people out there ready to spin your education to reinforce what you already believe.) The Public View promotes this idea of education and exposure. Writes Jim Kelly:

I don’t believe the “case for the arts” can be made to the general public. Our duty to the public is not to explain to them why they should enjoy the arts, not to tell them the many ways it will improve them as individuals. Our duty is to involve them in the arts on some level in the belief that they too will experience the benefits of the arts first-hand and will become new advocates for the cause. In other words, we have stop talking about the arts and start doing art.

We have limited public dollars at our disposal, but we’re constantly asked to support another study, plan, reseach project, etc. Instead, my agency made a conscious decision to support art projects that increase audiences exposure to and participation in the arts. Most of us agree that you will never appreciate the intrinsic value of the arts if you’ve never experienced the arts. So let’s dedicate ourselves to increasing people’s exposure to the arts in all their permutations.

There were some great comments to this entry, but the one I liked best came from Jane Deschner:

Yes, you’re exactly right. I find people are often “afraid” of their own creativity and imagination. If they can become engaged in some way (whether by performance in a furniture store, embellished fiberglass animals on the street, musical performance in a hospital lobby) in a quality experience, they may develop an interest and gain the confidence to participate. But it has to have substance, be good. Who said art has to be on in a theater or museum or concert hall?

The bit about people being afraid of their own creativity really rings so true in my experience.

So how does this all connect with the events of my last few days?
Well, I have been trying to set up outreach programs for a performance group coming in during the next few weeks. Problem is, they arrive right in the middle of most of the local school’s Spring Break! Eek!

I did find a couple school who were in session and offered the opportunity to them. A few turned me down, but another couple never returned my multiple calls. The unreturned calls were surprising because these were schools that actually had well funded arts programs and would have been able to pay (and often had for similiar groups) for the program I was bringing in even though I was offering it for free.

Just today, I discovered all of my plans for outreach programs to the at risk schools with few or no arts classes are sort of falling apart. Because I schedule with the state booking consortium, the tight travel and performing itinerary leaves one group with no time to do a lecture/demo outreach and the another with only a Sunday afternoon. A third group wants as much for a one hour lecture/demo as for a performance (about $10,000) so that is pretty much out. Though, hey, if you can get that sorta money, more power to ya!

This is rather distressing since I actually wrote letters of intent at the request of some agents so that a funding group that supports outreach to my type of community would provide money to support their touring. Now granted, this is all a year away, things change and I am looking to do some out of the box thinking to put together a program to make this happen. (Perhaps go to churches that serve this sort of community?)

I am also starting a conversation with local arts groups who haven’t really thought about organizing enough to do joint performances about doing some and perhaps hooking up an outreach on there too.

Though I will probably be able to bring rewarding experience to local populations in the end, it is rather frustrating to be having such a hard time bringing free programs to my community. There is no real financial reward to it. The grant monies it will yield for me are pretty negilible and hardly cover the additional fees I am paying for the outreach (not to mention the extra day of lodging). I would get more work done in the day if I wasn’t trying to make all these arrangements.

But damned if I don’t believe it will actually have a beneficial impact on a fair number of the lives I am trying to serve. I am not quite sure if it will bring audiences in to theatre, gallery and museum doors. But I do think at some point in their lives, the people who see the programs will stop and contemplate truth and beauty in their lives, if only secretly, if only for a few minutes.

More Blogging for Tickets

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Slight Sidebar before I start-Check out the Discussion over at Artsjournal.com on making a better case for the arts. An interesting collection of folks you don’t normally see writing there.

—————-
So my entries about Impact Theatre’s offer of free tickets to people who would blog on their shows has gotten some notice.

Elisa over at Worker Bees Blog tried to add a comment to my blog only to find she was denied. Then I found out I too was prevented from commenting despite having the option left open. It was only after removing the banned IP addresses from my blog that I could post. My apologies to those who have tried to comment. (Of course, now I will get a lot of Texas Hold Em poker ads in my comments I am sure.)

Anyhow, Elisa posted her thoughts on the matter on her blog. I can pretty much see her point on most of her comments. The only thing I don’t entirely agree with is her first one — partially because if I understand it correctly, she is paid to blog for other theatres. Granted, she is in the minority of bloggers since most are not paid and most of what she writes is promotional rather than critical reviews/critiques.

The other thing is that I would imagine there are plenty of bloggers out there who are willing to become unpaid shills for something they believed in. Just read a handful of political blogs. Very few of them practice thoughtful reflection about issues and happily repeat what they heard someone else say. (Though there are a great number of those I don’t agree with who do string together very intelligent thoughts) Just as there are patrons who will love your organization no matter what ill-conceived thing you toss together, there are going to be bloggers who will rose color everything you do.

Of course where Elisa is right is that you want someone who doesn’t subscribe to your agenda because their good opinions of you will only count if they are seen as credible and discerning. Then again, just as people gravitate toward critics with whom they agree, bloggers would certainly gain the same following so there is a place for the you-can-do-no-wrongers.

I think the rules the theatre is setting up regarding number of words and readership is simply a good indication of who new technologies are always envisioned in the context of what we know. Like the houses of tomorrow or projections of the future that simply add a futuristic patina to our present lives.

Since we are used to getting press packs from print and broadcast media that celebrate the reach, exposure, market penetration, etc that we will get for our buck, that is how we look to measure success. It is easy to forget that with this new medium, the rules, expectations and measures of success may be changing. It is well known that word of mouth is much more powerful than paid advertising. Therefore, it probably isn’t a matter of how many people read a blog as how many of those who do read a blog link to/cite the entry themselves and are read/cited in turn thereby increase your exposure.

And yeah, good luck trying to quantify that (though I am sure Google will come up with a way.) Of course, if you are doing live performances, the ultimate measure of success is pretty much the same–how many butts are in the seats.

You Can Bring a Blogger to the Show, But You Can’t Make ‘Em Write

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Back in the beginning of February among the theatre type blogs I listed in an entry was one to the Impact Theatre web page where they were offering free tickets to people who would see a show and blog for them.

As promised, I sent an email off to them yesterday to see how successful it was for them. I got a letter back from their graphics person, Cheshire Dave, who has given me permission to excerpt the email here. Apparently, as much as people seem to want to regale the blogosphere with the inane details of their lives, no one wants to write about theatre–even with a direct appeal.

Quoth Cheshire:

I am depressed to announce that yours is the very first email I’ve gotten from that link in the six months or so that it’s been up. No joke; no exaggeration. By and large, this initiative has been a spectacular failure. Except for one case, no blogger has taken me up on it, even ones I solicited directly (some of them didn’t even get back to me, and I emailed several times). The sole exception has been SFist (http://www.sfist.com), and that’s a site that I write for (I’m not the one doing the reviews). But the point of SFist is to fill a need for a regional blog, so it’s not like an individual’s blog in that regard. So really, my plan has been totally unsuccessful.

It kills me that I can’t find even one blogger who wants free tickets to theater that he or she would probably really enjoy. With bloggers more or less looked down upon by a great portion of the print establishment and not known about by even more people, it seems to me that what bloggers want is legitimacy. But when offered to them on a silver platter, they can’t be bothered. It’s really disappointing.

I did go to sfist.com and typed “Impact” into the search field to see what sorta stuff was going up. There were some nice articles for their productions with the sort of disclaimers about being involved with Impact Theatre that you would hope people being paid to promote governmental initiatives would make. Its a practice to which all uncredentialed journalist types should aspire. (I try to keep the blog generally apolitical, but sometimes, the opportunity to comment is just there.)

I sent him a couple links to some of my “bloggers as the next reviewers” entries (here, here, and here) in my inquiry email. He noted though that “One thing I didn’t see in your entry about bloggers as reviewers that is a benefit to the arts organization is the opportunity for almost-instant response on the blog.”

I thought I had said that somewhere already, but it certainly bears repeating. As he noted, his theatre gets most of its review driven audiences from the free weekly paper so by the time the review appears, the show is in to its second week. With the daily papers, you are sort of at the whims of the editors. A Sunday or Friday review is great–but god help you if it appears in Monday’s paper as it is the least read of any day.

Since bloggers are typically very quick to report their impressions, finding a good one with a dedicated readership can potentially be worth his/her weight in gold–so a couple free tickets to a show ain’t nothin’ But as I noted a couple days ago, I think blogging still has to have some time to mature as a information media. Once it does, I bet you see individuals with sites like sfist.com that appear well run and probably have a dedicated group of visitors.

Until then though, I encourage everyone to be like Impact and pioneer the way.

Inservice for Teachers

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As promised, I am going to tackle the idea of arts groups doing inservice days for teachers. I could have sworn I wrote on this topic before, but a search of the site using different terminology says no.

The idea is pretty simple really. Arts organizations should leverage their expertise and create inservice day programs for teachers. Every so many days a year, teachers usually have days where they have to go to work and the students don’t. Usually there are sessions about how they can sharpen their teaching skills.

One place I worked, in cooperation with the local school districts, helped bring artists and teachers together to teach them new skills and activities for their students. The teachers loved it because instead of trying to learn from handouts, they were engaged in practical activities squishing clay between their fingers and doing other fun stuff.

Usually high school visual art teachers have a degree or a number of classes in their field so they know what they are doing to some extent. High School drama teachers on the other hand tend to be English or History teachers who are drafted into running the drama club so they need a lot of help! (I think this practice diminished the value of the arts in schools because it perpetuates the idea that anyone can fake their way through the creation of art. Of course, the lackluster results just convince people there isn’t much worth to it.)

Anyway, these poor part time drama teachers can always use a quick basic class in lighting design theory, use of a light/sound board, costuming, acting exercises, cheap, but impressive looking set construction techniques, etc.

It is stuff like that I hope to offer teachers under the next phase of the strategic plan. Of course, I will also be looking to have the sessions resonate with the Dept of Ed. Fine Arts Curriculum.

Planning Together

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Yeah! So my assistant started her job today! Actually, she stopped by yesterday to fill out the reams of paperwork that Human Resources uses to greet all new hires–but she actually started working today!!!
Still have some concerns about the visa process and how long she might actually be my assistant though.

But it is out of my hands for the moment.

Anyhow, I am continuing to work on my portion of the strategic plan and have gotten to the part of my job where I must exercise the “co-ordinates with internal departments and constituencies” portion of my job description. (Actually, my job description is three pages long. I don’t know if that line is in there, but I have a hard time imagining it isn’t in a document that long)

Anyway–

In the old strategic plan, there are a number of unrealized goals (like a 6 million dollar addition to the theatre) that were written in consultation with some other deparments because they would include their participation. Some of them, like creating inservice opportunities for high teachers (I just realized, I haven’t written on that subject yet–tomorrow’s entry!) and having classes for campus professors that taught them how to integrate the arts into their classes, are near to my heart.

There are other projects I am interested in fairly strongly as well, but these two, among some others, I can envision being accomplished with current staffing. Thus they are more immediately achievable and more exciting to me.

It was interesting running around talking to the people who were nominally involved in the old strategic plan projects because I was trying to talk them into my vision of a program that was proposed years before I got here. They had little to no recollection about these goals and I am here extolling the benefits I percieve in continuing to pursue these goals.

There are a number of projects I am proposing that don’t relate to instruction/education, renovation and getting my staff paid a little better. One is a beautification program for the walls next to the stairs in front of the theatre. People have said it looks like a highway underpass so I want to have a biennial mural contest with the local schools where we paint the walls white, have students paint a mural and then start again in 4 years. (There is a big ugly gray wall on either side of the stairs so we would alternate allowing the 4 year period.)

I would also like to develop our database so that we can effectively track ticket purchasing, donations, volunteerism, etc. I am hoping to integrate our ticketing system with the university online system so that it is easier for people to make purchases than it is with the taped together option I have now.

There are actually some other priorities I had which I can’t remember at this time. I wish I had thought to bring the paperwork home, but I didn’t know I would be writing on the subject.

One great suggestion the office manager made was to set up a database of some sort to help place students in employment situations. While we don’t have a formal practicum situation where students are required to do hours in the scene shop to get their degree, they are required to do some for the stage craft class. Most students do the exact hours they are supposed to. But some go above and beyond or sign up for independent study and they get tapped to become student employees.

Apparently the hands on training they get from the tech director is so good, employers pretty much hire people on the spot when they hear they worked for the TD. The office manager suggested we make a list of these receptive organizations, track when they need help or not and then tell the select crew members about the opportunity (and perhaps email the former select crew members)

Time Flies

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Somehow it escaped me that my entry on February 23 marked the one year anniversary of my blog. Hopefully I have been generally informative and entertaining in that period. (Here is the first entry from way back when)

It has been very interesting taking part in this facet of self-publishing. More and more these days you read how blogs are trumping Mainstream Media and handling subjects they are afraid to engage.

I have a feeling there is going to be a big surge in popularity (along with some big scandal or controversy) in blogs beyond where it is these days and then the bubble will pop as it were and the form will begin to mature and find its niche in the culture.

Hopefully that niche will be one in which people can make actual money doing it!

Forced Evaluation

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The most attention demanding thing on my desk these days is a College Strategic Plan form I have to fill out. Essentially what it means is that I have to figure out how what the theatre is doing and what it wants to do fits in with the goals and objectives of the college as a whole.

As reluctant as I am to admit it, this is a good thing. The common wisdom is that most arts organizations write up their mission statement and then put it away in a closet only bringing it out to copy it down for grant proposals. This whole project forces me to look at the mission statement and think about how it can manifest itself in the context of the college mission.

This is not to say I want to do it. I pretty much spent 3 hours today skirting around the edges of it, allowing myself to be distracted from it to deal with other concerns.

Eventually I got down to business and to my surprise, found that I actually had a lot of ambitions that fit into the goals and objectives.

Now my problem is writing justifications for what I want to do. The vogue these days is student learning outcomes and since I am a non-instructional unit falling under a non-credit division. One of the unrealized goals of the last strategic plan was to upgrade the position of the theatre clerk to a classification that reflected the job she actually does.

This time around however, I have to fill in a box that describes how student learning will benefit. I just don’t think it would be wise to note that paying for the job she is actually doing will prevent her from venting her frustrations with a shotgun thereby securing the safety of the students.

Speaking of unrealized goals, looking over the old strategic plan and discussing it with the clerk and my predecessor, I came to realize there were a lot of goals in there that other divisions are probably only vaguely aware they were supposed to be accomplishing in conjunction with us.

My predecessor decided to respond to the politics of the college by finding every opportunity she could think of to propose programs and projects, many of which included other divisions and departments. Her strategy was to get the theatre mentioned in as many places a possible so that the 99.5% of the faculty, staff and administration that never attended performances would at least gain the impression that a lot was moving and shaking over there.

So I am reading over the old document and am getting really impressed by the ambitious plans people had. I am on my way out the door to talk to our once and future partners about revisiting these goals for the future when the office manager stops me and sort of sheepishly informs me that she and the old theatre made the goal up with minimal consultation with these other people.

Now I am sitting here thinking what a good idea some of these things are (which is probably why they were among those that made the cut to be included in the last plan) and wondering if I will have the staffing to pull it off and should I maybe go and consult with these other folks in earnest.

Drive Through Art

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Courtesy of Artsjournal.com, I read a partially satiric, partially serious article from The Guardian. The author pokes fun at the types of people who attend those mega-art shows that you have to reserve times to see.

But his more serious point is that these type of art shows are really no way to view art. Do you really get a chance to understand what you are viewing with hordes of people passing through and subtle encouragements to move along and make space for the next tour group.

He also points out, quite correctly, that there is something of a herd mentality about needing to see the works at a certain time and place when the show is in progress, but feeling no desire to do so when the pieces are ensconced in their home museums.

It attaches, also, to the self-defeating way in which we choose to appreciate art. That is not to say that we must have conditions that enable us to spend as much time in front of a painting as Wollheim, but the herd instinct the modern blockbuster show produces does not do the greatest paintings justice.

This point became clear to me the other day when, in the National Gallery, I shared a room of Titians with a security guard all but uninterrupted for half-an-hour. In that room were some of the same paintings that I had struggled to see at the National’s Sainsbury wing temporary exhibition of Titian in 2003.

The reason this piece caught my fancy today was that just last week I was thinking that I was glad I had taken the opportunity to visit the Dali Museum
when I was in Florida rather than having to be in a position of viewing his art with a horde now that the pieces are in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Okay, granted, I don’t live near Philly any more–but if I did…! Visiting the Dali in Florida would still be worth it after doing the Philly show since I presume the side of a barn size pieces found there didn’t make it to Philadelphia.

Going to see a Dali show at all would be worth it. I think that my visit to the Florida museum was the first time I realized just how crappy a job posters and other reproductions did at revealing the subtle and not so subtle elements of art work.

A Measure of Entry

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I had some people from the state disabilities board come visit my theatre at my request today. When they visited last about 6 years ago to provide input into renovations, there were apparently some miscommunications. I was told that my predecessors were told we couldn’t have reserved seating in the theatre because of ADA standards. The people from the board told me the only reason they would advise that would be if people with disabilities couldn’t order reserved seats and everyone else could. Certainly that is not the case with my theatre.

They also came to assess two locations on row E that clearly appear to be seating for people in wheelchairs. Six years ago we were told that we couldn’t have people in wheelchairs there because it wasn’t up to code. Unfortunately, it was a verbal comment so no one knew how the problem could be fixed. In addition, because it appears to be a place for wheelchairs, is closer to the stage and doesn’t require a slow ride up on a chair lift, people really want to sit there.

The preliminary comments of the gentlemen who were assessing the space was that it can clearly accommodate wheelchairs without fear of them falling to the level below. However, other people in the row might not be able to pass them. This was sort of disheartening because my theatre pretty much has the widest row of any theatre on the island.

If they are right, it may require knocking a couple seats off near the location and building an extension so that people could pass in front of them. I would really consider losing the 2 seats on either side of the theatre because the locations really make it easy for everyone involved, theatre staff and customers both. We rarely have to use the chair lift because we only have 2-3 wheelchairs at any one time in the theatre. And we haven’t sold the theatre out so often that we would be wishing we had those last 4 seats to sell.

Now I just have to wait for the official report. At least if they say I can’t seat people there, I will finally have it in writing.

Of course, while they were there, they noticed a few other little problems. None of them were really serious and a few of them are fairly easy to fix by simply moving some signs a few inches. One of them ironically was a very specific fix that their office had suggested 6 years earlier.

Interestingly enough the ADA standards are a little racist and sexist. A lot of them seem to be based on the size of white Anglo-Saxon males. As a result, to be in compliance, I have to move some Braille signs to a place that is natural for someone of my build to read, but could be a little stretch for the generally shorter Asian and Polynesian population which comprise the majority here on Oahu.
It never occurred to me until the guy pointed the spot out and I realized it would be above the heads of quite a few of those who use the restrooms. He commented that the standards were based on Mainland norms.

I also learned that there is no grandfather clause exemptions for ADA requirements. While age of a building will exempt a building of other architectural requirements, the best you can do with ADA requirements is meet them to the fullest extent possible.

Overall I felt good about having them come out. For every little flaw they found, they also found an element of our set up which most other companies did not have.

Also, it is probably good to have an assessment like this periodically so that one can be a little proactive about making changes and show good faith effort if someone accuses your organization of being deficient.

In Your Right Mind

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In case you missed seeing it on Artsjournal today because it was a holiday for you, an article appeared from Wired suggesting that the future prosperity of the US lay in right brain activities.

The author foresees that as more left brain logic based jobs either get off shored or relegated to increasingly sophicated software, a demand for people with intuitive and empathic skills will emerge.

There was an interesting section that might mean good things for the arts organizations able to fulfill an apparently emerging need people are beginning to feel-

For companies and entrepreneurs, it’s no longer enough to create a product, a service, or an experience that’s reasonably priced and adequately functional. In an age of abundance, consumers demand something more. Check out your bathroom. If you’re like a few million Americans, you’ve got a Michael Graves toilet brush or a Karim Rashid trash can that you bought at Target. Try explaining a designer garbage pail to the left side of your brain! Or consider illumination. Electric lighting was rare a century ago, but now it’s commonplace. Yet in the US, candles are a $2 billion a year business – for reasons that stretch beyond the logical need for luminosity to a prosperous country’s more inchoate desire for pleasure and transcendence.

Liberated by this prosperity but not fulfilled by it, more people are searching for meaning. From the mainstream embrace of such once-exotic practices as yoga and meditation to the rise of spirituality in the workplace to the influence of evangelism in pop culture and politics, the quest for meaning and purpose has become an integral part of everyday life.

This may present an interesting turn of events. I have been reading articles of late that talk about people skipping college or going into technical training to gain specific skills. While it is certainly true that colleges could do a better job at endowing their graduate with practical skills, if this Wired artice is correct, it may be time to shift one’s concentration back to liberal and fine arts degrees to gain marketable skills.

Jumbalynka

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Okay, I was looking at the NEA site today looking for more information on their Fast Track grant program and one link led to another and a found a number of interesting links I thought I would share.

The first is the Cultural Policy and the Arts National Data Archive. This is a sorta interesting place to visit because as the name suggests, it has a lot of statistical survey data that researchers might be interested in. But it also has a quick facts section with reports on some interesting things like how dancers transition from a career in that field into another area of activity (dancers apparently retire at age 34).

It also contains sections on topics like the public’s perception of arts, change of newspaper arts coverage from 1998 to 2003, religious buildings and libraries as cultural programming venues. There is a lot of generally interesting stuff and this site could provide a source of info for those doing arts advocacy.

Another really interesting site was Arts Anonymous. The site applies the classic 12 step program to the arts to provide support to those practioners of art who feel guilty about doing it and enjoying it.

The problem signs which indicate one might need help are:

1. We grew up in an atmosphere of invalidation which resulted in ambivalence about our artistic expression.

2. In any given twenty-four hour period we find ways, consciously or unconsciously, to avoid doing that which gives us the most joy — expressing our creativity.

3. We have withdrawn from our art by investing ourselves in lifestyles, relationships and work activities incompatible with our artistic purpose. Our creative energy has often been diverted into destructive compulsions toward alcohol, food, sex, money, drugs, gambling and preoccupation with the past.

4. We have made needless sacrifices for our art and yet are afraid to make the necessary sacrifices. We are unable to balance the significant areas of our lives — Physical, Financial, Social, Love, Family, Spiritual and Creative.

5. Self-defeating thoughts and societal myths turn in our heads: It’s too late — I’m too old — I’m not ready — I am not enough — Art is not practical — Artists are neurotic — You’ll starve. We have accepted these as true when, in fact, they are not.

6. We have felt intimidated by other artists’ success. Jealousy, envy, fear, self-pity, perfectionism, resentment and other character defects block our creative expression.

7. We stand always on the edge of a beginning, afraid of commitment. Fearful of pursuing our creativity as a means of earning a living, we get caught in the Amateur syndrome. The concept of supporting ourselves through our art has seemed overwhelming. We are unable to determine the monetary market value of our art.

8. We have thought of our art as divorced from reality, denying ourselves the right to follow our dream. We forget that artists are entitled to their right work and deserve the happiness and success that right work brings.

9. We deny our responsibility to fully develop and realize our talent. We do not feel worthy of the success we achieve or desire. We feel like a fraud.

10. Being multi-talented, we have difficulty discerning our true artistic vision, making a commitment to it and establishing the priorities to fulfill it.

11. We have difficulty following through on projects and frequently sabotage our efforts. We want to work at our art but don’t know how. We become impatient with the process, forgetting that the results come in God’s time, not ours. Our time is unmanageable.

12. We have been afraid of our creative energy and have mistrusted our creative instincts. Lacking spiritual awareness, we have not seen ourselves as channels for the infinite creative process. Our art is a gift to be shared.

Gotta admit, I have been there on most of the points and quite a few occasions.

I think I have mentioned the NY Foundation for the Arts. Though they are nominally focussed on the arts in NY State, I have to say that 80% of what you find on their website is pretty helpful in the rest of the country. You will find some of that information on this links page which has some interesting pages listed like the Support Center for Non-profit Management and Alliance for Nonprofit Management , Alliance for Nonprofit Governance and The Nonprofit Genie (among others, of course)

Another NYFA link I wanted to point out was their Marketing the Arts In Nonprofit Organizations. It has some sample press releases, promotional materials and a marketing guide. Mostly, I just like it because the page opens with the line “If you present a program and no one comes, did it really happen?” and I am easily amused.

Art from 1s and 0s

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If you read reports on why people are no longer attending arts events, inevitably television, video games and computers will be mentioned.

What isn’t mentioned is that there is sort of a conservation of creative energy going on over the internet. Even though people are online more, there is a creative itch that they seem to need to scratch. Take for example the MUD Achaea (FAQ on MUDS here). They are a text based mud meaning no graphics are provided over the screen–all the colors, textures, etc are created within the player’s mind from the description presented.

However, for the past 5-6 years they have held monthly artisianal and bardic contests where players create visual representations of life in this text based game or songs/stories/poems reflecting the same. Considering that they also award runners up and merit awards, that is a fair bit of art being created to give tribute to an imaginary world.

Even more–they have a sophicated mechanism that allows players to create their own plays in game on a stage in one of the towns. It even goes so far as to allow you to set ticket prices, reserve private boxes, build sets and costumes and employ special effects.

This can give some hints as to the direction technology and theatre may be headed together.

Using MUDs for something other than entertainment has long been contemplated as seen in this paper on their use in education written a decade ago.

And the theatre world has been using a form of MUDs called MOOs to hold meeting and forum for almost as long. The Association of Theatre in Higher Education created ATHE MOO to provide opportunities for discussion and debate to those who couldn’t attend their annual conferences.

What Have I Found

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Andrew Taylor touched on a topic today that was close to my mind. He discusses a new trend in search processes that is more akin to roleplay than interviewing.

The topic of interviewing processes has been in my mind recently because it appears I might finally have an assistant. (Joining in time for the last two performances now that I have finally gotten half the hecticness under control!)

However, despite my happiness at having found an assistant, I have begun to question the search process. To begin with, despite all the paperwork that had to be filled out, the question of whether she was allowed to work in the US was never asked until after the offer had been tendered. Now I am in the process of filling out visa paperwork because she was still a fairly strong candidate. Whether we can get it approved and in time remains to be seen.

There were also a couple other little things that have happened that have been nagging in the back of my mind about the process that has had me wondering if other elements should be altered. Nothing major, just a few little tweaks that we might be able to effect to provide us as interviewers with a clearer picture of the abilities of the person before us beyond how adept they might be at interviewing.

The way the director of human resources told us to frame our interview questions was as “what if” situations where we could assess the answers rather than as yes/no questions like–“Do you enjoy doing X” The answer may be no, but the person may be very good at doing it. They just truthfully don’t enjoy it. Ask a parent if they like changing diapers–then witness the love with which they do it.

What Andrew Taylor points out extends that a bit further–make them perform in the “What if” situation. The only weakness of this approach is that you can only use it in person. If you don’t have a lot of travel funds available for recruitment, it may be difficult to give all promising applicants an opportunity to strut their stuff.

Discussing Controversy

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I found an article from the Rocky Mountain News noting that a local PBS station had chosen to air the controversial “Sugartime” episode of Postcards from Buster.

In case you have missed the hordes of articles and news stories on the subject, Buster is a cartoon rabbit who travels the country sending back reports as it were on different activities around the country. The episode in question depicted maple sugar making on Vermont farms headed by lesbians. Though there is apparently no mention or appearance of any sort of romantic relationship between the women, the Secretary of Education applied pressure to PBS to yank the episode. A number of stations have chosen to show it anyway.

What made this article so interesting to me was that one station on Channel 6 chose to show the episode at 11:30 at night so parents could judge whether to allow their children to see it. (There was an implication that it would air again at some point) However, PBS channel 12 (KBDI) which is apparently the other Denver PBS station chose to air it at 7 pm and follow it with a 90 call in panel discussion show.

Thinking that perhaps there was a lesson here for arts organizations to perhaps use controversy to move regularly scheduled talk back/Q&A sessions away from mundane questions like “how do you remember all your lines” to more gripping discussions, I visited KBDI’s website to see how the Feb. 9 experiment turned out. I figured being a PBS audience there might not be the explosive confrontations one would find on Jerry Springer and some good discussion might emerge.

There wasn’t any video footage to be viewed, but they did have a comments board. Most of the comments fall between Feb 9-11 (just so those of you visiting in a few months can get a sense of how far you may have to scroll down.)

The biggest lesson that one might derive from the feedback is that when hosting an opportunity for discussion about a controversial event so that you can convince people you don’t champion the causes of a perceived liberal elite — you should actually include people on the panel that represent both sides of the issue.

It is not entirely clear whether the host was berating people because of their views or if he was always like that and people who complained hadn’t watched the show before. It does seem like the views represented by the panel itself were decidefly one sided.

It is tough to be yelled at in ones own house to be sure. It seems to me that in an age where the public can change the channel to one that expresses the views of the niche to which one subscribes, there is an opportunity and perhaps duty placed upon live performance venues to provide a forum for intelligent discourse since their settings are not so easily escaped.

But–it needs to be well-balanced and moderated and I imagine that would be tough to do these days. When you see and hear people relentlessly berating each other on television because that holds the ratings, you think that is the way one engages in discussion about topics with which one disagrees.

I am sure our Founding Fathers were not as cordial in their dealings as we imagine them to have been. (Just think of how many must have muttered something about going Aaron Burr on someone’s butt) I imagine they might have held themselves to some level of civility though.

This could be a great service arts organizations provide to society. Live discussion doesn’t allow you the anonymity of the internet or a phone call in. Done with the proper respect and care, arts events could become a welcoming venue for people who don’t necessarily view themselves as arts intellectuals, but who crave balanced intelligent conversations about issues of the day.

Doesn’t this happen on college campuses one asks. Well, currently Ohio is considering a student bill of rights to ensure those with views that conflict with those of their professor aren’t intimidated into keeping quiet.

Besides, as much as tickets to arts events cost. It is still cheaper and more accessible to a wider portion of the population than paying for college credits.

Award for Most Organized Company Goes To…

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In the spirit of my entry praising easy grant applicant processes, my award for the easiest, most organized company to work with this year goes to….Dayton Contemporary Dance Company.

Actually, I may be a bit too premature since they won’t arrive for another couple months. However, I have to say they are the most organized group I have worked with this year. Not only do I have the contracts and riders returned and signed, back in November they sent me a rooming list and a list of all those flying out so I can make interisland airline arrangements for them. They actually forgot they had been so efficient and in an attempt to be organized, sent me another copy this week.

Actually, truth be told, they are almost frighteningly well organized. They have been ready to have a discussion about outreach programs with me since the fall and have been eager to set up a call with their artistic director to make sure the outreach program suits my needs.

This is all rather annoying–I am used to be feeling smug and superior to the performers I have contracted by being more organized than they. I am usually the one asking for information and having people get back to me!

Having the illusion that I am better than everyone else is the only bright spot of my day that makes all the crap I face tolerable! Damn them for stealing that from me!!!

Hee hee, this is kinda fun. Though it does occur to me that we haven’t discussed catering yet broaching that subject with them tomorrow will allow me to salvage a little arrogance.

In any case, the old adage that forewarned is forearmed is so very true when you are presenting performances. Knowing stuff like this so far in advance makes doing a show so much easier — unless you have no intention of providing what the performer asks for and like to take advantage of lack of organization to plead ignorance.

So far, DCDC is a model of organization and professionalism and I would recommend them on that basis alone. However, I will try to remember to do a follow up report on them in April.

…especially if you are watering his grass

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The title of today’s entry is something of an addendum to the “grass is always greener…” saying. Today I found myself watering my neighbor’s lawn as I wrote a letter of support for a grant application.

The artist in residence for my theatre is the artistic director of a contemporary dance company We will be developing a new dance work for 2006 based on a Hawaiian myth. Right now he is applying for a Rockefeller Foundation grant to help underwrite the development of the piece. As one of the organizations involved with the work, I was asked to write a letter of support.

I spent about 4 hours on this letter polishing and honing it to sing the praises of the group with which I was going to partner. At around hour 3 I realized, much to my chagrin, that I had spent more time discussing the value of the dance company’s work in terms that were aligned with the foundation’s goals than I did on the last grant I wrote.

I don’t know if it was because I had a little more time to write than I did when my last grant application was due (and I didn’t have the budgetary questions looming ahead of me) or because as an outsider who doesn’t know all organizational flaws the dance company has it was easier to be effusive. Or maybe it just feels less sincere when you are writing about all the ambitious plans you have while there is a voice in your head that wonders whether you actually have the organizational capacity to pull it off.

On the flipside though, even though the money won’t go to me directly, I will benefit if the company receives the grant because I have a greater assurance that the show will be good if they aren’t focussed on fundraising.

And I will say one thing–this guy is good about lining up support early. In his playbill this past weekend, he had a flyer soliciting funds for the development of this piece two seasons hence, perhaps at the expense of his upcoming seasons.

Search for More Theatre Blogs

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I have really been looking high and low for more people who blog about their experiences in theatre. I haven’t been terribly successful, but I will admit, the signs look promising. People seem to be realizing the potential for the blogs.

For example, a Google search found this nascent blog for The Playmill Theatre in Montana. You can’t actually get to the blogs from the theatre’s homepage. In fact, the home page itself is rather undeveloped at the moment. It just goes to show though that someone was thinking and wanted to get the cast and director (and perhaps the community) writing about their experiences.

I also found a very short, sparse attempt at a production blog for Aristophanes’ Acharnians.

The British seem to be doing the best job of blogging about their lives in the theatre. In addition to My London Life which I cited in an earlier entry, I have found yet another British director faithfully chronicling his experiences running his own company. (Yeah, I know, I could be doing more of the same myself. I suppose you all want to hear about my shopping trips to buy cases of water and soda for performers, eh?)

I also found a culture blog by a Brit who is something of a Terry Teachout of England (though not as prolific an author/journalist/everything)

I was very happy to see that a theatre in San Francisco was taking the idea of bloggers as the new critics to heart and offering free tickets to bloggers with a fairly significant daily readership who agreed to write a review within 24 hours. May have to follow up with them to see how well it worked.

I also found a blog in Portland, OR that does nothing but list upcoming shows and provide links to many of the local theatres. One might think that this might be useless since the local paper prints essentially the same information. And that may be so. However, the format for the listings are so simple that it is very easy to log on one Friday night and scroll back through a page or so to find out what is going on–or follow the link to a favorite performance group to find out what in particular they are currently doing.

More to come…let me know if you have a favorite arts blog out there that has gone unmentioned by me.

Downside of Block Booking

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Those of you who have been reading since October may be aware that I belong to a block booking consortium (some previous entries here and here)

Last Monday we had the longest meeting to date trying to hammer out schedules for performers. Near the end, one of the newer members asked if it was always this difficult to resolve the scheduling. Some of the other members said this was the worst because there were now more members than ever before and their organizations were becoming more ambitious and doing more performances.

For me, however, I somehow emerged worse off than I entered. I had come in expecting to make final arrangements for 7 groups and then having to contract another 3-4 on my own. Somehow I walked out with only 5 groups and the prospect of scheduling 5-6 more on my own.

What happened was this-my consortium and another consortium, the Hawaii Arts and Music Soceity, hold joint meetings because of the 90% overlap of membership. Since they tend to do a lot of classical, early music and opera, I am not a member. Most of the other big presenters hold dual membership and with more people wanting to do more, they easily filled their schedule and as a result decided to postpone presenting two of the people I wanted.

This actually might turn out for the best because I am thinking that instead of trying to make up the difference with acts whose airfare from the mainland I might have to do pay, I might look into putting together some sort of interesting programs with local performers. The Knight Foundation article I quoted last week mentioning the San Diego Symphony’s “Can Classical Music Be Fun” program got me to thinking that perhaps I could talk to the symphony or ballet about putting together an interactive/fun program to be presented on this side of the island. Who knows, perhaps it will grow into an annual event or lead to further partnerships.

Watching Me Watching You Watching Me..erm

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So I was checking my visitor stats for January. The report only shows the IP addresses of people who visited, but it does give me links to websites through which people clicked through to find me.

Turns out that people have been linking to me via the blogs maintained by a paid arts blogger, I reported on in an earlier post. The blog entries in question come from Worker Bees Blog and 42nd St. Moon.

In the former blog, she talks about the importance of monitoring your statistics and how she can now track my blog and my references to her. I imagine we will now do a humorous little turn at watching each other watch each other.

In the latter entry, she mentions how 42nd St Moon is becoming powerful at leveraging blogs. This is quite true because by visiting that entry, I then clicked through to the other related blogs, one of which is focussed on the benefit of technology to arts organizations.

Given that this whole series of events was predicated on my search for other arts blogs beyond artsjournal.com, I am starting to look at my whole effort at blogging as something of a success which is gaining momentum.

Since the December holiday season I have gotten email from people whose nieces have turned them on to my blog and from an administrator at the National Dance Project because someone brought my comments to their attention.

Makes me realize that there are a lot more people intentionally visiting the website than I realized. The web stats report tells you what keywords people used in search engines to find your website. My only comment is to look at the first word in my blog’s name. I will let you infer some of the bizarre search terms people are using from that.

Orchestras in the Age of Edutainment

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I was visiting the Knight Foundation website and came across the aforementioned article, “Smart Concerts: Orchestras in the Age of Edutainment” by Alan Brown.

It offers some interesting reading about the tension between offering classical music in a manner that is appealing to new audiences while adhering to the expectations of long time audiences. (Of course the lessons learned are applicable to all the arts.) The former doesn’t attend often, but constitutes the future of your organization. The latter frequently attend, donate much needed monies in the face of declining foundation support and sit on your board. All of which can make it difficult to innovate.

Brown gives a number of examples of innovations that orchestras are using, including Concert Companion with which readers of Greg Sandow’s blog may be familiar.

He also recounts the resistance that some of these programs have faced, including booing at the Minnesota Orchestra.

A little more about that in a bit.

Brown makes some familiar observations about arts attendance. One thing he notes is that consumers want a more intense experience in a shorter time because they have less time. Thus the prevalence of extreme sports and standing ovations. People want to feel that they have had a good time in the time they had.

Another observation is that while technology makes so many more musical options available to people with the ability to download opera as easily as the latest pop single, it also allows people to continue to reinforce their own tastes by providing them with so much material, they never get tired of listening and experiment with other options.

One section I found particularly interesting:

In his book “Who Needs Classical Music?,” Julian Johnson argues that classical music, fundamentally, is discursive in nature and requires careful and complete listening in order to be fully appreciated. Instead, he says, most consumers ‘use’ (or misuse) classical music to alter or underscore their mood, or just to fill empty time.2 Mass culture’s appropriation of classical music may be good or bad, depending on your point of view, but there is a larger idea here. Much of music’s allure derives from the relative ease with which it can be selected and programmed by the listener. In focus groups, music lovers describe how they listen to one kind of music for vacuuming, another kind of music for cooking, another kind of music for exercising, and so forth. Consumers understand what it means to be your own curator, and derive great satisfaction from arranging art around them to the satisfaction of their own aesthetic – especially music and visual art.

I really appreciate Julian Johnson’s views. The last artistic director I worked for wouldn’t recommend musicians to people who wanted live background music at parties and receptions. His feeling was that a musician works too hard at his/her craft to be ignored and spoken over. And it reinforces the idea that their product is worthless and disposable. He felt that it was better to get a good CD player and sound system.

I also like the idea though that consumers know the value of being their own curator. I am not quite sure how to execute it, but I sense there would be great value to an arts organization in a program that validated this sentiment and empowered patrons in some manner.

The four tactics that Brown says are being employed by orchestras are: contextual programming, dramatization of music, visual enhancements and embedded interpretation. Of these, I would imagine that dramatization and visual enhancement might be considered most sacreligious by long time concert goers.

Dramatization is “theatrically produced in service of a larger concept or purpose using some combination of narration, drama, dance, scenery, lighting and video. But the music remains the main attraction.

Visual enhancement, which he describes as the most controversial, “…can be divided into two categories: visual enhancements that add an artistic element to the concert, and visual enhancements that (literally) magnify the performers. It is not unusual for orchestras to introduce visual elements such as banners, flags, projections and ambient lighting to the stage, sometimes in service of a theme or special occasion.”

Since these programs try to “sex” the music up by adding new elements rather than allowing the music to stand on its own merits, I can understand why people might be upset.

Contextual programming he defines as “contextual programming as the practice of selecting programs, series and even whole seasons around unifying ideas – topics, themes, genres, idioms, artists and other constructs – however focused or oblique. Contextual programs have more conceptual glue holding them together.”

One thing he points out is that unless you are a long time attendee or a musician, you might be hard pressed to understand why a particular mix of music from different composers was chosen for performance. (Lord knows, I have always wondered) Contextual programming offers some sort of narrative that explains this. As noted, it could also be oriented to a theme like The San Diego Symphony’s Light Bulb Series program, “Can Classical Music Be Funny?” (Lord knows I have wondered that as well.)

Embedded Interpretation encompasses elements which are part of the performance itself, such as the Minnesota Orchestra where the conductor provided some explanation about why the pieces were put together (many loved it, some booed) and the Philadelphia Orchestra where the musicians share insights about music during their summer programs. Of course, there is also the Concert Companion which provides commentary synchronized to the music broadcast to a handheld PDA.

The whole article is worth reading because I only touch on some of the examples given and I think many of them can inspire programs for other organizations.

Plate Full of Dollars

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A short entry today since a new nephew joined the family a few hours ago.

It occurred to me today that while there are articles, classes or at least textbook chapters on pretty much every aspect of arts management from company to fiscial management, I have never really read any good information on donor relations, specifically wooing them. I was having lunch today for the first time with one of the bigger donors to my theatre. It was essentially just an opportunity for him to meet me as the new theatre manager, etc.

I was taking a fairly low key approach, letting him talk about his trips to Southeast Asia, etc and his 18 years of experience as the grandfather in a production of Nutcracker. The development person who was with us apparently thought the conversation was moving too slow and about 5 minutes into the meal says “So, Joe, tell us about your plans for the theatre.” and later “So X, what do you think the theatre should be doing?” And when he got up to go to the salad bar, she started to tell me what to ask him when he returned. (Which I didn’t)

I actually had to keep from laughing because it really felt to me like a sitcom where people are on a blind double date with friends and the friend that did the setting up tries to find common ground by commenting on the interests of those who were set up.

Some friends of his told me he was of the mind that he would give when he wanted to give so I didn’t feel pressured to really sell him, especially at our first meeting.

Despite the fact that I thought the development person was a little more pushy than was warranted, I was sitting there weighing all my options. Was I being too quiet by letting him talk about himself? Since he has been associated with the theatre longer than I have, I am really in a place to tell him about the theatre and not come off as condescending by telling him things that are patently obvious to him? Should I be talking more about my vision, or now that I have sketched a basic outline of my goals, just allow him to ask if he wants additional information?

In some regard, it is actually easier to be in a situation where you want to make donation request. In such a case, you know the goal of the meeting and you know what the successful outcome will look like. I have been on those meetings and meetings that were precursors to them.

What happened today was more like a meet and greet reception or a party where you mingle and make contacts. Only in this case, you don’t have the option of moving on to speak with another person when the conversation lulls. Yet with a development person sitting there, the situation isn’t entirely casual either. His/her presence introduces an element of expectation into the mix.

I don’t know if there are any correct set of guidelines for meeting with potential and existing donors like “If the goal of the meeting isn’t to make an ask of money or aid in recruitment of other donors, then you should be this aggressive, if it is, then do this.” I am sure it has as much to do with the local culture and the person as anything else. Some people don’t appreciate a run around and appreciate directness, others want to have a relationship developed with them as a person.

If I do find a good bit of text on donor relations, I will let you folks know! (Likewise, let me know if you already found one!)

But Can You Get a Job With That?

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One of the things I really like about Hawaii is the opportunity (when I get it) to see a wide variety of culturally diverse performances. Since I have been hear, I have gone to a Gamelan concert (music from Bali and Java) and presented a show that melded traditional hula and modern dance to celebrate the arrival of a new Hawaiian island Loihi/Kama’ehu (in 30-50,000 years). (And just as an aside, there is hula that Hollywood portrays, the actual hula that Hawaiians dance and low postured, bombastic hula ‘aiha’a that originates from the Big Island. Very awe inspiring and powerful. Only time I have imagined that a hula dancer could kick my ass.)

This weekend I went to see a Randai production (search for that term on Google and every English language book and article was written by the show’s director.) Randai is a really amazing Sumatran theatre form that integrates the martial art of silak with song and dialogue. It also features wearing pants where one can stretch the fabric between the legs taut to create a booming drumming sound when struck. (And article from a production done 3 years ago can be found here.)

It is really fantastic stuff and easily accessible to Western audiences (the songs are sung in English in this production and the stories are pretty much universal) Where Western theatre is generally encompassed in 4 walls, Randai action occurs within a circle of performers (which is also how the martial art silak is taught rather than in the parallel rows you see in Japanese and Chinese martial arts)

Since the Randai form is so much a part of Sumatran life, children pretty much practice the martial arts moves from birth. The student actors at the University of Hawaii have actually been practicing the movement and drumming component 3 hours a day for 6 months in order to gain at least a rudimentary mastery of the techniques. I actually heard and audience member saying he would see the cast outside slapping their pants when he went to his morning class so they definitely were a dedicated group.

It made me a little sad though to think that it would be tough to translate this experience and dedication into an acting job on the Mainland. You look at a person’s resume saying they were part of a Randai ensemble and unless it is in your personal experience, you group their experience in with wacky fringe performance art. Nevermind the students have better control of their bodies now than most musical theatre students pursuing the “triple threat” of sing/dance/act. Without the frame of reference of having seen Randai, most directors wouldn’t know how to evaluate that experience though.

To be honest, faced with such a resume credit, I wouldn’t either. I have been excited to see it since August when I read about it in the brochure. But you don’t get show description on a resume.

Truth is, on the Mainland, Randai is wacky fringe performance art. (Actually some performance art I have seen is so derivative of other performance art, Randai would actually be on the fringe of the fringe.) On Hawaii it is actually pretty much mainstream. The university does it in a 3 year rotation with kabuki (which I really want to see!) and I believe Chinese opera.

When I say it Randai would be on the fringe of fringe, I don’t mean to imply it is “out there.” As I said, it is actually very easy to understand. I simply meant that people looking in the Friday arts listing would probably feel more comfortable going to something listed as performance art rather than taking a chance on something noted as coming from Sumatra.

Performing in the show sorta falls in that category of things that are great for you to have done as a person, but probably not perceived as having much value by others. Actors have a hard enough time making a go of it with regular performance credits to have to face someone looking at 6 months of their life as being without merit.

I certainly don’t think that it was a mistake for the students to do. Physical shows like Stomp, Cirque de Soleil, The Blue Man Group, etc, that aren’t formed around the framework of acting technique will certainly view the experience as valuable. But mainstream stage and television…maybe not so much. You can only sell to the masses (or the slim percentage of the masses that attend live performances) what the masses are prepared to consume. Casting sessions tend to be driven by this.

On the other hand, with something as visually interesting as martial arts on stage, all it takes is a rave revue of a Broadway or major regional theatre show. Suddenly Randai is en vogue and someone is developing a show for Vegas.

Short Grant Applications

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Back last April, I cited a paper by the Independent Sector supporting, among other things, a simplified, unified grant application process so that one application might be applied to many granting institutions.

I haven’t found a unified process yet, but I have experienced a very simplified one recently. The National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts has a program where they give artists grants to develop a work in conjunction with a presenter partner. The paperwork for that looks about normal.

However, if the performance group wishes to take the work on tour, the National Dance Project will provide money to presenters to defray the artist fees. All the presenter has to do is send a very simple letter of intent (and NDP provides a sample template for the letter) to the tour coordinator which they pass on to the National Dance Project.

The NDP sends an evaluation form and a very easy to complete final report form which the presenter has to fill out (Took me about 30 minutes) in order to receive up to 25% of the artist fee back as a grant. Other than making sure print ads, press releases and program books have funding credits and writing letters to legislators telling them NEA money is well spent, that is it. NEFA makes it very easy to decide to present a work.

Actually, it seemed too easy. I was searching frantically for the grant application my predecessor did to make sure I was in compliance. The only back up I had was the letter to the tour manager declaring our interest to present it—surely that couldn’t be all we did to apply for it!

To some extent it was good that the application process was so simple. The deadline for 2005-2006 was Jan 21. The Association of Performing Arts Presenters conference just got over on Jan 11. That only left 10 days for presenters and agents to finalize dates and prices and then get letters of intent written up and submitted to NEFA.

I got an email from the members of my booking consortium who attended the APAP conference essentially telling me arrangements had been finalized and I had one day to send off letters of intent to a couple agents. Ironically, this was at the exact time I was frantically running around trying to locate the aforementioned phantom grant application so I could do follow up for the NDP funded show we just did so my understanding of the whole application process suddenly coalesced resulting in me stammering “That’s it?! That’s all I have to do?!”

So my hat’s off to ya New England Foundation for the Arts for making it easy on me!

Come for the Swing, Stay for the Classical

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I was reading my Time Magazine today while my computer booted up, hoping that my cable modem would behave today (that was why there was no entry yesterday. No problem yet today, perhaps the Time-Warner cable approves of me reading Time Magazine) In the magazine there was a small inset on Artie Shaw, a big band leader who died last month. (More info, the NY Times and Ken Burns’ PBS Jazz website have interesting synopses of his life.)

I found the article somewhat amusing because it discussed how he was trying to expose his swing audiences to classical music, similiar to how arts organizations try to grab new audiences by offering popular pieces and hoping people will experiment with unfamiliar territory.

Shaw’s experience went something like this:

“Bandleader Artie Shaw had tried feeding long-hair music to short hair audiences, [but] he had discovered that ‘It is necessary to give an audience some familiar points of reference before you can expect it to go along on new things’…He thought…playing old Shaw specials…might lure strayed followers back into the tent. Once they were in, perhaps he could give them [classical works] in small doses. Last week…on the opening night of a nationwide tour, the first part of Artie’s experiment worked. A record breaking crowd, including a good many of the jammy jitterbug type..was lured into Boston’s huge Symphony Ballroom. The Shaw faithful, plus a few horn rimmed jazz intellectuals, clustered around the bandstand…Right there, any semblance of success stopped. When Artie’s boys began unraveling Ravel’s Piece en Forme de Habanera, the crowd around the bandstand applauded politely, but even the most ardent jitterers had to stop dancing. Cried one in petulant exasperation: ‘Artie you suck'”

I don’t know if arts managers will take heart in the fact that hurdles they face in widening the perspective of their audiences are nothing new. Or if they will see this article from 1949 as validation that their efforts are hopeless.

If I Can Only Keep Connected…

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Okay, I have been having the dangest time with my cable modem keeping a connection so I am gonna make this quick and hope I can squeeze it in before things break down again.

Courtesy of Artsjournal.com I found a great article on arts education in the spirit of the one I found locally a month or so ago. This one is in Minneapolis/St.Paul where the program is using the arts to teach critical thinking skills. The article points out that in an age when schools need to meet standardized testing, the skills gained are hard to quantify, though certainly valuable in the job market if they are cultivated.

As I am trying to be brief, all I will say is please, read it. And maybe drop a line to the paper praising them for spending so much space in the Sunday paper to discuss this topic.

In a related story, a study by the University of York has found that teaching students grammar actually has very little beneficial effect on the quality of the students’ writing. What does improve writing skills–getting the students to do a lot of writing.

Just like the first story–it is hard to objectively measure the benefits on a standardized test, though good writing skills are definitely marketable.

I talk about marketable skills because that seems to be the big gripe of job seekers and employers–college doesn’t seem to be providing students with marketable skills (I can do a whole series of blogs expressing my thoughts on that topic). As much as I am leery about the whole No Child Left Behind thing, I have to admit, whatever the schools were doing before wasn’t working too well. Students’ abilities and habits were so ill suited to college, the only benefit I could see was that my own skills would be in higher demand as time progressed.

At this point, if I can convince students to cultivate their critical thinking and expressive powers by using money as an incentive, I will toss the phrase “marketable skills” around until it goes passe and comes back into vogue again.

Theatre Blogs

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I talk a lot about the power of blogs for theatre, but other than the ones at artsjournal.com, I haven’t seen too many.

Well, thanks to the power of google, I found a handful. The first I found was an entry appropriately entitled “Where Are The Theatre Blogs?” People who made comments to the entry actually pointed out a few to look at which was lucky because I never saw them listed on Google.

One of the best examples of what I championed in earlier entries about artists blogging about the process they go through can be found on my London life. The blog is currently following Paul Miller, a London based director (and author) who is in the process of directing a play in Japan. He has been blogging since August and has been really regular in his writing about his process and artistic experiences. Clicking back to November, one finds he had flown out then to cast the show, flew back to the UK and then back to Japan in January to direct. Guy has to be exhausted!

One of the most surprising links I came across was a story on Elisa Camahort who is not only a professional blogger–paid to blog for a company–but she is being paid to blog for 3 theatre companies in the San Francisco Bay Area! I haven’t really read the different blogs in their entireity. The recent focus seems to be on news about the theatres’ current and upcoming seasons and theories about acting, marketing, etc. I will be reading a bit more as I have time. (One of the best things about writing a blog–you can follow your own links to do additional research!)

I also found a person with a blog connected to Shakespeare Magazine. The blog covers stories about Shakespeare productions and projects in the US and UK. It also lists stories about the Bard himself, including recent articles about the writer having syphilis (and stories refuting that theory)

There are some interesting discussions about art coming from Canadian sources as well on a website called The Flying Monkey. While the author admits that the discussion is dying down (though there is apparently more occuring on a message board), what was really interesting is the stated purpose of the blog–“An online discussion, from the point of view of the performing arts, about the audience: who they are, what they want and what we can give them. Excerpts from this discussion will be reprinted in Ruby Slippers Theatre’s annual publication, The Flying Monkey, at the discretion of Guest Editor Adrienne Wong.”
(06/09- The old blog is gone, replaced by a new one which does not have any of the old conversations.)

I thought it was really interesting that they would include the discussion in a print publication as well. As many people as there are reading blogs, etc online, it is good to remember that there are a lot of passionate supporters out there who aren’t online and they deserve to be included in the dialogue in some fashion from time to time.

Last theatre blog I wanted to direct folks to is not for live performance, but actually a movie theatre. Some intrepid folks apparently quit their high paying corporate jobs right around Christmas and moved to Springfield, MO to renovate and open a small movie house. They basically discuss every step of the project from applying to get a Small Business Administration loan to deciding how what type of soda to serve and the size seats to put in the theatre. (You want a lesson in economics, check out the Jan 8 entry –unfortunately they don’t have a way to link directly to the entry)

Say What?

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Even before I took my current position, I was familiar with the unique situations one might run into while working for a theatre in a university setting. There are the competitive bids you must solicit for everything, the triplicate forms, the purchase order process and four week wait for people to be paid.

Then there is the fact the state doesn’t like to pay for services in advance of receiving them. If you are using Equity actors you often must post a bond and as I noted yesterday, when you present performances, you often have to pay deposits in advance. Many times you end up explaining that this is the usual way of doing business over and over to people.

Today there was a bit of a new twist. A person from the business office comes over and says I have to sign a statement on the purchase order saying that I will personally reimburse the university if it pays the deposit and the artist doesn’t perform. Now given that the deposit is usually at least $5,000 or more, that isn’t something I really want to be responsible for.

I have never had a performer fail to perform. However, I am sitting on an island in the middle of the Pacific. Just regular problems with airplanes can pose a problem much less other acts of God, war, strike and all the other variables found in a force majeure clause. Most force majeure clauses stipulate that an artist will return the deposit less any expenses. Given that purchasing airline tickets to Hawaii will probably eat up the deposit amount by itself, the chance of me retrieving the deposit in such a situation is probably slim to none.

I lodge a complaint to my division chair who is as incredulous as I. He says to check with my counterparts at other campuses to see if they face the same problem. I heard back from one of them before I left for the day and his answer left me even more flabbergasted. He does sign the reimbursement pledge when he pays deposits–however he often crosses that part of a contract out so he only pays when he really has to. Now this is the same guy who crosses out the catering portion of hospitality riders so I am wondering how the heck he manages to get anyone to perform for him at all.

I guess all my talk yesterday about the basic requirements one will have to meet for most presenting situation has quite a few more exceptions to the rule than I thought. I need to talk to some more people though. I really don’t want to sign the thing, but I also don’t want to eliminate a whole pool of potential performers too because the university won’t pay a deposit.

Primer in Presenting

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I thought I would do a quick run through of common terminology, features and expectations of the presenting business for those folks who aren’t familiar with them. I had done an article some time ago on how misunderstanding about common expectations can lead to uncomfortable cancelation situations. I thought it might be good to talk about some contractual features as well.

Deposit It is common for performers to require you to send a 50% deposit to them or their agent about a month or so before they are set to perform as a security. They usually require the balance in their hands right before or right after the performance.

Force Majeure-Better definition than I can give found here. Pretty much every contract has them. They are about as ubiquitous as a Miranda warning on a police/lawyer show. It doesn’t take long before you can recite the clause in your sleep.

Insurance– One thing I see quite a bit is the expectation that the presenter carries about $1 million in insurance to protect performers and crew from any mishaps. If you are renting a space, it will most certainly be included as a requirement for space use. In many cases, it is included in the performers contract as well to protect them.

Advancing the Show – Usually the road manager or the artist does this a few weeks to a month before a performance to discuss details of the technical rider, transportation, sound check times, food, accomodations–basically anything they are concerned about.

Backline – Essentially any sound equipment and instruments that the performers aren’t bringing with them that they expect the presenting venue to supply. It makes a tour a lot cheaper if they don’t have to haul pianos, extra guitars, amps, drum kits, etc across the country. Pay very close attention to this because many performers are very particular about the name brand of the equipment that they use.

Tech Rider– List of technical equipment and services that a performer requires. It includes the backline, but will also encompass lighting, special effects, stage layout, power requirements for tour buses (as well as places to park said buses and trailers), size and composition of running crews.

Hospitality– Essentially what people want to eat and when they want to eat it. It can be very simple or very complicated. They say an army travels on its stomach and so does a tour so this is very important. I recently had a guy tell me he crosses catering off contracts immediately. I have no idea how he gets away with it.

I always double check this section when advancing a show. Many times vegetarians or people with food allergies join a group and they don’t change the rider. I also order more than I need–girlfriends, best friends, surprise visitors, etc tend to show up in the dressing room unannounced and are invited to chow down. If you do your checking and pad the order in advance, it saves a lot of hassle on the performance day.

Hospitality will also encompass other aspects of how performers are treated. Some people will want irons and garment steamers and towels both backstage on on stage. This section might also specify that the performers want food served on real plates rather than paper or paper is okay, but styrofoam is not.

Transportation– Another big variable in the presenting calculation. Sometimes you have to pay airfare, sometimes cab (or limo) fare, other times the performer is driving themselves and absorbing all the costs. Sometimes you have to do the driving yourself. This is actually the reason I decided to do this entry. I had a slight disagreement with an artist’s manager over this recently.

When I worked in New Jersey, we would drive people to and from the airport one time in 20 to 25 instances. Here in Hawaii, we generally arrange for cars for people to drive around. A contract I got recently specifies that we pay for their ground transportation and provide a map and directions to them. A similar contract for their opening act specifies having a sedan for him. My assumption then is that we are providing cars for them, especially since they are coming early with wives and girlfriends so they can see the sights.

The group manager tells me that he reads the contract to mean that we have to pay to have them driven around and haven’t I ever done a concert before. Now I am thinking he means we are to pay to have them driving around the island sightseeing and shopping and I tell him we can’t do that. He actually meant that he wanted a ride from the airport to hotel, hotel to venue and back and then to airport again. (My mistake was telling him we couldn’t do it before I understood exactly what he was asking for. One of my prime rules is to never worry travelers to unknown places unnecessarily.) It was an easy mistake to make, but also illustrates why you should read over a contract carefully and discuss any gray areas during the advancing calls.

Security– This can be a sticky area. I have almost never had to use professional security people for backstage and front of stage security. Actually, it is never. The only professionals I have used were for gate security to screen for alcohol. On the other hand, the volunteers I have used were people I knew I could trust and looked as if they were keeping an eye on things and weren’t going to let someone by unchallenged. Yes, some were big and tough looking, but most were just determined looking.

Because we had the right looking dependable people, no tour manager, etc ever really questioned our security measures whether they had asked for professional shirted security folks or not. We always made it clear that we had a volunteer security force back when we signed the contracts as well.

Whether you can get away with it is another thing altogether. My advice is, as it is for all things, cultivate a good group of volunteers and note which ones might be trusted for special positions for future events.

That is about all I can think of as a summary of the major points of a presenting contract. These are just basic generalizations. Your milage may vary.

Know When To Cut

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So, as promised, a quick recap of my attendance of the event Dana Gioia, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, spoke at last evening. It was a big affair. The line to get in stretched around the block and limos bearing consuls from about six countries pulled up as we were all filing it.

I was sort of disappointed because I thought he was going to speak about the NEA. However, he said he had spoken about it at two other gatherings already and didn’t feel like doing so again. Apparently I was not important enough to be invited to those meetings!

Actually, he didn’t speak until about an hour into the meeting. There were a lot of speeches whose whole point seemed to be the gratuitous mentioning of names over and over again to applaud and thank. Then there were exhibitions of performing talent to show the diversity of the arts in the state that ranged from the stinky to the sublime. It has been a long time since an NEA chair has been to the state so I understand why people wanted to show off as much as possible.

Mr Gioia was as good as speaker as I had hoped a poet would be. He spoke about the value of the arts, but didn’t harp on it too much and actually spent much of the night reciting his own poetry, most of which was pretty good. The anecdotes and commentary surrounding them really made his presentation.

The one thing I really noted was a poem he said he originally wrote at the request of National Public Radio on the turning of the new year. It was originally 36 lines long. However, after he had recited it, he decided it needed some trimming so he removed two lines, then another two, another two, and more and more by twos (except he skipped 14 lines and went right to 12 according to his story.)

Ultimately, it ended up being 8 lines long and no longer about the new year at all, but rather about what goes on inside oneself.

This was the real gem that I took away from the night. When we learn about creating art, be it written, performed, composed, painted, etc, we are often told never to become so invested and married to something that you are afraid to cut away extraneous bits or make changes. The best sculptors often talk about freeing the shape within the material rather than imposing their vision upon it. The best writers are not afraid to edit. Actors are taught to react to whatever changes in energy and situation might be occurring on stage rather than delivering the performance that got the biggest applause last week.

Of course, it rarely happens that way. Taking the leap of faith to discard or change is easy to talk about, but hard to do. I have a lot of respect for Mr. Gioia for having the confidence in his talent to be able to do that.

Accessible Facilities

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Okay, an abbreviated entry today. I wrote a fairly long entry detailing why I was researching the Americans with Disabilities Act but my web browser decided to cut out leaving me to start all over again. I was going to wait another day, but tomorrow I am going to see Dana Gioia, Chair of the National Endowment for the Arts, speak so I most likely won’t be able to make an entry tomorrow.

So any, the resources I cited in my disappearing entry were the National Endowment’s Design for Accessibility: A Cultural Administrator’s Handbook which was extremely complete. It not only had information on the act, but had illustrations of dimensions of theatre seating, ramps, placement and lighting of signers in signed performances. It discussed training of staff and volunteers and even included a suggested format of a meeting to discuss accessibility issues for facilities. As the title suggests, it also gives guidelines for planning for a facility to be accessible if you are building or renovating one.

Each chapter includes helpful links and references books one might want to read. I found this helpful because I didn’t feel that their guidelines on interaction with persons with disabilities was complete enough. The ironic thing is, I judge it incomplete in comparison with a list of guidelines I once had that the NEA itself had put out.

The links, however, direct you to the San Antonio, TX city website that has a good list of terminology to use. A link to the United Cerebral Palsy Association had a good listing of basic etiquette. The Community Resources for Independence, while not listed in the NEA document, also has a good site for interaction guidelines.

Okay, that is about it right now. I will let you know what I think of Dana Gioia on Wednesday.

Emarketing Effectiveness

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I was taking a gander over at Artsmarketing.org and found a link to an arts e-marketing study that was done in England. While buying and attending habits of people in the US may differ from our European cousins, I found the suggestions about how to employ email and websites to good effect and the findings of the study to be quite thought provoking. Also, one of the really valuable pieces of information they provided was how to interpret the data logs from your website to determine how many hits, return visits, etc you are getting (pg 59-60) if you don’t have access to report software like Awstats. (And even if you do, it is tough to recognize what the heck you are looking at.)

Among their key findings were:

E-marketing can be seen to be cost-effective and valuable. However, there are many areas of potential development for participants and for the industry as a whole.

The ‘typical’ arts organisation (i.e. benchmarks for an arts organisation) will:
– spend less than 3% of their direct marketing budget on e-marketing activity
– spend less than 1p (marketing costs only) to attract each visit and each unique (different)
visitor to their site
– spend less than 3p (total online spend e.g. including maintenance) to attract each visit and
each unique visitor to their site
– spend less than 40p (marketing costs only) to achieve one ticket sale
– spend less than 10 seconds of staff time working on e-marketing to attract each visit
– spend 30 seconds – 1 minute to attract each unique visitor to their site
– attract between 2,000 and 8,000 unique visitors each month to the web site
– attract 30 – 45% of the visits to their site from unique visitors – different people
– receive 2 – 3% of all bookings online
– receive �2 – �4 more per ticket bought online than per ticket bought offline
Of those who visit the ‘typical’ arts organisations website (benchmarks for visitor statistics):
– 15 – 25% will return within the month, making 55 – 77% of the total visits to the site (the
Pareto effect works online!)
– they will visit 3 – 6 pages on the site each visit and will stay for 2 – 6 minutes
– each unique visitor will view just under 20 pages over any one month
– less than 2% will ‘convert’ to live visitors i.e. make a booking online (this is just slightly lower
than results found by other industries)
– less than 2% of them will sign up for further communication

The Arts Marketing Association felt that their research was somewhat incomplete simply because a number of organizations declined to participate because they had no idea how to access the web data needed or felt uncomfortable doing so. (They survey actually did provide instructions about which numbers to refer to.)

This lead to a fairly easily made conclusion that arts organizations were under utilizing their websites as a marketing resource and that the number of conversions to ticket sales or involvement with an organization could be increased if more attention was paid to designing and maintaining an effective site.

As much as I have been harping on the power of blogs and the internet for spreading the word about issues and ideas, I am ashamed to admit that I am hardly any better than the respondents in the survey and haven’t really taken a look at who is visiting my organization’s webpage or ticketing site. (And even worse, I know how to do it. I check the report on the people visit my blog regularly.)

Listening is Hard

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I came across a very interesting article on Artsjournal.com today. In “Hearing Voices”, J. Mark Scearce essentially says that not only aren’t students being exposed to enough music these days, the ones that are aren’t being taught how to listen to it correctly. Now that may sound strange, but if you read the article, it makes sense. My favorite part of the article is his suggestion that a bumper sticker be created says “Listening: It’s Not As Easy As It Sounds.”

I could see what he meant a little from my own experience. As I have grown older, I have actually come to realize that when I was a teen and adults asked why I was listening to the “crap” I was, they were pretty much right. I go back and listen to the music and while I do feel a sense of nostalgia for those good old days, I have to admit the music is junk.

In fact, I have to admit, I may be responsible for the current state of popular music. I remember hearing an interview at one time about the group Depeche Mode’s heavy use of synthesizers and I recall thinking that it would be great if people could become rich and famous musicians without having to spend the time learning to play an instrument or have much musical talent.

Be careful what you wish for indeed!

Now that I am older and wiser or whatever, I really have grown to appreciate the skill with which musicians create their work. I suddenly become aware of the subtle use of instruments beneath the other instruments to support them with a clever little bit of phrasing. I am not talking about classical music either. Some of the people I refer to are singer-songwriter types. Certainly some of their works are more complexly crafted than others.

I can’t quite name of the quality, but there is something about some music that makes you aware of the investment of time in the song and possession of talent. In some cases, the difference between musicians is obvious in the extreme. But other times, there is just some intangible quality that is a result of the sum of 1000 elements from the length of pauses to personal charisma that determines the difference between good and great.

It isn’t just in music of course. Dance, Drama and the Visual Arts are the same. In fact, if anything should have a bumper sticker, it should be “Acting is harder than it looks”. If someone is a novice with a violin, everyone recognizes that fact pretty quickly. However, everyone thinks they can act because you simply do what you would do in real life.

Just as Scearce says composers have to learn to listen, so too do actors have to learn to listen and watch as a first step. Reality goes on all around us, but it is tricky to recreate it convincingly for an audience.

Certainly it is the same for dance and visual arts. Only through constant observation and exposure does one recognize how movement, texture, color, shape, etc all work together to a desired end.

To some extent, the arts community has become so fixiated on simply trying to get butts in the seats/through the door and perhaps into an outreach program, the fact that long term exposure is really necessary for comprehension to occur. A person may have been coming to performances for two years and that seems like sufficient time to acquire comprehension and appreciation. However, the person may have had only 12 exposures total in those 2 years.

Twelve consecutive days of class is hardly enough to make someone comfortable with art. Stretch that over two years and that is one day every 2 months which hardly affords any sense of continuity at all.

New Year, New Look

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So I have been away from blogging for a little bit due in part to the holiday season, but also because the service that was hosting my blog has gone out of business. (Which reminds me, I have to take their link off the blog.) Unfortunately, I didn’t find out they were shutting down until two weeks before they did. So not only was I doing some last minute shopping for gifts, I was looking around for a new hosting service.

This is essentially the reason for the new look. The entries came over intact from my old server, however the template settings didn’t. I am going to reset things to a different template shortly, however, now that I have access to Photoshop and other goodies, I think I will take this opportunity to revamp my logo a little on a lunch break.

I have discovered I have a fair number of regular readers out there. I have been getting emails from people over the break telling me how much they appreciate my insights, etc., and mentioning that other people turned them on to my blog.

Thanks to you all for spreading the word –keep telling your friends! As far as I know, I am the only working theatre manager keeping a regular blog (and when I was unemployed, the only unemployed one too!) But if people know of any other performing arts bloggers outside of Artsjournal.com, let me know. I am always interested in reading other people’s stuff.

I started out almost a year ago with the purpose of making this blog a resource for other people in regard to creating a central clearinghouse of links and tips. I really need to collect those I have cited into a running list on the side of the blog (note to self for revamp process) but a good number of people seem to appreciate my discussing the practical details of my job as well as my thoughts and readings on the general philosophy of arts management. (Which is good since I have had less time to read these days.) I will try to do a little more of both in the coming days.

EDIT: OK, apparently, all I needed to do was hit rebuild and the template I had set up engaged so there isn’t a new look. Heh heh, sorry about any confusion.

Where Did I Go Wrong?

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So today, just a few days before Christmas, I end up interviewing 3 people for the position as my assistant. As you may or may not know from past entries. We had a little problem with the first round of the search and have had to reopen the position. There was some urgency connected with the search as I am told if we don’t fill it, we will lose the position to another department. It got me to wondering how many unqualified people had been hired into a position just so that the position wouldn’t be lost.

I am sure any reader who has had any interaction with state employees anywhere will answer with–pretty much all of them.

One thing that happened during the process caught my attention. At the end of the interview, during the “Do You Have Any Questions For Us” phase, an applicant asked us what areas of the job was she least qualified for. This pretty much took me aback since it not only put me in an awkward position, but also placed me in the role of emphasizing her unsuitable qualities in my mind rather than leaving me with a good impression. That being said, she was probably the strongest candidate and will receive our strong recommendation for hiring.

It did get me to wondering if surveying people right at a performance is premature. Typically you balance the questions asking what they liked and didn’t like so that you aren’t unscoring a particularly bad experience in their minds. Also, surveying immediately ensures a higher response rate than one done later.

I can’t find it, but I could have sworn Terry Teachout had a column that talked about needing time after seeing a performance to digest ones feelings about what had just been seen rather than succumbing to the demands of one’s companions to opine immediately once the lobby is reached.

It could be that people would give better feedback if they had time to mull over exactly why they did and didn’t like a performance.

Ah, but how to reach them?

One way would be to send surveys to attendees after the fact inviting them to respond on paper or online. (The festival I once worked for actually approached a 50% response rate which is absolutely phenominal for surveys) Another option is to email a sample of the audience, (hope you don’t hit a spam blocking shield) and direct them to a link on your web site where your survey resides. If you really have the money for it, there are actually sites online which will host your survey and do all the tabulation of results for you automatically. (Google online survey services)

I imagine that the response rate will fluctuate depending on how strongly people felt one way or the other about a show, but I bet the quality of the responses will be much greater and show more thought invested in them.

On the other hand, according to research, there is a perfect one question survey.

Great Idea!

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Today the person with whom I had been discussing the state of arts education a week or so ago, sent me a great article about how some local schools were exposing kids to art while meeting the “No Child Left Behind” requirements for science. (For those of you wondering what Yu Gi Oh is, go here)

At Nanaikapono, Peralta’s class is focusing on two-dimensional art, drawing and painting fanciful creatures in various habitats where they face threats from man or nature. Each student researched the science of three different animals, studying their physical characteristics and habitats, before melding those traits to come up with a new animal.

Last week, they wrestled with how their creatures would overcome threats.

“This is when you guys can tell the story, instead of having the television tell them to you,” Enos told them, with his irrepressible smile. “This is when you can use your ideas. Who needs TV anyway?”

Ultimately, the class will create a game together, featuring the 28 creatures they have designed on cards.

“How many of you have played Yu-Go-Ih?” asked Enos, prompting peals of laughter.

“Yu-Gi-Oh!” the students corrected him in chorus.

“Usually you have a winner and a loser,” he went on, with a wink. “We’re going to change that whole dynamic. Everyone who sits down to play this game needs to work together to stop the threat.”

The goal of the game, Ali explained, is to create a balanced ecosystem. The rules will be up to the kids.

….Halfway through the six-week program, the class has learned how both artists and scientists rely on observation, prediction and trial-and-error, and how they must have a deep knowledge of their materials and their settings.

The program is a pilot project that will be expanded to other schools in the spring and mostly incorporate the efforts of visual artists who might work in anything from bronze to clay or fibre arts. I have to say, this really sounds like a great program. I am always at a loss to think of ways to integrate arts and subjects like science and math, so I really applaud the creativity of whomever came up with this.

Misc Thoughts

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So just a few thoughts since visions of Nutcracker dancers and Mall Santas are prancing through my head too much to have any real significant ideas these days.

If the median age of the population is getting older as the mass of baby boomers enter retirement age, what does this mean for the senior citizen discount at theatres? When the average income for a show starts to drop below the median price because there are more seniors than “adults” in your audience, do you reduce the difference between the regular and discount rate, eliminate the discount altogether since your regularly paid price is the discount price, really revise your budget projections?

My other thought has to do with the other end of the spectrum. Is there an age that is just too young to put kids on stage? We have a pre-school that has rented the theatre since the beginning of time to have their 2-5 year old students in a Christmas pageant. After hearing many of these kids scream with terror about going on stage, I wonder if this is really a health activity for them. Another unsafe element is that until this year, members of the theatre staff had to stand at the front of the stage and run back and forth catching kids who saw their parents and started walking toward the four foot drop at the edge of the stage. (This year, the pre-school finally got a group of people together to catch the kids.)

Although I would lose the rental income, I can’t help but feel that these kids would be better served by being part of smaller events in less formal and intimidating surroundings (where the floor didn’t suddenly fall away). As much as I am for exposing kids to the arts, this seems too much too soon.

Block Heads

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So I didn’t post often last week because I was engaged in a time consuming, sensitive decision making process–Christmas shopping!

However, today I met with my compatriots in the Performing Arts Presenters of Hawaii to continue our block booking process. When last we left our heroes, we choose a slate of performers we felt we wanted to present. At the time, we had sketchy information about how much the artist fees might be and how many people we might end up transporting to the islands. Since we more or less knew who we wanted to present, different members went off to gather more information which bring us to today…

Today we met to discuss our selected slate and try to fit them in to a rough schedule. Some highly desired artists could only come at certain times, others had more open schedules or were not as desired. There was a lot wrangling of schedules to find a series of dates to proposed to each performance group.

Among some of the impediments were the fact that three of us were college presenters with student productions of our own to work around. Some of the other presenters had already contracted other performers that they knew would not be appealing to the whole group and set dates with them. There were also considerations of Hawaiian holidays or community events that entire islands geared up for during which times the public wouldn’t be interested in attending shows.

Also, since snowbirds (people who lived in Hawaii during cold winter months on the mainland) comprised larger audiences on some islands than others, it was tough to schedule some performers in the early fall when there would be a smaller potential audience base.

And of course, we worked against ourselves thinking we had found the perfect date only to have someone pipe up, but that is the weekend we already agreed to host Group X.

In the end though, we hammered out what will translate into 80% of my season. There were still some performers that members had to talk to either by phone or at the annual APAP convention next month (which was also one of those scheduling impediments for 05-06 seasons) and more perfomers may be added for future consideration. However, I can now look at perhaps putting a slate of people with smaller financial requirements together myself to flesh out my schedule too.

A couple interesting observations I made:

1) The person I was asked to research came in with a higher rate than other members expected, even with a reduction for block booking and one person had wanted to defer them in for 06-07 any way.

2) On the whole, the slate of acts we were putting together this year had much smaller fees than the current year which is somewhat reflective of the fact that we aren’t getting the size audiences we want despite the good economic climate on the islands.

3) With all the research and discussion we have done about some of the acts, there was a little bit of competition amongst people on the same island to be the one to present some of the perfomers. However, when I showed the list of those we would probably be presenting next year to the office staff, they were underwhelmed. It just goes to show the job I must do to communicate what is exciting about some of these performers to my audience.

When I mention the idea of “what is exciting” I don’t mean in some esoteric sense like the work communicates the mythical archetypes common to all cultures through music. (Which, as a fan of Joseph Campbell could be interesting to me). Some of these groups are not my cup o’ tea at all, but by doing research on them, I found I would be interested to see more of what it was all about.

Now considering most audience members don’t engage in the depth of research I did, how to communicate all of this in a radio or newspaper ad is another thing altogether.

A Piano in Every Parlor

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A recent article by Drew McManus in The Partial Observer awakened some old contemplations. He wondered how classical music in the US fell so far out of favor and traces history for a possible answer.

I have often wondered along the same lines. At one point in our history, (only 70-80 or so years ago) almost every house had a piano in the parlor and people collected sheet music like they run out to get the newly released DVD. One would think this would be fertile ground for music, if not arts appreciation to grow. Instead, it has all fallen by the wayside.

One might blame technological advances and a shift to other forms of entertainment, but Europe has the same diversions available to them and they have maintained a fair ethic of interest in the arts in general. In looking back at some of my earlier entries on the history of the arts in the US like How Did We Get In To This Mess?, there are some answers, but nothing to clearly explain why we differ from our European cousins.

Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that people in the US work longer hours than their European counterparts and therefore don’t have the time to cultivate our abilities to process (or even attend) live performances. Instead we gravitate toward the more accessible forms of entertainment like television and the corner video store.

An interesting related note–(my thanks to Vinod’s Blog for bringing the above link and the following link, both from MSN to my attention) according to economist Peter Kuhn at the University of California:

�It used to be that when you got a college degree you could get a white-collar job and take it easy.It�s just the opposite now. It�s blue-collar folks who have more time for leisure.�

(Quote is about 1/2 of the way down in this article)

It makes me wonder if the arts should be restructing programs and pitching to the blue collar sector. They may not have as much disposable income as their managers, but if they have the time and inclination to expand their horizons a little, they could prove to be a good potential audience.

Arts Educatin’

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I was having a conversation about arts outreach programs with the outreach coordinator of a dance group I had contracted to do a lecture/demo. With some synchronicity, the Artful Manager has also posted today about arts education.

Since I come from an organization that had a strong arts outreach program, I wanted to establish one here in conjunction with local artists and those I brought in from the Mainland and other countries. The outreach program coordinator also has a strong ethic in this regard as well.

In fact, her ideas were so ambitious, I had to rein her in a little. She wanted to have a week long series of events culminating in a performance that we bused kids in to. Since I am new here, I wanted to use the outreach to begin to establish relationships with local schools that I could eventually cultivate into something larger.

Following my philosophy of making it easy for people to say yes to attending performances, I want to take the performers in to the schools. This can be great or problematic. I have had cases where I have set up a program months out, reminded people two weeks, one week and the day before we arrived and still showed up to find out rooms weren’t set aside, teachers/principals weren’t told about the program and we ended up doing a lecture/demo in the hallways.

On the other hand, there have been schools that did everything but toss rose petals before us and were so enthusiastic about our presence, we had to remind them that we really needed to spend time in schools other than theirs.

But if you take performers to schools, there isn’t a need for the school to get buses, send home permission slips and take travel time out of the day. When I brought this up to the outreach coordinator, she wholeheartedly agreed. With the No Child Left Behind law, the schools she has dealt with are really eliminating any room for creativity and are mandating X number of hours each day for reading, math, etc and specifying rigid standards for how it should be taught and when.

The real problem then is that the schools who have the least amount of arts exposure and would benefit most are those in districts that have the most pressure to raise their scores and therefore have little time for frivolous programs like ours. The districts that do have the time tend to also be those who have allocated time for arts exposure. Still many of them could probably do with more.

The dance company’s coordinator was talking about how the focus used to be on underserved schools whereas now things have moved to drug diversion and family preservation (not surprising since the State Foundation for Culture and the Arts is now funded by federal drug money) Now granted, this new focus pretty much encompasses the underserved/at-risk population as well.

The message I had hoped to communicate with this outreach was really appropriate for this goal though. The dance piece was created as a cooperative effort by a very traditional Hawaiian hālau and a modern dance company. There were a lot of things that the modern dance company wanted to do that was not within the acceptable limits of the hula tradition and the modern company did not want to be restricted by the traditional aspects of hula or to hula at all in the creation of the piece.

Ultimately though, they created this incredible work of art which heralds the arrival of Lo’ihi, a new island off the southeast edge of Hawai’i. (In 30-50,000 years). The underlying message to kids today is that traditional (parents) ways and the new (children) are not mutually exclusive and both outlooks have significance to each other.

Hopefully I can get this into the schools!

Work That Lobby

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A recent article that appeared on Artsjournal about the value or lack thereof of intermissions, and how they might be more pleasant in Pittsburgh than in NYC, got me to thinking about some recent observations.

For some reason I don’t understand (though perhaps it was simply related to the number of ushers available at the time) the woman who was the house manager of my theatre before I arrived wouldn’t open the exterior doors of the theatre until it was time to allow the audience in to the theatre.

Because I had so many things on my mind and had come from a theatre with a lobby so small that we essentially had to keep the audience outside until the house opens time, I maintained this policy for the first few show. Then I realized how silly this was. I had a lobby with a gorgeous 23′ x 104′ mural by Jean Charlot and an extensive lobby display commemorating the 30th anniversary of the theatre. I wanted people to look around!

For the last few performances, I have started letting people in as soon as enough ushers have arrived to rip tickets and prevent folks from entering the theatre before we are ready. I am almost glad I had kept people out because I would have never noticed the difference in audience behavior. Before people would rush straight in to the theatre, come out for intermission and then leave at the end of the show.

Now people walk around, admire the mural and peruse the display, discuss all the great performances they attended over the past 30 years and continue when they come out at intermission. The number of requests for brochures and additional information has increased. More people approach me with comments and suggestions (I do a curtain speech so I am easily identified.)

At this stage, I would say the lobby is really a valuable venue in the development of a relationship with your audience and communicating what you are all about as an organization. Now that I have seen the impact of having audiences linger in the lobby, I am starting to think about what I can do for next year when the 30 year anniversary material comes down so I can continue to educate my them about the organization.

Insuring a Quality Product

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Well I must say I am quite surprised. I usually don’t get comments on my blog entries with the exception of Drew McManus over at Adaptistration. But after my last entry outlining how my anti-social tendencies are in conflict with my public professional life, I actually got a handful of responses. I guess I need to share personal quirks more often.

I didn’t make an entry last night because I was overseeing a performance. The experience seemed well suited for tonight’s entry. I talk a lot about insuring that you are providing audiences with a quality experience when they attend shows. From time to time, I talk about performers who really offer a quality product. But I don’t think I have ever spoken about quality control performers exert over their product as it were.

Last night was an example of a artist who brought a sense of craftmanship to his music, but also to his show. The group was Mariachi Los Camperos de Nati Cano. The group is lead by Nati Cano who has been performing mariachi for nearly 45 years now. He is recognized as one of the most influential figures in mariachi, shifting it from being perceived as the province of street musicians, to something worthy of international concert halls. About 10 years ago, he was recognized by the National Endowment of the Arts with a National Heritage Fellowship.

Now all this is well and good, but as anyone can tell you, accolades don’t guarantee a pleasant working relationship with a person. He was determined to make the show the highest quality it could be. He asked me questions about the audience, would it be made up of older audiences or younger, mostly Latins or a large contingent of Hawaiians? He wanted to make sure he didn’t perform songs that were only familiar to Latin families who grew up on the music if there was a sizable contingent of people from other backgrounds.

The truth was, a large percentage of the audience had Japanese surnames. When I mentioned this, he told me that yes, that was about right, when he was last in Hawaii (30 years ago) they had comprised a very large and very appreciative portion of the audience. Then he went back and talked to the band about a set list that reflected this.

It was like that all day. Before the show he and other band members inquired if I was happy with the size of the audience they had attracted for presale. (Indeed!) After the show–did I approve of the performance energy and song selection, was the audience an acceptable size, did I approve of the state in which they left the dressing rooms?

I have had performers ask me if they show and audience size was good before, but the detail to which Nati and his group went to in order to fashion the show and then solicit feedback is one I have rarely experienced. This is probably why he has been performing for 45 years. He is dedicated to good customer service that encompasses both his audience and his employer de jour.

I don’t normally listen to mariachi and I don’t speak Spanish either. I was listening to the group’s CDs to set the tone for their arrival. You forget though the power of a good live event. When you have energy, musical prowess and showmanship in a performance, you end up saying “Wow, I don’t know what they said, but I sure know it was good.”

You might think that artists and presenters are motivated simply by the best monetary situation they can position themselves in to. Certainly that keeps the doors open and people fed so it is important. But I know for a fact that both artists and presenters talk about their encounters with each other and that can absolutely influence a decision to book a performance and can tip the scales when the money isn’t quite what one would want to pay/be paid.

I Hate You. Welcome!

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I have been thinking lately about the contradictory nature of some artist’s relationships with their own performance. Mainly how you would think aspects they possess would pretty much remove performing as an option in their lives. For instance, there are many performers out there who have had terrible stage fright but go out and perform. Donny Osmond comes to mind as the most extreme example. And everyone knows the story about how James Earl Jones overcame his stutter to become the Voice of everything from Darth Vader. Verizon, CNN and cartoon characters.

I got to thinking this because my own quirk is that I hate being around crowds of people and yet, I try my damnedest to attract them to shows and make them comfortable. I just spent a Thanksgiving where, after calling my family, I didn’t utter a sound for three whole days except to speak to a librarian. It wasn’t the first time I have done it, nor is it the longest I have gone without speaking or human contact.

When I went to the Smithsonian for a summer vacation, I would be there when the doors opened and then would have to leave by 2 pm because the press of the crowd just annoyed me. I wanted to punch out the school kids running unsupervised through the place heedless of the fact I almost stepped on them. (Not the mention the fact they hogged all the interactive exhibits!) I would hop back on the Metro and go back to my camping spot in rural Virginia. Then I would go back in and continue the next day.

When I go shopping I park out near the edges of the lot and walk back in because I don’t want to deal with the lot sharks who circle and circle looking for a spot up close. Worst of all, they stop, blocking traffic out to the road while they wait for someone to back out when they can drive 3 car lengths and have their choice of 5 empty spots.

The thing is, I have worked at and even organized outdoor festivals where tens of thousands of people show up. I have worked hard to insure there is sufficient parking, a variety of food, enough trash barrels and smooth process for admitting the audience. I don’t mind this at all. Perhaps it is a control issue because subconsciously I know that I have the power to throw ’em all out.

Lest one think I didn’t mind because I had hundreds of acres to spread my crowd out over and avoid bumping in to them, I point out that I have turned the same planning to indoor shows seating thousands of people as well.

I can’t say that it is because I enjoy organizing and throwing big parties because despite being a pretty good cook, I have never had anyone outside my family over to my house for any sort of party. I usually end up picking up the trash after any event I do so it isn’t like I enjoy organizing these big events because I have someone else around to do the clean up.

So there you go, I have no idea why an anti-social person like myself would ever invest himself so much into attending to the details of organizing events for the enjoyment of large crowds of people–and then work hard to rectify their complaints.

Anyone else feel they or a friend are in a similiarly strange arrangement? Let me know!

Procrastination

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So I was a little premature in some of my recent declarations. My bemoaning the fact that no one applied to be my assistant was a couple hours premature. Three people actually applied for the position on the very last day, though two of them didn’t have a complete application packet and so may end up disqualified if they don’t move their butts. (Given that I suspect one of the incompletes was submitted by a person we alerted to the requirements two weeks before it was advertised, this does not bode well.)

My other premature gripe was in regard to low ticket sales for the show. It seems word of mouth trumps two 6pm newscasts and thousands of dollars in advertising.

The second week of the show was a little better than the first–Thursday performance had 40 tickets presale, we sold about 100 at the door. Friday performance had 50 tickets presale Thursday night, 80 sold by the time the box office closed for the afternoon–then we were swamped by an unexpected 250 people at the door. We hadn’t brought staffing on for those numbers so we had a very long line and ended up holding the show for a bit. Saturday night we were smarter–we had 100 sold in advance and about 300 people showed up at the door. We had the right staffing so there was no line.

This brings up the fairly recent question about how performing arts organizations can get people to purchase a little earlier. Many theatres hate the fact that no one is buying subscriptions. At this point, I would be okay with that if they would only buy a week or so ahead of time.

It makes it extremely difficult to balance good customer service with economy. If you cut back on staffing for a night and you get swamped, then people have a negative impression of you because the service suffers. However, if you are paying a full staff and few people show up, then there is negative impression left on your bank account.

The box office manager suggested having one price in advance and another at the door. In my experience, saving $2-$3 in advance hasn’t been an incentive to buy in advance. However, she clarified and suggested we have a higher flat rate price at the door for everyone. Instead of $22 adults, $15 students, and then $25/$18 at the door, she is suggesting we charge $25 for everyone at the door. Given that most people claim a student/senior/military discount when they purchase tickets, saving $10 might be an incredible incentive to buy early.

On the other hand, if people aren’t thinking about what they are going to do until the last minute, they won’t know they missed the opportunity until they pick up the paper/go on line and suddenly discover they have to pay $10 more, the pricing structure becomes a huge disincentive to attend.

What I and all the other theatre managers want to know is–when are most people making their decisions? If it is on Wednesday, then this is a strong incentive to buy early. If it is 5pm on Friday, then this is a strong incentive to go rent a movie.

The Star Will Not Appear…

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Okay, here is a good dilemma for all you arts manager types out there. So good that I have been encouraged to post it on my blog by my faithful readers (and you know who you are)

Since things resolved to my satisfaction in the end, I may just name names if it gets too tough to refer to the principals in oblique generic terms. (Also given that people can look on my theatre’s website and figure things out very quickly.)

Last week, I got a call from a performer’s agent saying that principal performer in a group of 11 would not be able to perform in Hawaii due to his doctor giving him an ultimatium. Now ignoring the money already paid out for non-refundable airline tickets and hotel rooms, this presented a number of problems. The group was named after the gentleman in question and I was just about to send out print ads with his picture on it. Conferring with some other people, they suggested putting a tiny disclaimer in the ad saying he wouldn’t be performing in Hawaii.

I wasn’t sure if this was really the correct tactic for two reasons-1) I would essentially be paying a couple thousand dollars for an ad that was saying “Come see the show! (by the way, there is teensy flaw in the show) and 2) I wasn’t sure how much of my potential audience really knew who he was and identified strongly with him. There were also some aestetic concerns as well. The best picture I had was of him, the other two images were not only of poorer quality, but also very wide horizontally and wouldn’t really work unless I changed the orientation of the ad. I had the option of calling the newspapers and inquiring if I could change my space reservation after the deadline had passed, but the redesign and university approval process would probably put me past the deadline for when the art was due.

Other members of my booking consortium were concerned as well. One of the other theatre managers had seen the group perform and felt that even though the front man had been phasing out actually playing with the group, he was still the charismatic showman whose absence would make the group just another really good set of musicians in their particular genre. She sent an email to the agent asking if anyone else in the group could rise to the occasion and exude the same magnetism. Ever practical, I sent a follow up one asking if they were going to replace him with another person who could play the instrument or should I cancel the hotel and plane reservations.

I also noticed that the force majeure clause in the contract actually implied that if one of the musicans couldn’t perform due to illness, a pro rated portion of deposit would be refunded. I asked the other members of the consortium if we were going to pursue this avenue and suggested that his absence constituted more than 1/11th the value of the entire group.

I also noted that on Broadway (though it may be an urban legend) if the actor listed above the play title in the playbill and marquee doesn’t appear that night, you are guaranteed a refund if you ask for it. I wondered if there was a similar common law precedent where we might have the right to break our contract if the person who the group is named after doesn’t perform.

So there is the case–as an arts manager, what do you do when the person everyone is potentially coming to see ain’t coming?

Well here is what I did. I let the ads go as is without inserting a disclaimer. I did it for the reasons I mentioned above–I didn’t know that too many identified strongly with him, the image was the best one to attract people and from our box office surveying, I wasn’t sure anyone actually saw our newspaper ads anyway.

I did however, come clean to the radio DJs who were promoting the show for me because 1) They serve a niche audience who are likely to identify strongly with him and I expect that I will be programming to that niche in the future and it would be a big breach of trust if they learned I knew he wasn’t coming 10 days prior to the concert. Better to lose the ticket sales and fight the battle for their hearts another day. 2) One of the DJs wanted to do a phone interview with a member of the band so there was a 98% possibility that they would mention the big guy wasn’t coming. Although I could shrug and say I didn’t know much earlier than she did (which would have been absolutely true) one of the first rules of damage control is to make sure that you control how a story breaks.

Now 12 hours later, I get a message saying the gentleman is coming. It is a little bit of pie in the face for me to turn to the DJs and sheepishly tell them to forget I said anything, now he is coming. Had I been less ethical, things would have actually turned out okay and no one else would have been the wiser so I suffer a little loss of face for being honest. Ultimately it is a gamble though. Had I waited and tried to figure out how I could manipulate events so that the bad news wouldn’t be discovered until later, the situation could have turned around and bit me on the butt.

Hopefully, I won’t have to face that situation again or one where I find out the star isn’t coming as the rest of the band deplanes at the airport. However, these events have made me aware of the need to plan for just such a contingency.

No Help for the Wicked

by

So, if you have been reading my recent blog entries, you will know that I am working my butt off at my new job. I could really use an assistant!

The problem is, no one will apply.

Today ended the second time I have advertised for an assistant. The first time we had one applicant, but we couldn’t hire her because she didn’t meet the minimum qualifications (BA or equivalent, spreadsheet and desktop publishing knowledge.) We reduced the qualifications so that many things were desirable rather than required and now no one has applied.

Part of the problem may be due to the fact that Hawaii’s economy is BOOMING. People feel fairly safe from terrorism here (the interstates actually connect armed forces bases to each other, we just get to use them). Tourism from Pacific Rim countries is high and available hotel rooms are low–mostly because they are being converted to condos for repeat visitors. A lot of service industry jobs are going unfilled because of the low unemployment on the islands.

What this means for me is that I will be handling the hospitality, graphic design and front of house arrangements along with budgeting, marketing, season planning, contracting, personnel issues, facilities management, fundraising, outreach, long range goal planning–essentially everything I railed against in my Executives without Direction Entry—just a wee bit longer.

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Butts In The Seats by Joe Patti is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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