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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.

Pittsburgh Likes Us, But Europe Loves Us

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Jeremy Reynolds recently wrote a great piece about the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s (PSO) European tour. The article isn’t so much about what happened during the tour as it is about why orchestras tour. The insight it provides about the way orchestra operate is pretty fascinating.

People interviewed for the article admit that PSO’s touring activities don’t really benefit Pittsburgh in terms of tourism or increased business opportunities and corporations are increasingly less willing to support the orchestra’s tours.

However, European tours are apparently a great recruitment and retention tool for the orchestra. There was concern that music director and conductor Manfred Honeck might be lured away by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra which has a bigger budget and salary base, but he surprised everyone by renewing his contract with Pittsburgh–with the understanding they would continue touring.

Similarly, the role of concertmaster went unfilled for years until last Spring when David McCarroll assumed the position and part of the appeal for him was the adulation PSO received while on tour.

He said the opportunity to tour in Europe — and to be welcomed with such fervor — is something that defines a top caliber orchestra.

“I know these audiences,” he said. “The reaction to the symphony is not typical. This is not usual, it’s not normal.”

Who wouldn’t want a job where they got that kind of acclaim? Even if you have to leave your hometown to actually get it.

“We’re famous everywhere else except Pittsburgh,” said Bill Caballero, the orchestra’s principal French horn player. “We go to these places and they go crazy for us.”

Though touring can sometimes be something of a double-edged sword when it comes to recruitment. Apparently, when the Oslo Philharmonic visited Pittsburgh, PSO took the opportunity to wine and dine the music director and ultimately lured him away from Oslo.

Where you tour in Europe also apparently matters:

“Tours were this big benchmark that orchestras differentiated themselves with, right along with their base and how long their season is,” said Drew McManus, a Chicago-based orchestra consultant.

“If they went on tour, did they go to Europe? And if they went to Europe, do you mean Spain or do you mean Germany? It’s all a kind of caste system.”

There is quite a bit more detail about the tour in the article, including some nice multimedia components, so take a look and learn a little bit more about the nuances involved with orchestra touring.

The Will Exists, Arts & Culture Facilitate The Relationships & Conversation

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Given that today is Indigenous People’s Day, I wanted to mention some recent positive developments related to the arts and an increased presence and role of the Muscogee (Creek) people who once dwelt here, in and around Macon, GA. Macon is the site of the Ocmulgee Mounds National Historic Park where the Muscogee and allied tribes had long lived prior to being dispossessed to Oklahoma during the Trail of Tears.

For 30 years now, every September members of the Muscogee have returned to the park for an indigenous people’s celebration. For the last two years, Covid has kept the event from happening, but this year brought about great changes. There is an effort to expand the  park into the Ocmulgee National Park and Preserve which would encompass about 54 miles river plains and over 900 historic and cultural sites. Tracie Revis, former Chief of Staff for the Muscogee Nation was hired on as Director of Advocacy by the local park initiative in the interest of providing the Nation with input into how the land would be used. The Associated Press recently did a great story on the effort.

Her arrival saw a great deal of momentum build toward the strengthening of ties between Macon and the Muscogee Nation based in Okmulgee, OK. There have been mutual visits, but art and cultural expression has played a large part in building the relationship.

A few months ago, Tracie was the featured storyteller at Storyteller Macon’s monthly event and she told the stories behind three of her names. Last month, as the annual celebration was set to return to the Mounds Historic Park, the work of Muscogee Nation artists was displayed in an alley that had been set up four years ago with lightboxes to illuminate artwork. Each artist paired images from Oklahoma and the Macon area as an illustration of the ties between the communities.

The celebration was preceded by much fanfare and a banquet attended by dignitaries from both communities, including a multi-day visit by Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, who you may recall is the first Native American cabinet secretary.

A number of theatres participated by posting welcoming messages.

There is obviously a lot more work to be done. It is very easy to get behind exciting events and parties, but more difficult to have some of the conversations that may follow about preservation, acknowledgement and representation.  This progress has come much faster than I imagined it would. Four years ago, I was having trouble finding someone to discuss formulating an appropriate land acknowledgment. Last Friday I had lunch with a colleague who told me about a land acknowledgment being delivered by someone she thought would have been reluctant doing so.

Arts and cultural expressions haven’t been responsible for these changes. There is obviously a will to see these things occur. But arts and culture have been among the avenues which awareness has been raised, relationships have been cultivated and conversations have been facilitated

Creative Expression Is A Renewable National Resource

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Countries around the world are eyeing the success of South Korea’s K-Pop, and Japan’s earlier J-Pop, and are developing national music strategies of their own according to a recent Forbes article. Thailand and Zimbabwe are prominently mentioned, but similar efforts are also being seen in Dominica, China, Oman, Philippines and Belize.

A big driver is the perceived ability of these efforts to boost GDP, create jobs, and generate a positive image of the countries’ culture, geography and products.  The article notes that South Korea embarked on their national effort after they had to go to the International Monetary Fund for a loan and it took nearly 15 years before K-Pop fandom became a mainstream interest worldwide. Thus a national initiative of this type needs long term commitment which is likely to span multiple government administrations.

Likewise, the K-Pop system of artist development is attuned to the unique structure of South Korean cultural and business dynamics which probably can’t and shouldn’t be replicated in other countries.

One of the things the author points out is that the creative economy is a renewable resource for countries in that the potential is limitless as long as people are encouraged to exercise their creativity. This may be something of a selling point when discussing the value of arts and culture to the community. While I dislike validating arts and culture on a economic and prescriptive basis, reinforcing the need to preserve the environment is important messaging.

What is being celebrated now may not be a model that works everywhere, but it demonstrates what could be true anywhere – that there is economic and social potential in music and culture and with it, the benefits of soft power and positive national branding. As countries and regions look to establish economic recovery policies and create socially sustainable economies which extract less from our environment, music and culture is recognised as a viable path. The raw materials are extracted from our minds, not the ground. And the options are limitless. This is something to celebrate, as there will never be ‘peak’ music, unlike what we’re facing with peak oil.

One little disclaimer that may be needed. I hadn’t initially noticed, but this article is written by the founder of Sound Diplomacy, an organization that works on developing music based economies of communities around the world. They are currently working on such a project here in Macon, GA and I have participated in some of their focus groups.

How Are You Philanthropic Rather Than How Much

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Last week Vox had a provocatively titled article saying “Why fewer Americans are donating to charity.” Rising to that provocation, I read the fairly lengthy piece that essentially said that giving isn’t really down, but that the ways in giving is measured and defined are no longer as valid as they once were.

While billionaires are getting a lot of attention for their donations, even if the funds are placed into somewhat controversial donor advised funds, giving to political campaigns and issues groups, crowd funding efforts, mutual aid groups and in amounts of less than $25 are not being counted.

The reason people are choosing to give through these other channels is due to a perceived distrust of large institutions as well as the sense that your donations are having a more direct impact than if made to a large entity.

It’s easy to see the psychological draw of such person-to-person giving. You know to whom your money is going. It can feel more immediately impactful. You might also feel that your dollar is going further than when you give to a big cause…that already receives millions of dollars every year. That’s not to say giving to an online crowdfunding campaign is actually more impactful than giving to a nonprofit, but there’s a growing perception that it is, especially among younger Americans. According to a 2022 study by Independent Sector, a coalition of philanthropic nonprofits and corporate giving programs, 57 percent of Gen Z believe that giving directly has more impact than giving to nonprofits.

There is also a sense that by focusing on the singular act of check writing as a metric, a lot of charitable activity is being missed. (my emphasis):

In 2019, she [Lucy Bernholz] conducted a national study of 33 focus groups, asking hundreds of Americans not how much they gave or why they gave, but how they gave to make the world a better place. Their responses showed that giving money is only one small part of what philanthropy means for Americans. Giving time was just as frequently mentioned as giving money. Everyday acts of charity, such as sharing skills, giving items, and doing acts of service for neighbors and other community members, were very common.

These conversations also revealed participants’ uncertainty around whether some of their acts of generosity even counted as “giving.” Participants weren’t accustomed to thinking about or talking about how they gave, or discussing the definition of giving. It shows that the understanding of philanthropy is ambiguous, not fixed — and perhaps can evolve to be more inclusive.

The national organization behind GivingTuesday is apparently trying to adjust to the shifting sense of what constitutes philanthropy and attempting to measure all the ways in which people give to make the world a better place rather than focusing on how much people gave.

Interviewing Post Covid: How Do You Want To Do It?

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Last week Barry Hessenius sent me a link to a Buzzfeed article listing answers to job interview questions, suggesting it might make a good blog post. This suggestion was well-timed because Drew McManus had also posed a question on LinkedIn about whether cover letters were useful any more, spurring a spirited conversation among arts professionals on that topic.

Between the two, there is a lot to think about in terms of how we interview, both as employers and potential candidates.  For example, in the LinkedIn discussion, Tyler Rand mentioned his company inviting people to introduce themselves by choosing from a number of formats including letters, email, personal statements, videos and showing their suitability for the position through either resumes, work samples, links to websites or LinkedIn profiles.

The Buzzfeed piece claims the list contains clever answers to tough job questions. While there are some suggestions like describing yourself in the context of your Hogwarts house and how to navigate the dreaded “what are your weaknesses” and uncomfortable salary questions, many of the tips mentioned are smart responses to typical interview questions rather than a matter of clever maneuvering.

For example asking

“What’s the biggest pain point in the company/office/on your team, and what could I do to address it if I started tomorrow?”

Can be useful in uncovering issues about the work environment that hadn’t come out during the interview, possibly revealing an organizational culture that doesn’t suit you.

Similarly,

“When they ask if you have any questions, ask what current/past employees in this role find the most rewarding and challenging about the position. If there are red flags, you’ll get them here. It’s basically asking the interviewer what the job’s strengths and weaknesses are but more effective.”

I have been asked a number of times what my plan for my first 90 days on the job will be, but it never occurred to me to turn it around and ask the obvious:

‘What are your 30/60/90 day goals for the role?’

I have asked what the goals for the new person might be and how my skillset might be applicable toward fulfilling them, but the X days horizon can give you a sense of top priorities and allow you to judge whether they are realistically attainable in that time period.

Anyone have any additional thoughts on obvious, but seldom asked questions or processes they feel are antiquated?  Are there ways you would rather interview, both as an employer or candidate, but feel stuck in a framework of expectations?  I suspect there are questions some candidates would love to ask but there is a fear of appearing too presumptuous to the prospective employer.

If Only These Problems Were Myths Of A Past Age

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If you have read Ve Le’s Non-Profit AF blog, you know that he often frames serious topics with a bit of humor, often extolling vegan cuisine and his obsession with the Oxford comma. Frequently though, he will go into full entertainment mode riffing on a theme and applying it to the non-profit world.

A couple weeks ago, he wrote a post recasting Greek myths as if they occurred in world run as a non-profit. With a hurricane recently piling on to the problems which have faced Puerto Rico over the last few years and another heading toward Florida, non-profits are going to be mobilizing to help affected communities recover. It seemed like a good time to point to humorous content before groups had to seriously dive in.

Le addresses a number of stories, but here are some of my favorites. In his retelling of the Trojan horse, the horse doesn’t contain soldiers who spread out to slay the city’s defenders:

The following days, they joined the boards of directors of several organizations in the city. They never read board packets, always stopped much more knowledgeable staff from taking bold actions, caused missed quorum, insisted on golf tournaments, and gradually ruined morale. And that was how the city of Troy fell.

In Le’s retelling of the story of Echo who had been cursed by Hera to repeat only what other people say:

One day, Echo met Narcissus and fell in love with him. “I should start a nonprofit,” he said to her. She repeated, “start a nonprofit.” He ran off and founded a nonprofit that gave used togas to poor people abroad, and Echo was heartbroken. But joke’s on Hera, because eventually, Echo became a nonprofit consultant who mainly repeated what the staff says, and boards thought she was so smart and she got paid a ton of money.

My favorite story was Le’s version of Hercules’ 12 Labors:

Those were: Plan a silent auction, diversify a board, give someone feedback, get everyone to track their expense receipts, conduct a 360 assessment without someone getting hurt, endure an icebreaker that involves making random mouth sounds, fire someone who is really nice but sucks at their job, call out a major donor for being a jerk, translate a budget into a funder’s own budget format, get more than ten likes on a social media post about an upcoming event, get a several people’s schedules to align for a meeting, and save enough for retirement.

There are about six-seven stories in all and Le has promised a part two which hasn’t surfaced yet. What I appreciate about Vu Le’s writing style is that the problems he addresses are obviously sources of frustration and anxiety for folks in the non-profit sector, but he skewers them so satirically you can feel a slight sense of relief at having an ally by your side that understands.

Org Culture More Important Than Artistic Reputation

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A couple weeks ago Aubrey Bergauer hosted a LinkedIn conversation with Karen Freeman from Advisory Board for the Arts (ABA) to discuss what mattered most to arts professionals as they sought jobs in the arts. Freeman discussed a survey ABA conducted where they asked people to prioritize between different situations in order to drill down to what really mattered. An example Freeman gives is would you rather have great pay, but so-so benefits or a lower pay rate but with better benefits.

Among the criteria people had to prioritize were things like artistic reputation, work from home, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), shared governance, professional development, etc., They had over 1500 respondents from organizations around the world, though with a slightly larger representation by U.S. based groups.

Freeman shared four findings among the many that she found most interesting. The first one revealed that respondents felt their current organization had medium healthcare benefits, good management, good job security, middle of the road flexibility with work hours, fairly good progress in diversity and equity and selective transparency. Freeman notes that a majority of respondents felt their organizations operated at the highest level of artistic quality which she attributes akin to a Lake Woebegone view that everyone is above average.

The second finding is perhaps the most interesting one because it provides insight into what arts organizations can do to retain employees (~13:30 in the video). In terms of what people valued most, Inclusive Culture was valued most and Other Office, which encompassed office space and technology fell at the lowest end of the range. Inclusive culture encompasses transparency, accountability, inclusive decision-making along with diversity, inclusion and equity.

Second most important was flexibility which includes flexible hours and work from home. Next is advancement, including opportunity to advance and supervise. Next is Manager which involves good manager, professional development and internal recognition. Health care and leave came next. Second to last was artistic reputation and community import.

This raises some interesting questions. There are already surveys that indicate trumpeting artistic excellence, while important, isn’t a top draw for audiences. Now we see it is almost at the bottom in terms of what organizational staff value. So perhaps it is time to examine the amount of emphasis being placed upon it.

I should note though that it isn’t clear how many of the respondents were creators and performers. Those groups may rate artistic reputation much higher than administrative staff.

Skipping to the fourth slide (~19:25) provides a little insight. When broken down by job role, people in the C-suite (aka highest paid person’s opinion) care most about artistic reputation (even more than artistic department) along with job accountability, manager quality and transparency. C-suite place least emphasis on job schedule flexibility, work from home and DEI.

When broken down by generation (~16:40), the starkest differences were that artistic reputation was most important to baby boomers and DEI was most important to Gen Z respondents.

Freeman also mentioned that they ran some simulations to make up for some potential flaws inherent to the surveying methodology they used to get the above results. In those simulations, when choosing between higher pay or artistic reputation, 54% of people would take the job with higher pay at a place with no reputation for artistic quality.

A second simulation they ran provided the choice between a place that had high pay, but hierarchical decision making, low transparency and accountability, and performative DEI against an organization with better culture on all these dimensions, but lower pay. In that case, 63% of people would take a job with the better work culture at the expense of better pay.

This was some new data for me insofar as what I thought were the start of trends are far more deeply held values than I anticipated. If you are similarly surprised, take a look at the video.

Strippers Ask Actors Equity’s Help Securing Safe Work Environment

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A couple weeks ago I caught an NPR story about a group of strippers at a bar in LA who were working to unionize under the auspices of Actors’ Equity Association.  The dancers had been dismissed and locked out after complaining and petitioning the bar’s ownership to improve working conditions, both in terms of the physical performance environment and protection from aggressive clients. After months of striking outside the bar’s parking lot, the dancers filed to join Actors’ Equity.

One of the reasons why this story grabbed my attention was that I made a post in 2021 about how Actors’ Equity had decided to significantly lower the barriers to union membership. The union essentially provided automatic membership to members of sister unions like SAG-AFTRA, AGMA and AGVA as well as anyone who was enrolled in the union candidate program. The candidate program, which required accumulating points for performing in specific types of roles in venues operating under a union classification, was scrapped in favor of the new Open Access program which just requires that you have worked professionally as an actor or stage manager in the United States.

In reviewing the program, I noticed Open Access membership is only available until May 2023 so we will have to see how membership is handled after that. However, I initially viewed the union’s willingness to go to bat for these dancers as an extension of the Open Access program. They didn’t nudge the performers toward other unions like AVGA which represents variety/cabaret performers or SEIU which the NPR story says another group of strippers joined about 25 years ago.  I similarly wondered why the dancers approached Equity rather than another union. Was it due to the union’s presence in small performance venues in LA or perhaps Open Access has made the union appear more welcoming.

It will be interesting to see how the efforts of the dancers to unionize ends up. Likewise, I will try to keep an eye for more news on the Open Access program to see if it continues/evolves after May 2023 and if the effort achieves the diversity, equity and inclusion goals Actors’ Equity intends.

I should mention, the NPR story doesn’t just report on the strike but includes four discrete profiles of the dancers for additional perspective.

NPR Series May Help Expand Conversation About Theatre in US

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Keep your radio tuned and your ears open to your local NPR station for the next month or so, especially if you are a theatre professional. The network is doing a series over the next five weeks about the 75th anniversary of the regional theatre movement. In a piece that aired this morning, they provide a little bit of a preview of the topics they are going to hit on from the impact of Covid, to economic concerns, regional theatres as a feeder to Broadway and diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

The short piece mentions many of the conversations and activities which have unfolded over the last few years, from the mass resignations at Victory Gardens Theatre; the “We See You White American Theater” statement; the viability of subscription model and questions about the utility of the non-profit governance structure:

Theaters also started rethinking subscription plans that prioritize well-off people who can purchase a season’s worth of prime seats in advance, while leaving everyone else scrambling for leftovers. And they began reconsidering the current, frustrating governance model at most non-profits, where theater artists must answer to a volunteer board of directors, often with little theater expertise, which has all of the authority and none of the accountability.

It may be useful to have these topics discussed by an outlet outside of the usual theatre channels. Being able to point to NPR stories may end up being like the consultant effect where an outside “expert” repeats everything internal staff has been saying resulting in decisions to mobilize to achieve important goals.

Most board members and patrons don’t read American Theatre and related information sources, but many do listen to NPR and find it a credible information source. The NPR series can provide an entree for conversation or simply raise awareness among the greater community involved with arts and cultural entities around the country.

Next To Pick Up The Reins

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Since there is a bit of a cross-readership, many of you may have already seen that Drew McManus announced yesterday that he was going to cease posting regularly on the Adaptistration blog. Drew is one of the few people who has been posting on the topic of arts management longer than I have.  Way back when he reached out to me about moving my blog from the Movable Type platform I was on to the Insidethearts.com site back in the early days of WordPress.

In his post, Drew noted that even after posting for 18 years, potential topics of discussion have not been exhausted.

Having said that, it still feels very odd to reach the realization that it’s time to stop while simultaneously having no shortage of ideas and topics that deserve attention…but it’s also clear that now is the time to let new voices step in and pick up that conversation. The emerging practice of audition fees, virtual audition practices, underpaid/overworked staff, the post-pandemic compensation reports, and so much more are all issues that need the sunlight of public examination in a non-partisan environment.

I will readily admit that the blog format has gradually fallen out of favor. My active readership has gradually decreased over the years. But I am also pretty clear that I am writing as much to help myself work through thoughts about arts policy and practice as informing a readership. Just as many people have a daily discipline of writing in a personal journal, I am mulling things over publicly.

My intent is to continue writing this blog, but as Drew says I equally hope new voices step up and address topics of concern for the arts and culture field.

Whos And Hows Of TikTok For Arts Orgs

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By some fortuitous coincidence, I was digging into my news feed backlog and read Seema Rao’s Museum 2.0 post on guidelines for museum Tiktok accounts on the same day Ceci Dadisman put out an appeal to crowdsource a list of good non profit arts organization Tiktok accounts.

Many of Rao’s tips are basic guidelines for all communications employed by non-profits, regardless of medium or platform. They include avoiding insider terminology and only focusing on concepts that appeal to insider interests.

  • Learn their language rather than making them learn ours. My whole challenge is finding analogies between other Tiktok videos and art. If you’re not familiar with Tiktok, you might not know about duets. People reshare other peoples videos with that commentary. I used that popular format but to share ideas about art. Sure, I could have done short traditional videos about artworks. But that is less popular on Tiktok. Why try to get people to my ideas in a way they are less likely to like?

  • Remember people want to learn about art for fun. They are not doing it because it’s good for them. So don’t make it a chore for them. It might be our job, but it’s their time off.

  • Even if people like art, they don’t have much scaffolding. I have a core group of art lovers who know about art. The vast majority of commenters have basic questions or thank me for discussing basic elements. Schools teach less art, and so our visitors have taken less. It makes them no less interested. But it does mean we need to remember that when communicating about art.

  • People don’t care about museums, just the stuff inside them. Museum people, particularly boards, think visitors are excited by museums themselves. Sure, storage, art theft, removing varnish are interesting, but that’s because they look cool. Very few people are jazzed at hearing about the history of your museum.

The one that really caught my eye advised using personal, rather than institutional accounts with the idea that the former was viewed as more credible and personal:

People trust people to tell them about art. While I only recently put my real name, I’ve often had people say they like my approach to talking about art. I’d previously done Tiktoks for a museum account, and I never had as much pick up on videos. I think people want to hear from an authentic human voice rather than a brand.

While all of the accounts on Ceci Dadisman’s list were institutional accounts, the ones that seemed most appealing were those that didn’t seem to be directed by the marketing department. For example, The Royal Opera House and Met Museum pages featured video of artists performing and artworks in a gallery setting.

The Warhol Museum account seems to be entirely curated by their youth creative team and comes at the artist and work from a number of perspectives like how David Bowie and Ozzy Osborne viewed Andy Warhol and the canvas which Warhol had his friends urinate on.

Likewise, the Carnegie Museum of Natural History has field researchers talk about collecting ants by sucking them into a tube and the hazards of having them in your mouth if you aren’t careful. (Also, making bad jokes)

And of course, the Children’s Museum in Indianapolis collection lends itself to all sorts of opportunities by itself, but the Tiktok account lets folks know the organization isn’t just for kids.

So check out Seema’s post for more thoughts on how to do Tiktoks well and Ceci’s post to add accounts you know of to a Google doc so others can see what people are doing well.

Yours Isn’t The Only Camera Recording Your Selfie

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Perhaps it is just the availability of social media feeds and news aggregators to bring information to my attention, but it seems that art projects have been effective in bringing about social change. Certainly that the work is often magnifying an large shift in sentiment can certainly be a contributing factor.

For example, in my city an art project around a Confederate statue has resulted in it being moved. But just a year before the same group of county commissioners unanimously voted to reject a proposal to move it. A couple months ago, I wrote about a project by a Pittsburgh area artist which has lead to an investigation of discrimination in housing appraisals.

Now I have read an article about an artist’s projects about the prevalence of surveillance. While the work hasn’t resulted in any policy changes yet, the disquieting nature of this or similar work may lead to action in the near future.

As covered by Bloomberg, Belgian artist Dries Depoorter used publicly accessible livestream footage of cities around the world to place Instagram selfies into context. He used facial recognition software to find when the photos were being taken during the footage he recorded and then placed the image in a split screen with video of the people employing all sorts of techniques and artifice to get their shot.

For many viewers, the video — which comes from just 10 days of footage — says something more about the decay of online privacy than it does about social media superficiality.

“​​If this person can do this as an art piece, imagine what someone being paid by a big company can do with the same data, at scale, for purposes of making money, that won’t make a public tweet about it,” wrote software developer Juan Alvarado on Twitter.

Depoorter has done similar projects before, tapping into red light cameras to show people jaywalking. In another he grabbed and displayed the publicly available Facebook photos of everyone visiting museum exhibitions.

“I show the dangers of technology with my work,” he said over WhatsApp.

The artist declined to elaborate on those dangers, however, saying his main goal is to create art that speaks clearly for itself.

Podcasting Surge Benefits Somewhat Mixed

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So it appears that podcasts have turned into public radio’s competitive advantage. According to a recent study, nearly 4 in 10 public radio listeners also listen to a podcast weekly with those that listen to the talk-radio format more likely to listen than those that listen to public radio adult alternative or classical music formats.  Younger listeners are more likely to consume podcasts than older listeners.

“… 72% of Millennial public radio listeners also consume podcasts compared to 57% of Gen X and 35% of Baby Boomers.”

This said, podcast listenership has been cooling in recent years and while podcasts are a entree to listening to terrestrial broadcasts for many, in some cases it is drawing listeners from brick and mortar stations.

While nearly two-thirds (63%) say it has no impact on the “real time” they spend with AM/FM, the survey also points to a third of weekly podcast users spending fewer hours with the broadcast station. That is even more true among listeners of news-talk stations, where 39% said they are spending less time with AM/FM in favor of podcasts.

What I found most interesting was that the cooling attitudes toward podcasts seemed to be rooted in advertising. I assumed then that the survey included podcasts created through both commercial and public radio channels because public radio usually just has a brief underwriting message rather than a longer ad that people can potentially skip. The credibility of the ads is seen as super low. I would be interested to see a deeper dive into which company’s ads were seen as more credible than others.

The Public Radio Techsurvey data shows 61% of public radio’s weekly podcast listeners are getting tired of hearing the same ads in the podcasts they listen to, including a quarter (26%) who strongly agree. Just four percent disagreed, while 29% were neutral.

[..]

It also shows that host-read ads are preferred to produced spots, particularly among younger listeners. The survey shows 43% would rather hear a host-read ad. But among Millennials that number jumps to 59%.

“The data on advertising in podcasts is an eye-opener. While podcasters like to think their ads are more engaging, our respondents suggest otherwise,” Jacobs says. “While live reads from hosts are perceived as preferable to produced spots, podcast ads overall are no more credible than commercials heard on the radio.” Their data shows just 14% of public radio listeners think the ads they hear on podcasts are more credible than what they hear from their radio.

This last bit got me wondering about the relative credibility of sponsors and advertisers listed in program books, posters, digital signage around arts and cultural entities. I am thinking about this both from the point of view of wanting to provide a bit of a valuable benefit for sponsors and from the perspective of “charity washing” conversations where it appears corporations are trying to burnish their image through charitable giving. If sponsorship placement doesn’t lend credibility to generally sincere companies, it is something of a pity. But on the other hand, if people aren’t fooled by charity washing efforts, that is a relatively positive outcome.

Welcoming and Belonging For All

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Last week I received an email from Arts Midwest noting that September 9-18 is Welcoming Week, an international effort to provide a welcoming experience at all levels. This includes government and social policy and action to make communities more welcoming to organizational efforts to provide a sense of belonging in workplaces and other social interactions.

The concept of creating more metaphorical doors through which people can engage with arts and cultural organizations is a frequent topic here so I wanted to call attention to the effort and some of the resources that are available. In addition to the Welcoming America website, Arts Midwest created a page of resources focuses on how arts organizations can create that sense of belonging for employees and community members with whom they interact.

Arts Midwest is also hosting a webinar on Wednesday, September 14 4 pm EDT/3 pm CDT/1 pm PDT on the topic with a focus on “how arts can transform, deepen, and enrich immigrant inclusion work. ”   Sign up if you would like to learn more.

 

“We Have A Culture of Paying Artists”

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Always happy to draw attention to the good work of arts organizations, I was pleased to get a comment on yesterday’s post about creating contests and engagement events which expect artists to work on spec.

In her comment, Eva Buttacavoli, Executive Director of The Contemporary Dayton in Ohio writes about her organization’s efforts to create the expectation that artists should be paid for their work.

In EVERYTHING we do, we have and will continue to, pay artists for their work. We actually also pay for all RFP finalists’ specs – and, as the city’s art center, we use requests for art (for festivals, lobbies, walls in blighted areas), to teach community leaders (and the folks who ultimately write the checks) that we have a culture of and expectation to pay artists – and we actually will not help promote or support any project that does not. Our artists have learned to champion themselves and their work – and have passed that expectation along to most projects for which they are invited.

She includes a link to a recent effort where artists designs were used on vinyl wraps placed on electric boxes around downtown which seems like a fun idea for other communities to pick up on – https://www.downtowndayton.org/artwraps/

Design Ain’t Free

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Last week Hyperallergic ran a piece asking why the New York Department of Sanitation (DSNY) with a budget of $1.9 billion was asking artists to submit proposals to decorate their trucks for free.

While the artists will supposedly retain all rights to their work,

…artists will receive no compensation, and that they will grant both DSNY and partner organization the Sanitation Foundation the “royalty-free, non-exclusive right to use and/or reproduce the designs for non-commercial and/or educational purposes.”

Artists will have three, seven hour work days to execute their design on a truck at the end of September.

NYC based artists, who face the city’s high cost of living are concerned about the lack of compensation in return for helping DSNY realize their goals.

A few weeks earlier I saw a similar conversation occur in response to a call by an arts advocacy group for submissions of images to be used in a national ad campaign. The winning designer would be compensated for their work. The issue was that artists were being asked to design for a major project on spec without any compensation.

If a designer is doing a logo for a local company, there is a significant amount of work they invest in research, multiple design iterations, etc,. If they are working on spec, that is a lot of time and energy invested that could be spent on other projects with guaranteed payment. For something that would be used nationally in a promotional/awareness campaign, they would likely invest that multiples more effort into research and design with the goal of making it as perfect as possible.

This is something to keep in mind when running poster contents or similar projects in relation to your arts organization. The goal of raising awareness and engagement with your organization is often a worthy one, but evaluate whether it is being done with full consideration of the time and effort that will be required to complete the task to the apparent standard. It is probably best to consult with someone who does similar work before soliciting submissions because what you imagine is a 20 minute effort may actually require two days at minimum.

How Will Non-Profit Law Change To Meet Shifting Expectations?

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Gene Tagaki raises some interesting thoughts over on the Non-Profit Law blog on the question of how legal concepts and structures may need to adjust to reflect changing values in the non-profit sphere.  He lays out some thoughts in regard to Charitability, Philanthropy, Governance, Technology, Fundraising, Advocacy, and Employment.

I provide this list with the intention of sparking enough interest in folks to read more deeply because I am only going to touch on a few ideas that popped for me.

One question he raised was whether the IRS would need to adjust its definition of 501(c)(3) entities:

“Would relief of historically discriminated groups of individuals without regard to poverty or distress now qualify as charitable? Would the sale of alternative energy sources for personal use be charitable even if at market rates?”

Tagaki also points out that there is a growing shift in how fundraising is accomplished and how the work of social good is being framed. He notes that crowdfunding focused on supporting a specific project or individual versus organizations which help many. He also cites corporate efforts to “charity-wash” their activities by positioning themselves as reducing social problems.

“Fundraising trends also raise other legal concerns as nonprofit fundraisers face competitive pressure from those raising money from crowdfunding platforms to help specific individuals rather than charities, businesses proclaiming to do more social good than nonprofits, and entrepreneurs looking to both help charitable causes while creating for themselves an opportunity to earn substantial amounts of money.”

Finally, Takagi observes there is a trend not only toward remote work, but also shared leadership of organizations. This approach is likely to exist in tension, if not complete conflict with a hierarchical board governance model legally required of nonprofits in the US.

“Many organizations are struggling with this movement as there are clear and proven benefits with traditional hierarchies and the law is built on boards having ultimate responsibility and authority over the activities and affairs of their corporations. But there are shifts in power that are possible, and laws or regulatory guidance that confirm the appropriateness of certain delegations of authority may be helpful. What are some of the distributed leadership systems that would be helpful if recognized by sector leaders as good practice and by lawmakers and regulators as acceptable?”

As always, many things to think about for the future.

The Audience Seemed To Enjoy It

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Occasionally there has been discussion about how the standing ovation has become the default response at the end of a performance.

Not long ago, Seth Godin made a short post about expectation and delight.   He notes that when expectations are too low, there is no opportunity to even connect successfully whereas when they are too high, the sense of delight at an experience disappears.  He posits that the more successful you are, the more difficult it is to reach that point of delight because expectations are so high.

It almost sounds like advocacy for calculated mediocrity. But his next observation suggests that feedback like standing ovations make it difficult to determine if you are actually delighting audiences or not.

Often, this is replaced by the cognitive dissonance of sunk costs and luxury goods. People assert delight because they think they’re supposed to, because they don’t want to feel stupid–not because you’ve produced anything genuine.

This is a problematic element of group dynamics. You don’t want to be the only one sitting down when everyone else is up clapping, so you get up too even if you aren’t sure you enjoyed the experience. Others that are also feeling a little neutral about the experience are left to wonder what they missed that everyone else got and rise to their feet slightly bewildered. And so on and so on.

The artists are left thinking they did better they thought or at least the audience didn’t catch on to the flaws.

The folks who felt their experience was a little “meh” are likely inclined not to return and the venue administration don’t quite know why this is because these folks don’t feel anything strongly enough to fill out surveys. And after all, there was a standing ovation.

Capacity To Synthesize Creativity

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I have been a firm believer in the idea that everyone has the capacity to be creative so I read a piece on The Conversation discussing how creativity doesn’t occur in a vacuum with great interest. In particular, the article discusses Edward P. Clapp, of Harvard University’s Project Zero reflections on a recent Beatles documentary which employed lengthy archival footage of the band’s work creating the Let It Be album. Clapp asserts that songs like “Get Back,” sprung forth from Paul McCartney’s mind in two minutes, as a result of years of social context and the artistic dynamics in the room.

But he also emphasizes principles highlighted by researchers who have examined the phenomena of creativity: in this solitary time, they draw on past collaborations. They also engage with the technologies or tools of predecessors and they “work in relation to an often complex polyphony of current and historical audiences.”

For example, there was a social movement in England at the time to have black immigrants from former colonies to go back to their countries.  Likewise there is a pervasive undercurrent of class distinctions in England which can lead to a sense of imposter syndrome.  Apparently, McCartney’s desire to get back to live touring is a frequent topic of discussion in the documentary.  And, of course, the band was going through a fair bit of conflict and tension during the recording of the album.

Similarly, during the “Let It Be,” recording sessions, the band played/jammed on over 400 tunes of all genres, all of which created a mood and informed how the members and participating musicians were thinking and processing the experience.

Making Venue Upgrades Pleasant For Everyone

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I don’t remember exactly how, but I became aware of a grant program administered by the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta (CFGA) called “A Place to Perform,” which supports the efforts of arts groups to access performing arts spaces.

A Place to Perform is an initiative of the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta  created after the theatre space of the 14th Street Playhouse became unavailable to a wide range of Atlanta’s nonprofit performing arts organizations. Historically, A Place to Perform has provided grants to nonprofit arts organizations to assist them financially in gaining access to performance venues so they can produce performing arts experiences for the public throughout the metro Atlanta region.

This struck me as a great idea. Throughout my career I have frequently worked with groups who were looking to take the next step up from where ever they had been performing before. Often it was because they were attracting audiences that were too large for the spaces they used in the past or they wanted to do a show with higher production values.

Thinking about these experiences, it occurred it me that a program like the one for Greater Atlanta should also offer additional funding or include the services of some sort of guide/stage manager/technical adviser to help groups make this sort of transition.

A problem the venue staff of places at which I have worked repeatedly encountered with groups trying to make a transition from a space with smaller audience and technical capacities was a disconnect between what they envisioned and how to accomplish it.  Now granted, we often ran into the same issue with some repeat renters who seemed to start from square one year after year, but at least we had notes from early shows upon which to build.

With brand new renters it often difficult to just get to the point of creating an accurate estimate for equipment and especially labor.  Having a lighting and sound change, a curtain flying in while a set piece flies out and microphone packs being transitioned to other people can mean 10 people paying very close attention to what is going on where you had three at the smaller venue you were at previously.

If a grant program paid an experienced person to sit down and talk through your vision with you and then communicate that to the venue or even fund the person to coordinate those details through the run of the show as a stage manager or production designer, that would help the whole experience run smoother for everyone.

And yes, there is nothing keeping groups from including that in their grant application –except they don’t know that it will be helpful to have a consultant. Best approach might be to have something in the grant application and any applicant Q&A sessions encouraging people to think about whether they might need help and including it in their budgets.

This is not to say that venue staff can’t help. Every place I have worked, the staff has been willing to provide advice and patiently work with new groups. In a couple cases, staff has provided planning documents and templates which cut days off the rehearsal process.  The biggest problem has always been surprise additions which ends up over working the staff and raising the final bill for renters.

Interesting Thoughts On Arts Management Styles

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Andrew Taylor made an interesting video/post about dominant arts management styles on his blog recently.  I am always wary about personality type tests and categorizations, particularly because so many are based, developed and administered using questionable methodology. I do think they can be useful as a tool for self-reflection and consideration if they are subsequently discarded and not used to define oneself.

In this particular case, Taylor is applying Ichak Adizes’ PAEI management framework to arts managers. PAEI stands for Producing, Administrating, Entrepreneuring, and Integrating. Taylor is careful to note that this frame:

“…is not to suggest there’s just four kinds of people in the world or the working world. The purpose is to suggest that each of us brings a dominant concern to the work; a dominant way of paying attention; and a dominant understanding of what it means to be productive in the workplace.”

Because everyone employs a mix from each of these areas, to get a sense of what your dominant approach is, Taylor says you might look at how you react when you are under stress and things around you are going poorly. Also, if there are things other people do in a work environment that drive you nuts, they may be operating in a mode opposite to your dominant approach. He gives the following examples of how each of these styles might manifest in practice:

Do you double down and get the work done that’s in front of you? Are you a producing energy?

Do you pause and think about what’s the better system to manage this process? Rather than getting it done now, let’s get it done right? Making you an administrating energy?

Do you focus on a distant future and say, Well, maybe what is in front of me now is really not the useful thing. Maybe there’s something bold and new and different I should be thinking about?

Or is your impulse to check in with others and your team and see how they’re doing and what they’re doing and how they’re finding focus in their own energy in this moment?

Taylor says that the extreme of each of these can be very damaging for an organization: The Lone Wolf Producer that moves forward with the work without concern for whether it serves the needs of the organization; The Administrating Bureaucrat that focuses on things being done according to the rules and best practices, halting progress; the Arsonist Entrepreneur who consistently burns everything down in order to create something new in the ashes; the Super Following Integrator who focuses on serving whatever needs the group expresses today.

I am skipping over quite a bit here, but the video and accompanying transcript are really relatively short so if your interest is piqued, it is worth the time to check out his post and ponder the insights you may receive.

“…I had all this music inside…but I could not express it through an instrument”

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Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend a screening of the short documentary, Conducting Life, about Roderick Cox, a man who grew up here in Macon, GA who went on to become an associate conductor for the Minnesota Orchestra. Now based in Berlin, he works internationally as a guest conductor.

The documentary recounts his pursuit of music from adverse conditions. He talks about coming home from school excited to practice only to find that his keyboard had been pawned to pay utility bills. He approached Zelma Redding, widow of Otis Redding, for money to buy a French horn for school.

What interested me most was the insight into the career arc toward becoming a conductor. I have often seen documentaries or fictionalized depictions of classical musicians competing for places in an orchestra, but I really don’t recall having seen much about conductors. There is footage of him being coached at the program at Northwestern University and by Robert Spano at the Aspen Music Festival.  It was amusing to watch him get instructed to be a little more expressive in these classes and then see footage of him conducting in Minnesota and other places where he cranks it up to 11+ with such full body involvement that you hope he does yoga stretching before he gets on stage.

If anything I think the documentary didn’t go deeply enough into work he did to achieve his current position. While it does show him disappointed at not being hired at various orchestras, I can’t imagine he was only auditioning at some of the bigger name organizations like Atlanta, Cleveland, LA and Salt Lake City before ending up at Minnesota, though that might have been the case.

Admittedly, in the Q&A after the screening, Cox admitted he was a somewhat reluctant participant in the documentary. He thought it was only going to be a profile piece while he was at Aspen only to find that the director was interested enough in his story to follow him around for seven more years. So he may not have afforded the filmmakers with the access they needed to make a more detailed movie.

The Q&A afterward revealed a very humble, introspective and funny person. He gave a lot of credit to different people who helped him thus far in his career. He made it very clear that while the documentary shows Otis Redding Foundation helping him buy a French horn, the reality was that when he wanted to go to England, Spain, and France to learn to be a better conductor, the foundation helped him out each time.  He also talked about a difficult experience familiar to a lot of people who pursue arts careers where he was auditioning for major classical music institutions and friends were sending him job listings for middle school band teachers.  He was also very funny while being politic in answering about the additional challenges in conducting operas and the fact that people in his hometown can circumvent his management to contract him to conduct.

If you have the opportunity, check out the documentary at a festival or see Roderick Cox at an orchestra near you.

 

Placemaking As A Space To Process Trauma

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Earlier this month, CityLab had an interesting article on the subject of trauma informed placemaking. For the most part, the article focuses on artistic projects which have given communities a place to heal after traumatic events, but also policy and practice enacted by municipal governments to avoid compounding the trauma of those displaced by natural disasters.

One of the art projects, Temple of Time, was erected after the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida to provide the community with a place they could access 24/7 to process their grief and trauma. I would encourage people to check out the article to view the images because describing it as a 40 foot tall plywood structure doesn’t do justice to the elaborate scrollwork on what appears to be a Thai Buddhist temple inspired pavilion.

The other project discussed in the article inadvertently evolved into a larger placemaking effort than initially intended. Providence, RI had a building in one of their parks they didn’t know what to do with and had the idea to offer the space as affordable housing for artists.

Together they issued a call for the city’s first “Park-ists in Residence” to steward the property and carry out public engagement, working to reanimate the site and reimagine its relationship with the surrounding neighborhood.

[…]

Haus of Glitter had originally intended to use the space to host intimate indoor gallery shows, living-room concerts and salon events. “But with Covid, we found ourselves where people in the community were reaching out for support and asking for help and care during this crisis,” says Matt Garza, a founding member of Haus of Glitter. “And so we threw our old plans out the window.”

Haus of Glitter is the artist collective which became the “Park-ists in Residence” and ultimately ended up becoming a safe space for many groups, offering classes, setting up a community garden, hosting numerous performances, including an immersive opera based on the life of the house’s original inhabitant, “a short-lived naval commander and Revolutionary War figure…dismissed from the Navy, censured by Congress, and deeply complicit in the transatlantic slavery trade.”

The article notes that Haus of Glitter has ended their residence but seeks to replicate their model in other cities. The city of Providence apparently won’t be continuing the residency program, though there are efforts to continue activities at the park space and homestead. However, the project has had an impact on the city:

…the experience has given the city’s arts and culture department, and the wider planning department it sits within, a new frame for thinking about the intersection of place and trauma. And it offers a moving example for policymakers in other cities looking for ways to provide healing spaces for residents.

“Every city department touched this project in some way because of how ambitious and how long the residency was” says Micah Salkind, a program manager with the city’s arts department…

99 Economic Concerns, But Admission Price Ain’t One

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In a recent post Colleen Dilenschneider reported that recent research reflects the title of this post.  While inflation is a big concern for people right now, ticket/admission pricing does not seem to be a barrier to participating in a cultural experience.

However, the cost of everything else surrounding that experience is a concern – food, gas, parking, babysitting, gift shop purchases.

While those may impede the decision to attend, Dilenschneider says the research shows that often people are opting to downgrade on these ancillary aspects in order to still have the central experience.

This research suggests that people expect to spend less overall in support of their cultural experiences. Of course, this doesn’t mean that they are abandoning or deferring cultural experiences; instead, they are contemplating economic tradeoffs to align their actual spending to expectations. Think carpooling instead of driving separately. Parking in the garage instead of using the valet. Eating at a fast casual restaurant instead of the Michelin-starred culinary temple.

Dilenschneider cautions arts and cultural organizations against discounting admission as a way to entice purchases because most of the concerns people have are far outside the scope of the organization’s control and are multiple time as concerning as admission prices.  Among those with a high propensity to attend, factors like inflation, the general economy, and financial markets were much greater concerns with much more weight than admission cost.

Taking $3 off your admission prices won’t offset an airplane fare costing $400 more than it did last year. Nor will it reduce the amount of fuel required to visit or improve the ROI for someone’s 401k. More to the point, there is scant evidence that a significant number of high-propensity visitors are even asking organizations to lower their admission costs.

[…]

Tampering with your ticket prices in reaction to broad economic perceptions risks doing more harm than good. While admission pricing may be one of the few cost-related factors within our control, the research indicates that it is not a notable barrier for those with interest in attending.

Instead, the solutions are strategic: Keep engaging digitally to motivate attendance. Underscore your credibility with fantastic content. Continue to strive to be relevant. Keep being your inspiring, amazing institutional self, such that the quality of your experience cannot be ignored.

Consent Agenda Probably Most Useful Than Ever Before

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In an ArtsHacker article I wrote back in 2015, I had advocated for the use of consent agendas as a way to quickly dispose of routine matters at board meetings and leave time for discussion of substantive issues.  Now that we are in a place where at least some members may be attending virtually, it is probably even more important to conduct business in a manner that incentivizes people to maintain full focus on the business at hand.

Some of the links in my original ArtsHacker post are no longer valid, but a quick web search will help you find a number of resources that address how to use a consent agenda such as the Council for Non-Profits.

Basically what happens is that the organizational staff prepares materials which it sends out in advance of the board meeting. Those materials are placed into a consent agenda which is approved as a whole at the start of a board meeting. The Council for Non-Profits lists the following as things which might be placed in such an agenda.

• Approval of board and committee minutes
• Correspondence requiring no action
• Committee and staff reports
• Updates or background reports provided for informational purposes only
• Appointments requiring board confirmation
• Approval of contracts that fall within the organization’s policy guidelines
• Final approval of proposals that have been thoroughly discussed previously, where the board is comfortable with the implications
• Confirmation of pro forma items or actions that need no discussion but are required by the bylaws
• Dates of future meetings

Best practice is that any questions board members have should be asked prior to the meeting so that they can be researched and addressed in advance. When the meeting starts, the chair asks if there are any parts that the board feels need to be removed from the agenda. If there are, those items are removed and then the meeting moves forward to approve the remaining items. The removed items are then addressed later in the meeting.

So if a board member has major corrections to the minutes or questions about something in the financials, they should make a request to have those things removed from the consent agenda. Once the agenda is approved, there is no backtracking to engage the board in discussion about those items such as whether the organization should be entering into a contract that was included in the consent agenda.

In my 2015 post, I linked to an article in which the author recounts his experience attending a meeting which used a consent agenda if you want a sense of what this looks like in practice.

The idea is that the first 5-10 minutes of a meeting are spent addressing the consent agenda and then the remaining time is used to address policy, governance, strategy, etc. It is much more time consuming to go around the room calling on each committee head only to have them report “no report,” or “we met last Tuesday and will have a report next meeting,” than to have that summarized on a sheet of paper you received 10 days before the meeting.

When the nominating committee is ready to propose new members or the governance committee has bylaw revisions to discuss, those topics should be addressed in the main of the meeting rather than listed in a consent agenda. The process isn’t meant to reduce transparency though it can be misused in that manner.

Perhaps the biggest impediment to successful use of this agenda is getting everyone to turn into their information far enough out that it can be assembled for review and then getting all the board members to read the materials in advance so that very little gets pulled out of the consent agenda.

It sounds like a lot of work, but avoiding the committee roll call with a 1-2 sentence report out and quickly getting to substantive discussion is worth the effort and keeps people engaged. While I have never been successful in getting any board I have been involved with, either as organizational staff or a member, to adopt a consent agenda, the times I have gotten “best meeting in a long time” compliments has been when we have been able to get past the reporting quickly and discuss past successes/impacts, exciting initiatives and involve the board in decision making that moved toward real progress.

Comp Tickets Are Not Cost Free Transaction

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Last month Drew McManus had box office manager Tiffin Feltner make a guest post on his Adaptistration blog on the topic of comp tickets.   It has taken me about three weeks to stop grinding my teeth long enough to make a post of my own on the topic.  You will see a lot of posts about optimizing ticket prices based on various criteria and I think those assume people have a handle on their comp ticket policies. But let me tell you, in my experience there are a lot of people out there you think would know better who have absolutely bonkers approaches to comp ticketing.

Feltner notes that about 40% of comps go unused. I wondered if that is a nationwide statistic or just what they have observed in terms of the venues they serve. Reports I have pulled from my ticketing system often show much greater rates than that.

Organizations I have worked at have ticketed events for rentals of our own venue as well as served as a community ticketing hub providing service to other organizations at their venues. Many times they are not only comping tickets for individual events, but providing comp subscriptions which results in a large number of empty seats for the entire year.

There are so many issues that arise because of comp ticketing decisions. First, because organizations like to comp tickets and subscriptions to important guests, they place them in large, consecutive groups in the closest rows. Which means if people don’t use the comps, you can have a nearly sold out event where the first 10 rows are virtually empty and those in attendance are packed like sardines in the back of the venue.

Then there are other cases when the event is sold out in the ticketing system and the client can’t get a special last minute guest in because they distributed the house seats held back for this purpose days earlier. Then of course, when the show starts there are a bunch of empty seats because so much of the house had been comped.

We have run into situations where the client decides a ticket holder has forfeited their seat by not showing up five minutes before, without ever having communicated that policy. (Because it didn’t exist until just now.) Sometimes the ticket holder shows up to find their seat occupied, sometimes that bullet is dodged.

Then there have been times the client tells us they have confirmed a ticket holder is not attending, asked us to assign the ticket to someone else, and then put a sign on the seat reserving it for a third person.

Not only are poorly considered ticketing policies bad optics and create poor customer relations, most of the time the ticketing staff ends up as the target of blame for these bad decisions–often by the people responsible for making these bad decisions. This is what makes me grind my teeth because all these bad feelings and awkward situations could be avoided with a little forethought and policy discipline.

In their guest post, Feltner suggests using a card that can only be redeemed on the night of the show as a solution to the comp issue. That is similar to an approach my staff has used with clients where we suggest unassigned blocks of seats strategically placed in places with good sightlines. These blocks can be assigned as needed when it is known what VIPs will be attending. This allows for better placement and assignment of seats prior to an event date.

However, there needs to be strong comp policy guidelines in place so that there isn’t a gradual creep back to 1/3 of the seats being comped well in advance.  If your venue scans tickets, you are probably able to pull a no-show report broken down by ticket category that can provide insight into how many of the comps are being used which can inform tweaks to the ticketing policy.

While I am advocating for a robust comp ticket policy, this is not to say that you shouldn’t be offering comp tickets. There are a lot of reasons why free admission is a bad idea, but it can be useful to achieve targeted goals. As Feltner mentions, it is important to have some sort of tracking mechanism in place to evaluate whether you are achieving those goals.

One thing to consider if you are offering comp tickets as a sponsorship or donor benefit is to ask the recipient if they plan to use the tickets. In my experience, a fair number of people provide support because they believe in the organization’s work, but don’t necessarily intend to redeem the benefits that come with the support.

Not only does that allow those seats to be filled, but it also allows a greater portion of their donation to be credited as tax deductible because they are not receiving material benefit. However, this benefit needs to be refused immediately at the time of the donation. You can’t ask people in December after you have had 8 events occur and then retroactively provide credit for unattended shows. If they do decide to attend one event at a later time, you can always comp them in then and make an appropriate adjustment to their donation credit.

Try On Theatre, It May Fit Better Than You Think

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American Theatre recently had a great piece about an interesting approach Princeton University is using as an alternative to auditions called “Try On Theatre Days.” They describe the program as “replacing high-intensity auditions with educational workshops as a means to cast performers and stagehands for the school’s seasonal productions.”

What I appreciate about this approach is the broad invitation to the campus community to come and check out the theatre program and experience mini-lessons in various functions. This is a departure from the practice at many non-conservatory theatre programs I have worked with and encountered where the invitation to the campus community starts and ends with the audition notice. The approach that Princeton is described as using seems to do a better job of giving people the confidence they have the ability to contribute to a production both by getting them to participate in various activities and raising awareness of roles beyond performing.

There is also a hope that the process will introduce greater diversity and reduce insular clique culture in the theatre program:

The first day of the three-day process is a community day, at which all Princeton students are invited to meet the theatre department and to experience introductory-level singing, dancing, and acting workshops…The next two days are designated for students to “try on” specific shows in the upcoming season, … not only in the acting sense but also, for example, stage management, in which prospective students get the opportunity to try calling cues. The purpose is to introduce and teach students to different facets of theatre rather than make judgments about what capabilities certain students walk in the door with, and in turn let students decide if theatre is something they want to pursue.

This new process aims to level the playing field for students who didn’t have traditional theatrical training prior to attending Princeton University. The goal is to transform the student theatre culture and attract a more diverse population, as well as to reduce the cliques and the student hierarchies that often result when theatre students consistently casting their friends in productions.

The “Try On Theatre Days” grew out of an initiative where the university administration paid students to conduct teach-ins about the challenges, biases, and other discouraging factors they faced when trying to participate in productions and classes. Students interviewed by American Theatre said the result has been an increased degree of authenticity in productions, a shift in power dynamics, a rethinking of the casting process, and an improved sense capacity to participate in the creative process.

You’re Not Meant To Eat Everything On The Menu

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Many of you may have seen the news about the accusations of “wokeness” being leveled at the restaurant chain Cracker Barrel for adding plant based breakfast sausage to the menu. To be clear, they aren’t replacing the existing meat based sausage option, just adding the plant-based option.

Upon reading this, I immediately thought of a talk Nina Simon did at the Minnesota History conference discussing her book, The Art of Relevance. Specifically, I was reminded of her statement that not everything an arts organization does is for the insiders. She mentions this idea in other talks that she did, but this was my first introduction to the concept so I remembered it clearly and thought the Cracker Barrel story was a good opportunity to revisit it.

While I remembered this talk so clearly I was able to find my post on her talk immediately, I had not recalled just how appropriate it was.

Right there in the second paragraph I wrote,

“She uses the metaphor about going to a restaurant and how you don’t suddenly decide to boycott the restaurant if they start adding vegetarian and heart healthy options to their regular menu.”

Sorry Nina, it looks like you were wrong.
.
There are a lot of lessons and things to consider in the Cracker Barrel example. There are a number of other restaurants and chains that started offering faux meat like the Impossible Burger without this sort of reaction. Dunkin Donuts in particular offered the breakfast veggie-sausage patty on their menu. So why the negative reaction to Cracker Barrel’s decision? My theory is that people have made the restaurant chain part of their identity and adding a non-meat option threatens that identity in some way.

I think in a lot of ways arts organizations might view their core supporters reacting in a similar manner and be reluctant to effect change. Honestly, I don’t know that Cracker Barrel offers a cautionary tale to most arts organizations. I do think that there will be a lot of people in a community who very closely identify with and organization and are invested in its well-being, to the point they will mention a show they just attended a few months ago. The fact the show was two years ago just illustrates they feel like they have close ties.

On the whole, I think it will be like most restaurants adding heart healthy and vegetarian options — people’s eyes will pass over those listings looking for what they like. New opportunities to open doors to new audiences isn’t going to bother long term supporters overall, especially if promoted well while maintaining a perception that long term supporters aren’t losing anything by it. It think it is easy to overestimate the push back. I have seen a whole season of classical music concerts fill the house despite the inclusion of some contemporary, non-canonical pieces. The traditional audiences seemed happy to see younger audiences filling in the seats beside them.

Certainly, context matters and the emergence from Covid restrictions provides license to try new approaches. Arts and cultural organizations would be wise take advantage of this opportunity.

This is not to say that there aren’t organizations with which supporters have made their association an integral part of their identity. Supporters for whom any change feels like a personal threat. A situation like this bears very, very serious examination. Not only is it an impediment to inviting new people in to renew the vitality of the organization, but it may clash with the organization’s self-perception of who they are for. Most Cracker Barrel locations are near interstate highways so the addition of the vegetable based faux meat is meant to signal that travelers with different dietary preferences are welcome. But the response of a lot of customers is, no they are not.

You Now Have Permission To Have An Authentic Response

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Last month the San Francisco Chronicle ran an opinion piece by Nataki Garrett, the Artistic Director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, titled Theater can help drive economic recovery in S.F. and elsewhere. But not if it stays so white

She talks about how there are a lot of barriers to participation in theatre for new audiences like ticketing pricing, lack of representation on stage and in leadership, accessibility, etc., but focuses most of the piece on the formal attendance etiquette. She notes that in addition to “how to behave” sections on organization websites, Business Insider had published a similar guide as Broadway prepared to open post-Covid.

Even as the opportunity to re-write the narrative about who was was welcome presented itself as Covid restrictions loosened, traditional gatekeeping practices re-asserted themselves. She cites the example of the Tina Turner musical which encouraged audience response by design:

The musical takes audiences through the life of legendary rock ‘n’ roll icon Tina Turner, using her own popular songs to tell her story. It’s a theatrical performance that compels the audience to physically react, something Hall encourages in her audiences. Yet, when attending a preview performance in 2020, I watched white audience members scold other audience goers for their audible reactions to the electrifying performance. Their message was clear: Adhere to our rules or you’re not welcome.

In terms of alternative messaging to use in order to welcome audiences, Garrett gives the example of the playwrights notes for the Broadway show, “Skeleton Crew:”

Inserted in every “Playbill” was a note from the playwright on “Permissions for Engagements.” It reads in part: “Consider this an invitation to be yourselves in this audience. You are allowed to laugh audibly. You are allowed to have audible moments of reaction and response. This can be a church for some of us, and testifying is allowed.”

This isn’t a boilerplate text for widespread use. Every organization and show has a different context requiring a differently worded invitation.

A storytelling group in my community does a pretty good job of this prior to every session they have when they layout a framework of behavior. The rules are mostly about eliminating crosstalk at the tables while people were telling stories. People are encouraged to snap, stomp and yell things like “You know that’s right!”

I think this works out well for them because there is really only one thing they ask you not to do and then invite you to feel free to have a spontaneous response. By providing examples of what form that response might take, they manage to generally keep things from getting too disruptive for both the audience and storytellers unaccustomed to public speaking.

How Do You Take Your Program, Digital Or Printed?

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Last month, Washington Post Classical Music Critic Michael Andor Brodeur wrote a piece about why people like himself are unhappy with classical music organizations ditching printed programs. Most places started shifting to digital programs during Covid to cut down on opportunities to transmit the virus.

While we weren’t primarily a classical music venue, my team and I decided to go the digital route as Covid restrictions wound down for the purposes of saving money and cutting down on paper waste. For us that meant putting the program content up on lobby screens and providing QR for people to scan.

As Brodeur points out, the QR code option can be problematic because many people aren’t really adept at accessing and reading content on their phone despite the fact that it seems like everyone around us is always reading stuff on their phones. We would have a handful of large format printed programs on hand for ADA purposes and really annoyed patrons, but for the most part it worked.

For us the shift represented a modest budgetary savings and a reduction in paper waste, but for much larger organizations the decision can have a considerable impact. For the Bethesda, Maryland based National Philharmonic, it meant a savings of about $20,000. However, for the Kennedy Center which said they made the shift based on trash rather than monetary savings, there is a much greater impact.

The 1.5 million programs the center printed — for every event in its main spaces, regardless of genre — amounted to 250 tons of paper per season at an annual cost of nearly $400,000, according to Andrews. This doesn’t count the additional paper waste created for inserts, which primarily address corrections or updates, though are sometimes geared toward fundraising. (Those 1.2 million inserts could add an additional $200,000 to seasonal costs, Andrews says.) Not to mention the programs produced by renters of Kennedy Center spaces.

The change to digital has allowed them to bring program operations in-house rather than sending content off to Playbill. (I would imagine this is going to impact Playbill severely if others follow suit.) In addition to likely reducing the 60-70 day lead time required by having a 3rd party print their materials, this decision has brought other benefits to Kennedy Center:

Since transitioning to digital, the arts center has shifted program operations in-house, using its own stable of writers to produce essays, its own designers and its own proprietary platform to develop programs with a consistent identity across the board. This also allows programs to be scaled for the events they detail. (A one-size-fits-all program approach for both text-heavy events like operas and relatively straightforward rock or jazz performances was another source of waste.)

“It’s an evolution,” Andrews says. “It’s somewhat entrepreneurial, but at the core we’re using technology to streamline the process and reduce the total amount of paper consumption — because we are the Kennedy Center and these are big numbers.”

Many arts and cultural organizations aren’t as large an operation as the Kennedy Center so the same stable of writers who created content for the print program are going to be creating content for the digital version. Though the digital format provides a little more freedom to present information in different dimensions, orientations, and timing/ordering than print.

It may not turn out to be an issue, but one factor I haven’t come up against yet or seen anyone else address is sponsor and advertiser receptiveness to the digital format. With the print format there was always dickering about placement of logos and sponsorship content – inside cover, back cover, center break, opposite title page, etc., Despite the jockeying that went on, those placements may ultimately not be as important to individuals and organizations as they seemed to be. But I wonder if the loss of some of those options may reduce the perceived value and end up reducing sponsorship and advertising revenue.

Resisting The Corruption Of The Violin

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Recently I have been seeing stories about violin scammers. People performing in shopping centers and other public places with signs asking for money. What is interesting about these stories is that the claim of a scam is based on the fact these people are pretending to play violin to a recording.

There are some warnings about using payment apps to give these people money with the implication that the scammers will exploit that information in someway. But the real focus seems to be that these folks are representing themselves as having a skill they don’t possess.

There are a lot of complex factors to consider here. It is great for artists that there is some recognition of the value of discipline and training and the sense that you are being cheated of something if someone is taking shortcuts to represent themselves as having invested time into developing a skill.

On the other hand, things have seemed to come a long way since the Milli Vanilli lip syncing scandals of the late 80s.  It is pretty much an open secret that many performers lip sync and maybe even feign playing instruments to a backing track. It is less of a secret that a lot of performers use some degree of auto-tuning, vocal distortion, music sampling, etc.

So why is it viewed as problematic, bordering on illegal, that someone hanging out in a shopping mall parking lot is not a skilled musician?  If you enjoy what you hear and are moved to give money, why should it matter if it is live or Memorex?

Could it be that the negative perceptions of symphonic music being generally inaccessible and surrounded by inscrutable traditions and practices also lend the music and instruments an aura of incorruptibility?   In other words, if you employ an instrument of this genre to create music, it reflects an authentic investment of sweat equity, untouched by the compromises and shortcuts of other types of music.

It may be worth a closer examination of the social dynamics to more clearly determine what is at play.  It may be possible to leverage this sentiment to the greater benefit of artists and arts organizations.   I think the past has already illustrated that it would be a mistake to try to place the artists on a pedestal.  In general, it appears people already place them there on their own. If you read the stories, people are open to giving to the people they find in parking lots and are dismayed when they find out the music is recorded.

Over the years I have written about the whole experiment of having Joshua Bell perform in the D.C. metro, something that still annoys me to this day.  Environment and context are significant factors when it comes to a willingness to participate in an experience. Even though a parking lot or flash mob performance seems informal, there is a lot of work that needs to be done to make it successful for the audience.   I have written many posts about this, but perhaps the one that sums it up best covered a piece by Anne Midgette before she retired from the Washington Post.

Referencing Joshua Bell in the DC Metro, she wrote:

In the wake of that controversial performance, one busker said something that stuck with me: Musicians who regularly play on the street, from violinists to singers to trash-can drummers, learn how to connect with passersby in such a way that this doesn’t happen. Classical musicians aren’t usually trained to establish this kind of rapport..

and then later:

Outreach risks taking on a missionary, self-satisfied glow, getting caught up in the innate value of sharing such great music with those who have not been privileged to have been exposed to it. Lurking within this well-meaning construct is the toxic view of music as a kind of largesse: the idea that this music is better than the music you already like. The school concert, with all the best intentions, to some degree demonstrated that if classical music is offered in its own bubble, without context, it has little chance of really connecting with new audiences…

Time To Review Programming And Rental Procedures

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Many people probably heard about a Minnesota venue cancelling Dave Chappelle’s show hours before it was suppose to occur.  Something similar happened a few weeks ago at a venue on the other side of my state where a comedy show with different comedians was cancelled the day before it was supposed to occur.

This has gotten me to thinking that art and cultural organizations need to be doing a better job developing and implementing policies and procedures. Putting aside the question about whether these shows should be cancelled,  the decision to cancel shouldn’t be made so close to the performance date. Regardless of the content of the performers’ show, cancelling anything so close to performance time is irresponsible, unprofessional and bad for community relations.  (I know how complicated it is move venues and re-seat people having done it during Covid. The fact the Minneapolis show was immediately moved to another venue suggests the decision and arrangements were made earlier, but only announced the day of.)

The organization on the other side of my state flubbed things even more by issuing a statement that said the show was cancelled due to the content and then issuing another statement saying it was because the proper paperwork and deposits were not received.   This sort of mixed messaging is an indication that there is not a good crisis management plan in place. I am not suggesting the social and political views of a performer constitutes a crisis, but if you have a plan to have one voice addressing your roof falling in during a performance or an entire cast testing positive for Covid after a week of shows, you have a process for communicating tough decisions.

I suspect the venue in Minneapolis was already generally aware of the controversy surrounding Dave Chappelle and the clamor of protest got to a point where it outweighed the benefits of hosting the show.  For most other programming, whether it is a solicitation to book a performance or for an outside party to rent the space, it is important to be very clear about the content and requirements of the proposed event. This is a good policy for reasons almost entirely unrelated to opinions about political and social issues.

Ninety-nine percent of the issues that have occurred in venues I have been involved with have been related to technical requirements. Often renters are too vague about their plans and technical needs or show up and add a ton of things they never mentioned before, resulting in a higher bill because we have to scramble to find equipment and staffing at the last minute. Most of our rental contracting has been held up because the technical director doesn’t have the information he needs to accurately estimate the event.  There are definitely people who neglect to submit deposits and paperwork on time, but we address that well in advance of the show.

Similarly, our biggest concern with shows we book is lack of technical details on one hand or assurances that the show will fit in our space despite misgivings. Agents and production offices 500 miles away are motivated to contract a show and leave it to the people on the ground to work around problems far too often.

We have declined to present productions or rent our venue due to technical concerns far more often than for content. Content needs to be reviewed and considered alongside technical requirements in a holistic process. Things shouldn’t reach the contracting stage if there are issues, much less be a matter of discussion a day or two before.  I suspect our colleagues on the other side of the state saw the opportunity to generate some rental revenue and didn’t really pay attention to who it was until the protests started a few days before the performance.

As for the policies and procedures you put into place, that is a matter for discussion with involvement from internal and external constituencies and some legal review. Those policies are going to differ for each organization and community.

Toward A More Artistic European Union

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As promised, I am following up on Monday’s post about about the first European Union (EU) wide survey of performing arts.

I wanted to note some of the recommendations made in the study. One of the most significant was to facilitate employment opportunities across the entire EU. The study noted that every country focused on their national performing arts entities.  Additionally, Covid restrictions have delayed the training and opportunities for younger artists to gain practical experience.

Among their proposals are to create more opportunities for artists to work across borders:

To address these concerns, the study calls for theatres around Europe to create so-called ‘third spaces’ at venues to support young artists.

Such a space would connect with theatre schools and academies to programme the work and support young artists to enter the professional theatre scene after graduating.

Similarly, the study suggests creating a ‘European Theatre Showcase’, potentially as an element added on to the European Theatre Forum, to offer a long-term perspective and provide the next generation of young artists from Europe a “much-needed industry networking space.”

Something that caught my eye were multiple statements that seemed to indicate a stark separation of interaction and dialogue between schools and training programs and performing arts venues. It hadn’t occurred to me that this might be the case given that universities can often be among the most prominent producers and presenters of performing arts in the U.S. (Association of Performing Arts Professionals which is essentially the national conference for presenters started out as Association of College, University and Community Arts Administrators (ACUCAA)) Among the proposals in this area were in regard to moving toward common standards of training and accreditation so that students were more easily employed in other countries.

Other proposals to facilitate cross-border employment included amending tax laws which often double-taxed artists; addressing sexual harassment, work environment, gender and racial disparities; mainstreaming the employment and depiction of sexual orientation, gender identity, physical and mental ability.

Another section discussed funding sustainable construction/renovation and practices with an eye to cutting energy consumption and impact on the environment.

It was interesting to read about all the factors that need to be navigated and sorted out among EU countries. Differences regarding discrimination, harassment and social standing of arts wasn’t particularly surprising. Nor was the idea that most countries focused on supporting their national arts entities.

There were many more administrative and legal hurdles noted than I imagined. If you have ever visited a European country and watched people breezing through the exit for citizens of Schengen Area countries while you queue up to be examined at customs, it is easy to think all these issues had been long settled.

More Europe Performing Arts Orgs During Covid

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Last week German arts administrator Rainer Glaap made a Facebook post linking to the first ever study of theatres across the European Union (EU).  Additionally, some of the survey participants were non-EU members of the Creative Europe program.  Readers may recall I had made a number of posts looking at how various governments across Europe were providing financial support to artists during the height of the Covid pandemic.  So I was interested in seeing what this report had to say.

One of the biggest difficulties faced in putting the study together was all the differences that exist between European countries in terms of number of theatre, definitions of performing arts activities, funding policies, training practices, etc. There were numerous times the report noted the difficulty in making and apples to apples comparison.

However, there were a number of interesting things I pulled from the report. For instance, apparently France and Germany are the primary models for presenting/touring versus producing.

The so-called ‘French oriented system’ is based on productions, touring and selling plays to other venues making international co-production easier to fit in a programme. In a ‘German oriented system’ whereby theatres operate as production houses with in-house established ensembles, international co-production is less natural since the programme is set for the season.

Since the degree to which European governments subsidize the arts is a frequent topic of conversation in the U.S., having a EU-wide report on this number is obviously of some interest (recall this is an average from 39 participating countries):

“ticket sales in public funded theatres usually amounts to about 25% of the theatre budget. Commercially-oriented private theatres and independent companies however rely mostly on revenues generated from the box office and other commercial activities. Among the surveyed private theatre venues and companies, revenue from sales (tickets, admissions) constituted around 40% of their budgets before the COVID-19 pandemic.”

During Covid, many of the measures taken in European countries were similar to those in the U.S. Many shifted to streamed live or archived performances, with results ranging from innovative to downright disappointing. Others found ways to perform in outdoor or non-traditional spaces. Companies in a number of countries started working with hospitals, retirement homes, schools and universities to offer performances. Some organizations experimented with the drive-in theatre experience where people remained in their cars. There was an account of a festival in France which replaced the cancelled Avignon Festival which provided press exposure to smaller arts organizations which normally wouldn’t get it and apparently enabled the organizer, Theatre 14 to reach audiences not used to attending theatre. I am not sure how it was organized to encourage that. I assumed it might be outdoors in public spaces, but it appears the performances were held in physical performance spaces.

There were examples of efforts to provide better support for artists, both in terms of government policy:

Good practices are emerging, such as negotiating a minimum wage for artistic work in the theatre, also for people working on other terms than an employment contract e.g. in Austria or Finland. In some countries, such as Poland, new legal acts and wide-ranging regulations are created to support this professional group. In Belgium, the situation of artists resulting from the pandemic pushed the creation of a new type of ‘fair trade’ contract, in order to improve the contractual relations between artists and cultural operators. As a result of such a contract, a play can either be postponed or cancelled, but in the latter case part of the fees must be paid to the artists.

[…]

….The project was funded via the European Commission’s DG Employment and Social Affairs budget line for Information and Training Measures for Workers’ Organisations. It helped the unions to train and put in place a strategy in relation to organising, with a focus on freelance, self-employed and otherwise atypical workers in the Media Arts and Entertainment sectors.”83

As well as acts of solidarity:

Nau Ivanow, a cultural residence space in Spain that has a venue, decided that all income from ticket sales during the COVID-19 pandemic will be given to the performing companies and artists.
Also, since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic they decided to offer their two rehearsal spaces for free for the interested artists/companies.

[..]

Some of the [Romanian] public cultural institutions (National Dance Centre, National Heritage Institute, Clujean Cultural Centre, National Museum Complex ASTRA Sibiu, Studio M Theatre in Sfantu Gheorghe) announced that they did not attend this funding session in order to show their solidarity with the independent cultural operators, whose resources have been drastically diminished, and who were less eligible for support than state funded institutions.

The report also made some recommendations for the future which I will probably cover in my post tomorrow.

Instagram=High Engagement, But Don’t Make Marketing Decisions Based On A Blog Title

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Earlier this month Colleen Dilenschneider wrote a post providing data that showed Instagram was the social media platform with the highest levels of audience engagement and conversions (deciding to attend/participate in activities or subscribe to newsletter) for arts organizations.

There were apparently a lot of questions raised by this information so she followed up today with a closer look and breakdown of the data. 

Before I get in to reviewing what she writes, I did want to note that in the last few months Dilenschneider seems to increasingly acknowledge that people often misread data or use it to support decisions in ways it wasn’t intended. She will make a statement either cautioning against interpreting or using the data in a certain way. This post is no different where she states:

This chart is not intended to tell you how to distribute marketing resources. As leaders know, an effective marketing and communication strategy considers how these platforms work together. However, the key takeaway is clear: People are using the internet to obtain information, and social media is a top source of information for likely visitors to cultural organizations.

One of the things that was interesting to see was that while Instagram had the highest engagement, (as measured by likes, clicks, comments), for both exhibit (museums, aquariums, etc) and performance based cultural organizations, it was far more effective, at least in 2nd Quarter of 2022, at engagement for exhibit based organizations.

Similarly, Instagram had highest engagement across all age groups, although the younger age ranges had higher engagement than the older ranges. Overall, Facebook had lower engagement but had an inverted engagement that increased as age increased. The engagement gaps between age groups for Instagram are much large than for Facebook.

Tiktok comes in third on all categories, but Dilenschneider cautions against ignoring the platform, especially for performance based organizations:

With an index value of 62.7 for individuals aged 18-34 on TikTok, and an index value of 66.0 for individuals aged 18-34 on Facebook, these platforms may be closer in terms of performance than some leaders might expect. This information is critical to watch if yours is an organization aiming to engage younger audiences – an imperative for the long-term viability of many symphonies and orchestras.

I encourage people to read her most recent post more closely. Readers may note that I have not included images of her charts in the post as I used to. While I definitely feel it would aid in your comprehension of the information being presented, I noticed a couple months back that her site’s policy on image and data reproduction prohibited redistribution so I wanted to err on the side of caution. Especially given my own site’s much looser Creative Commons license which may give people the impression that any depictions of her data here is open for reuse.

Encouraging Signs In Theatre Internship Programs

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American Theatre had some encouraging news about a trend to improve summer theatre internship programs.  The need for this was seen last year as interns and other staff were walking off the job at some of the most prestigious gigs in the country.  A number of theatres are focused on making the experience more accessible, shifting from models where interns paid to participate to ones where they received pay as well as travel and housing.

Some programs are moving away from the premise that interns are a source of cheap labor and have redesigned the experience to focus on providing career training, networking and mentorship.

Gersten seems genuinely interested in providing hands-on experiences that are of primary benefit to the intern; the new program, she said, “doesn’t require their labor but does allow them to get hands-on experience. And the program combines time in an experiential setting as well as classroom time.”

Others have redesigned the application review process to allow for the selection of more diverse intern pools.

At New York Stage and Film, the application process itself has been democratized. Instead of one or two higher-ups reading applications, the company has “invited last year’s artists and staff to participate in the first round of going through applications, and of course they’re paid for each application they look at,” said Burney. He observed that this new process has “shifted the way people have access to our company” and “provided a deeper sense of belonging to the company” for its existing members.

Rosie Brownlow-Calkin who wrote the American Theatre piece notes that implementing these practices is something of a double-edged sword. The increased cost of providing a better experience means that fewer people are accepted to these programs. In some cases, this is a good thing because it allows for more one on one interaction with working professionals and hands-on experience on more meaningful projects. However, it also means fewer people are able to participate in what is viewed as an important career building experience.

Additionally, many of the organizations interviewed for the article note that federal Covid relief funding has provided for the existence of these improved intern programs. There is a very real sense that the quality of these experiences, if not the entire internship program, may be in jeopardy once those funds run out. When asked how they intended to sustain their internship programs, two of the organizations interviewed said they would ask their donors for more money which doesn’t seem to be a very concrete plan.

The fairness of these programs has been a common topic for my posts, so I am glad to see that theatres are giving serious consideration to the design of their internship programs. There is obviously more work to be done. Decisions related to these programs will be among the many needing to be addressed as arts organizations confront existential challenges of the next normal.

Strong Opposition To Warehousing Charitable Funding In DAFs

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A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about how donor advised funds (DAF) had surpassed charities like the United Way as recipients of charitable giving.  I noted this is a problem because unlike foundations and other grant making institutions, DAFs have no obligation to disburse the funds they hold. The donors get the tax benefit, but the funds are not being employed for a charitable purpose.

The good folks at the Non-Profit Law blog recently shared a link to a June 2022 Ipsos poll showing public sentiment is against such arrangements. Not only do they feel DAFs should be required to distribute the funds they hold, they feel foundations should be required to distribute twice the amount they are currently.

  • With more than $1.2 trillion in charitable contributions currently sitting on the sidelines, 69 percent of adults surveyed support a 10 percent payout requirement for foundations (up from the current 5 percent) and for DAFs (which currently have no payout requirement), even if this reduces the amount of money in foundations and DAFs in the future.
  • 73 percent support requiring DAFs to make grants within 2 to 5 years of receiving donations.

The biggest impediment to generating general will toward making these changes is lack of knowledge about the situation. Of those surveyed, only 17% were aware that the tax code is structured to allow tax exemptions for charitable giving while allowing so little to be distributed to non-profit entities. Once people become aware of this information, there is bi-partisan support to make changes that will see non-profits receive a greater amount of funds sooner.

Specifically, respondents across the political spectrum expressed a strong discomfort with taxpayer subsidies allowing donors to set up perpetual foundations, with conservatives objecting to such subsidies even more strongly than liberals. What is more, both liberals (74 percent) and conservatives (70 percent) favor increasing foundation and DAF payouts to 10 percent, even if it would reduce foundation assets in the future.

Finally, Some Details About Artistic Practice Informing Scientific Genius

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We often hear about how scientific geniuses had an arts related hobby that contributed to their process, (Einstein and his violin are mentioned a lot), but we rarely get any detailed insight into how that artistic element factored in. Thanks to Arts & Letters Daily, I came across an article in Quanta Magazine about June Huh who had dropped out of high school to become a poet and just recently received the Fields Medal for his work in mathematics.

I will just say from the outset that poetry doesn’t figure heavily into his current practice. He admitted that he like the idea of being known as a famous poet, but wasn’t too excited about the process of writing famous poetry.  Just the same, as a youth, he was terrible at math and cheated outrageously on all the math work his father gave him.

Ultimately though, the interest in poetry has informed his work in mathematics:

That poetic detour has since proved crucial to his mathematical breakthroughs. His artistry, according to his colleagues, is evident in the way he uncovers those just-right objects at the center of his work, and in the way he seeks a deeper significance in everything he does. “Mathematicians are a lot like artists in that really we’re looking for beauty,” said Federico Ardila-Mantilla,…

“When I found out that he came to mathematics after poetry, I’m like, OK, this makes sense to me,” Ardila added.

He has a strict schedule of devoting three hours a day to focused work. However, he finds he can’t dictate the subject he will focus on:

To hear him tell it, he doesn’t usually have much control over what he decides to focus on in those three hours. For a few months in the spring of 2019, all he did was read. He felt an urge to revisit books he’d first encountered when he was younger — including Meditations by the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius and several novels by the German author Hermann Hesse — so that’s what he did. “Which means I didn’t do any work,” Huh said. “So that’s kind of a problem.”…

He finds that forcing himself to do something or defining a specific goal — even for something he enjoys — never works. It’s particularly difficult for him to move his attention from one thing to another. “I think intention and willpower … are highly overrated,” he said. “You rarely achieve anything with those things.”

Those last two sentences may provide a bit of insight and guidance. Advice to artists, especially writers, is to set aside a specific amount of time a day you will devote to your work. Instead of specific project, better advice might be to devote three hours to focused work without tying it to a specific project with the idea it may manifest in your work at a later date.

Reading the piece, it is clear that his mind operates differently than most people’s. Professors in his graduate program describe him as operating on such a high level, it was if he were a colleague rather than a graduate student. But another colleague said after talking to him about some simple calculus problems, he doubted Huh could pass a qualifying exam until he realized Huh was meticulously comprehending the fundamentals at a depth of understanding he would apply later.

The article is worth a read and is very engaging, if only to help get past attributing greater virtue to those who have reached a higher level of achievement. Huh clearly possess an immense intellect, but is also as flawed as anyone with some quirks he has had to overcome in order to be a good partner and parent.

Repeat Of Board Tensions In Chicago

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If you hadn’t caught the news in the last week, there is a major crisis at Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago which saw the mass resignation of their current cohort of resident artists. This is a seeming repeat of similar tensions in 2020 between the theater’s board and artists which also saw the mass resignation of artists.  Subsequently, the playwright of the show in production, cullud wattah, pulled the rights to the show which had been set to close July 17, leaving the theatre without any remaining programming.

The greatest detail about the conflict is laid out in a post by isaac gomez, one of the members of the erstwhile cohort. He discusses the suspension of the Artistic Director and resignation of the Acting Managing Director whose tensions with the board came to a head when they were shut out of conversations about a major financial purchase (apparently the purchase of an adjacent building) which the directors strenuously objected.

There was also the issue of a prolonged negotiation with the candidate for the executive director position which had been unoccupied for two years .  The artist cohort learned that their input into the selection was not welcomed when they were accidentally invited to a meeting. The executive director candidate, whose hiring the artists were urging, subsequently withdrew herself from consideration at some point in all the tensions.

Overburdened due to absent leadership and unfilled positions, many of the theatre’s staff left their positions as well, much of it on the upper management level.

While gomez’s account is certainly only one side of the story, he reflects regret about the situation noting that Victory Gardens has stood by their commitment to provide a degree of stability for creative artists unseen in the broader industry. However, by not living up to written commitments about providing access and transparency in decision making, gomez and colleagues feel that the board has been unable to move beyond the toxic cycle which caused similar issues two years ago.

Dance As A Gateway Drug To Coding

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Via Artsjournal.com was a Chalkbeat story about DanceLogic, a program in Philadelphia “designed to educate, inspire, and cultivate girls of color in STEM.”

 

The premise: Both coding and dance use repetition and combination, so using dance as a hook to attract girls to the program could lead to an interest in coding.

[…]

Each Saturday, the girls participate in dance class from noon to 1:20 p.m., take a short break, and then go into coding class until 2:30 p.m. Sessions run from October through June, culminating with a performance at the annual West Park Arts Fest.

[…]

For example, she said, the class developed a dance score using coding language to note choreography. “In the future, I hope to expand on this with the girls and see how it progresses with their understanding of both worlds,” she said.

The program has had some indirect, though semi-predictable result such as participants finding their math classes easier understand. There were other beneficial outcomes which illustrate the value of arts based education, but don’t fit neatly into grant applications because they need to be the result of organic decisions by the participants.

Students have shown an eagerness to take charge of the choreography and exchange ideas about what the dances should be. Bridgers said she’s seen many of the girls who participate develop into strong leaders and mentors. “We make a space for these young women to expand their agency and autonomy in the field of STEM,” she said.

One danceLogic student even developed her own coding curriculum and taught younger children in her neighborhood library, said Lindley. DanceLogic also hired the student when the pandemic forced a switch to virtual learning, charging her with designing and implementing a virtual video-game design class for children, Lindley said.

A student taking the initiative to teach coding to younger kids is a powerful testament to the influence of the DanceLogic program in her life. But you couldn’t have written a grant saying that X students would be inspired to start their own programs. (Unless it was a grant to train people to teach others, of course.)

Similarities, Yes, But Important Differences

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” Older audiences will only be around so long. If you teach the rising generation that the theatrical experience is completely extraneous, that experience probably won’t be around for the next one.”

Sentiments like these have been expressed for some time in the performing arts world. In fact, it has been said so often it probably has risen to the level of cliche.

However, I pulled this quote from the end of a Washington Post opinion piece regarding movie theaters.   The columnist, Sonny Bunch, placed a lot of the blame on movie studios which were either streaming movies a short time after they were released in theaters or releasing the movies straight to streaming.

Judging from the comments on the piece, older audiences may not attending movies in theaters much longer either. There were complaints that movies aren’t being made for them any longer, rising concessions prices, people eating too loudly and the power recliners being uncomfortable.

While live performances share many of the same issues with movies theaters in terms of rising prices, uncomfortable seating, and being disturbed by others in the space, one advantage live experiences have is greater control of the content and nature of the experience.   There is a greater capacity to provide content that engages the community at a time, place and manner suited to the particular needs of that place.

Likewise, there is a greater ability to make a decision to provide better hospitality and experiences customized to the content of a performance, unconstrained by corporate policy.  Leaning into that in communications and social media to raise awareness and differentiate yourself rather than constantly promoting upcoming programming are among the best ways to leverage that advantage.

Arts Orgs Are Shifting Approach Post-Pandemic, Will Grantmakers?

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A link to a video presentation about a study the Michigan Arts and Culture Council commissioned of SMU DataArts popped up in my feed last week. I am not sure what inspired me to listen all the way through because I am glad I did. There were some small unexpected revelations that popped up.

For instance, right around the 30 min mark director of SMU DataArts Zannie Voss discusses how Michigan arts organizations have a higher median working capital than the national median, however the average working capital was quite a bit lower than the national average. (Reminder of median vs average) But both the median and average were close together which Voss says is unusual. After some investigation she found this was due to Michigan arts organizations having smaller budgets than the national average.

This carried over to organizations who primarily served BIPOC communities versus those who did not primarily serve BIPOC communities. Overall BIPOC serving groups in MI had the same liquidity as non-BIPOC serving groups in MI, whereas nationally BIPOC serving groups are more liquid than non-BIPOC groups.  This is due to the fact that in MI the budget size of both groups are closer to each other than their peers nationally.  Generally smaller organizations tend to be more liquid than larger ones.

Voss delves more deeply into this factor by noting that smaller BIPOC serving organizations especially tend not to grow large because there is a lot of unrecognized sweat equity being invested by people. This is one of those “you have to have money to make money” situations. If an organization can’t show a cash expense because so many people donate their effort, they don’t meet foundation/donor funding thresholds to receive more money.

She the moves into recommendations for funders as organizations try to recover from Covid restrictions. The first one is to “support grantee defined strategies for recovery and adaptation” and to “place bigger bets on BIPOC serving organizations who have been disproportionately by the pandemic and racial injustice” on the scope of decades rather than a couple years.  Another is to provide capacity building by supporting salaries and benefits for staffing and other operational expenses.

Specifically she encourages funders to focus on capacity building over organizational growth.  Instead of pushing organizations to add programs, granters should encourage organizations to set down deeper roots to ensure stability.

Likewise she advocates for the exploration of different business models, multi-year grant commitments and encouraging arts organizations to build cash reserves.

None of these suggestions are particularly new, but the pandemic reignited the discussion of many of the issues and created a context for implementing policy changes going forward.

When Good Climbing Shoes Are Important For Vocal Warm Ups

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The Artsjournal daily newsletter today linked to a Smithsonian Institution article using the title “Warm-Up Vocal Exercises From Three Very Different Classical Singing Disciplines.”  From that I assumed the disciplines would be something like opera, choral, and musical theatre and that I would learn about some distinctions I wasn’t aware of.

In fact, it was much more interesting than that. The article compared warm up practices for Western Opera, Chinese Opera, and Carnatic Music, a classical form from southern India I really hadn’t heard about before.

So there was definitely content I hadn’t known. While I was aware that different part of China had different stylistic approaches to the operatic form, I didn’t know that rehearsing in high places was part of the warm up and training regimen.

Li’s parents undertook dantian and vocal warm-ups to a much greater degree than she does today: “My parents would take fabric and tie it like a belt really tightly and go up to the mountain and practice the heptatonic scale”—a seven-note scale common in Xiqu, or traditional Chinese opera. Li tells me that elevation was important. When away from the mountains, her parents would run up to a rooftop to do their exercises.

While there are video clips of singers doing warm ups for western opera and carnatic music, I was disappointed to find there wasn’t one for Chinese Opera. I did some searching and found some video of performances, but not warm ups. I will confess to half wanting to see people scaling mountains or perching themselves on an apartment or performance facility rooftop to do their warm ups.

On the other hand, carnatic music warm ups are apparently traditionally practiced an hour or two before sunrise. The singing technique is apparently contrary to the best practices of western vocal training.

Once, a company Doraiswamy sang with hired a Western-style voice coach to teach her how to take care of her voice. Hearing her sing, the coach claimed Doraiswamy’s vocal cords wouldn’t last two years. Scared by this reaction, she didn’t sing a note for a week. In reality, South Indian singers have sung without injuring themselves for centuries. A warm-up for Western classical vocalists simply would not be used to train the voice of a classical Carnatic singer, although these exercises might seem healthier by Western standards.

Check out the article by Zofia Majewski, especially if you have an interest in vocal performance.  You are likely to catch some nuance and revelations that I have missed.

Wait, Top MBA Programs Block Grade Disclosure?

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This post might go a bit on the cerebral side, but bear with me it should go along pretty quickly. Thanks to Marginal Revolution blog I learned that top MBA programs have a policy of grade non-disclosure (GND) which prevents students from revealing their grades or grade point average to potential employers.  This only applies to full time MBA students, not part-time students even if they are taking the same classes taught by the same professors.  This provided something of an opportunity for researchers to do a study  by making comparisons between the two groups.

What they found was:

We study the effects of grade non-disclosure (GND) policies implemented within MBA programs at highly ranked business schools. GND precludes students from revealing their grades and grade point averages (GPAs) to employers. In the labor market, we find that GND weakens the positive relation between GPA and employer desirability. During the MBA program, we find that GND reduces students’ academic effort within courses by approximately 4.9%, relative to comparable students not subject to the policy. Consistent with our model, in which abilities are potentially correlated and students can substitute effort towards other activities in order to signal GPA-related ability, students participate in more extracurricular activities and enroll in more difficult courses under GND…

What most interested me was the idea that while student effort decreased when they knew their grades wouldn’t be reported to potential employers, they were more likely to engage in extracurricular activities and take more difficult courses. (It should be noted most part time MBA students are already employed and taking classes for promotional opportunities. If their employer is paying, it is often contingent upon maintaining a certain GPA)

I recently made a post about how classroom grades are not an accurate reflection of future performance or capacity, extrapolating that to comment that not all metrics are meaningful to decision making. This is a similar situation. While they may prefer to have GPA revealed, employers will hire MBA graduates from top programs due to reputation, networking and the fact one was admitted to the school signals something about their economic, social and educational background.

Similarly, the work of top arts organizations in communities is perceived as valuable due to reputation, networking, and status of people attending associated with it. Like economic impact, none of these factors can be used to measure the quality and value of the work in the community.

Organizations with resources can afford to pay for product created by the highly skilled and provide a great experience. If that attracts people from out of town so they spend in restaurants, shops and hotels, then a lot of people are happy for its presence.

But if people within walking distance of the space don’t feel welcome there, does the organization have value to the community?

Neighbors feeling welcome may be just as problematic a metric as others, but why is economic impact the standard against which all cultural organizations are measured?  I feel like there is a growing trend on a local level toward valuing sense of welcome, especially post-Covid. Though I would argue given the mission statements of most non-profits, welcome should be more important than economic impact.

To a large degree we make conscious decisions about what is most important when we choose where to live, work, and play based on myriad personal and social criteria.  But we like to eliminate the nebulous factors and hew to lists created using arbitrary criteria. Which is why you can see five Best Places To Live articles a week where only a few places overlap. It is fun to see your favorite places on the list, but is that information helpful for decision making?

Donor Advised Funds Receive More Giving Than Public Charities

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Earlier this month Vu Le of the Non Profit AF blog linked to a piece reporting that Donor Advised Funds (DAF) had surpassed charities as recipients of charitable revenue.  The problem with this, as I have previously written, is that unlike public charities which are required to spend at least 5% of their funding each year, donor advised funds have no such requirement but the donor gains the tax benefit of making a donation.

In other words, the government is subsidizing giving that is not necessarily providing any charitable benefit. From the Inequity.org article:

Of particular concern are DAF sponsors that are affiliated with for-profit Wall Street financial corporations. As we have documented, these commercial DAFs provide enormous publicly-subsidized tax benefits to their high-rolling contributors while actively encouraging the warehousing of charitable wealth. And commercial DAFs have been growing explosively.

In fact, the largest commercial DAF sponsors now take in more money each year than our largest public charities.

The article has an animated graphic illustrating how over time DAFs have occupied six of the top ten recipients of charitable revenue, displacing United Way Worldwide from its top spot to number four.

There has already been some discussion about how the required minimum 5% annual distribution by charities was a low bar to meet, especially since some of the charity’s administrative expenses and activities can count toward the 5% expenditure rather than purely distributed as grants.  So the fact that so much more money is being directed toward DAFs than ever before with no requirement that it be distributed is of growing concern.

Housing Appraisal As Art For Social Change

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Back in March I made a post about an artist’s project in Pittsburgh that called attention to the disparity in appraisals between White homeowners and Black homeowners.  In a story of art having some success at bringing about social change, that project apparently lead the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to investigate whether there might be appraisal discrimination occurring.

One part of artist Harrison K. Smith’s project involved having a house appraised, first with the Black homeowner and then with a White stand-in. The appraisal came in higher for the stand-in.

The Fair Housing Partnership of Greater Pittsburgh (FHP) filed a housing discrimination complaint against the appraisal company, Ditio Inc., which conducted the first appraisal last year, after reading about Smith’s exhibit in the news. (The second appraiser wasn’t identified.) The Fair Housing Partnership found fault not only with the appraisal discrepancy, but also in the manner in which the appraisal was carried out.

[…]

Through HUD’s administrative complaint process, the FHP is hoping to change Ditio’s appraisal practices, and potentially open the door for broader policy changes across the industry down the road. FHP says HUD is investigating the complaint and is currently in a fact-finding stage.

You can read the article about the issues FHP has raised about the appraisal process.

Check out my March post about the details of Smith’s project if you weren’t already familiar with it. There are multiple parts and the appraisal stand-in is arguably the least interesting phase given that people in other communities have attempted the same thing.

The fact he talked a museum into taking out a mortgage on one of their properties to support another segment of the project seemed much more bold and far reaching to me.

Ushering Them Off With Great Fanfare

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I have read a fair number of articles about transitioning problematic board members off a board, but I have to credit Vu Le for laying out a relatively detailed process for accomplishing the task.  Le’s approach, which he terms the “Plaque and Sack,” requires essentially killing the board member with a ton of kindness.

I wouldn’t imagine it is 100% effective, but it is intended to help mitigate any negative repercussions that might result.  It is also meant to be used in extreme cases after much thought and consideration.

Basically, it involves identifying a high visibility event at which to honor the board member with an award for all they have contributed and accomplished, both with the organization and in the community.  The occasion should feel prestigious and significant and involve lionizing the honoree as a pillar, supported by a video montage of people likewise praising them as they retire from the board.

Le admits that perhaps the hardest part of the whole process might be swallowing anger and resentment while organizing the occasion.

9.Try to suppress your bitterness and resentment: I know it can be hard to watch someone get praised publicly when they have been terrible for the mission, but close your eyes to keep them from rolling, …

And that, my friends, is the art of the Plaque and Sack. Besides board members, it may work on difficult volunteers and donors. Again, do not deploy this lightly.

 

Asking “What Would You Like Future Attendees To Know?”

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I had planned to write about something different today but this post by Ruth Hartt on LinkedIn grabbed my attention.

Cain Lewis goes on to talk about how he doesn’t care about Airbnb:

So telling me ‘we’d love to know how it went’ doesn’t compel me to leave a review at all 😴

But I *do* care about helping other travellers like me find good experiences. And avoid the bad ones.

Because I appreciate reviews when I’m looking to book something too.

I’d bet most of their customers feel the same way.

So, here’s what I’d change it to:

‘Remember to leave a review for your Northwest Jeep Experience. Your feedback will help other travellers know what to expect!’

Less about Airbnb, more about supporting the community that I rely on so heavily myself.

This got my mind going because Hartt is right, this slight shift in perspective has wider implications. Many arts organizations send surveys after events so directing people to your social media pages when asking people to complete a survey aligns with the concept that their response will help other attendees. Asking people to complete a survey alone based on an appeal to help other visitors know what to expect will likely be met with skepticism.

Even though people may make negative comments on your social media pages, at least those comments are in a place you can see and know about rather than in places far outside your awareness.

Just the same, I think that the perspective of  your answers as a participant are making things better for the next person can be applied to surveys that only staff are likely to see.  Reframing survey questions in this context can communicate a sincere desire to improve the experience.

For example, instead of asking people how they would rank a performance, the service they received and restroom cleanliness on a Likert scale (1 being worst, 5 being best), questions can ask, “What would you like future attendees to know about our performances/ticket ordering experience/restrooms?

Obviously, it doesn’t have to be that exact syntax repeated for every question, but the general subtext can be present.  This line of questioning has “would you recommend us to your friends?” baked into it while adding a sense of “what do you wish you had known/read about us before you arrived?”

For repeat attendees, some of these questions will be a bit less relevant because they are familiar with your physical plant and how to navigate purchasing and attendance. But you can also get feedback about things a first time attendee might think was a one off mistake but a frequent visitor has noticed and wants to warn others about. i.e. “They will tell you they are having problems with X tonight, but it is always like that.”

I also think that asking questions in this manner with a sincere intent to remedy what you can, the first rule of surveying is never ask a question you aren’t willing to act upon, is that it will differentiate your organization from others. Perhaps it will even encourage people to respond to your surveys more frequently.

I know Americans for the Arts are making a strong national survey push over the next year, but their focus is very much on economic impact and asking you how much you spent before you leave the venue. Those who are frequent arts attendees are going to be asked to complete the survey often over the next year. It may be difficult for organizations to find people who are willing to complete their personal, non-AftA surveys, so asking questions focused on the interests of other attendees versus the organizational interest may make the difference.

Just as an added aside – the venue I am currently at will have alternating bursts of reviews for events on our Google profile and Facebook page. I have no idea what the common element is. Why did 10 attendees of a dance recital review us on Google, but a handful of attendees to another event flock to Facebook? Anyone have any insight based on what they have observed?

Visiting For The Gift Shop

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Whenever I have visited a museum that forces you to go through the gift shop before you can exit, I have viewed the design as a cynical cash grab. As I think about it, while I have frequently purchased gifts for others at museums, they weren’t institutions that forced you to exit through their retail spaces.

So it was with interest and curiosity that I read Colleen Dilenschneider’s post about the strong link between museum gift shops and museum memberships.  This is definitely not something I had considered before. If you have a gallery or museum type organization, take a close read of her piece because she includes a number of caveats about reading the results in a certain manner which I am definitely not going be able to accurately reflect here.

Dilenschneider suggests that museum retail may be a strong element in re-engaging with members and the community at large in the post-Covid next normal. Many lapsed members intend to renew next time they visit and members are 15% more likely to have first visited the museum for the gift shop than non-members. So the retail space may be what draws lapsed members back first.

One thing she mentions is that gifting objects from museum retail spaces are often closely tied to self-image.

Critically, we know that people believe that visiting a museum makes them better friends, neighbors, and parents. Purchasing an item from the gift shop can reinforce perceptions that someone is the type of person who supports their community by way of supporting an organization, purchases unique gifts for friends and family, and leaves their home to have educational experiences. This factor may be even stronger for members.

While she can not definitively say self-image is stronger motivator for members, data shows that members make purchases from museum gift shops in higher percentages than non-members and tend to spend more on those purchases than non-members.

The fact that they may get a discount is ranked relatively low in importance as membership benefit.

Members consider benefits such as supporting the organization, free admission, priority access, and positively impacting the museum’s mission significantly more important. Nearly a quarter of members are having a retail interaction. Instead of assuming they’re there for the discount, consider that those interactions can be an important touchpoint of engagement for strengthening this community of supporters.

On the question of “Are members important to retail or is retail important to members?” Dilenschneider says that there are myriad interrelated factors comprising the museum experience. People’s motivations shouldn’t reduced to a single simple question. Rather as she mentions in the last line quoted above, museums/galleries should focus on using the retail touchpoint to deepen relationships with members and an opportunity to potentially cultivate non-members into members.

While Dilenschneider provides examples of two museums that do encourage membership sign ups in their retail spaces, I suspect this might be accomplished in well-designed, soft-sell manner. I am just thinking about all the stories of people who attended a performance once and resented being barraged by phone calls and mailings about subscribing and donating.

So You Want To Name A Stadium…

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Via the Marginal Revolution blog I came across a piece analyzing the economics of stadium naming.   The basic conclusion was that if you see a corporation buying naming rights for a stadium, you should sell your stock because most of the time the company ends up under performing.

What got me to read through it was the promise that by the end  I would know:

How to decide whether a company you run or advise should buy the naming rights to a sports venue (e.g. high school stadium, college stadium, major league stadium, etc).

I was hoping there would be some differentiation between the benefits of sponsoring a high school or college stadium vs. major league stadium which might point to a possible benefit to a company for sponsoring performing arts venues and interior spaces. Unfortunately, the article only deals with major league stadiums and doesn’t cover college or high school at all. There is a promise of a more detailed analysis if you subscribe to the author’s newsletters.

Overall the analysis is interesting to read due to the context of why different company’s stocks under performed. Banks and financial institutions were bailed out by the US government. Energy companies profiled were involved with all sorts of scandals or were part of a sector that just broadly under performed.

There were two examples of companies that beat the overall trend and did better:  Qualcomm which stepped in when San Diego was desperate for funding to complete a stadium expansion. As a result, Qualcomm paid much, much less than they might otherwise have.

Target was the other example. Their deal apparently included additional enhancements that sponsorships generally don’t. Among them were appearances of NBA players at stores and potentially merchandise deals.

I have never really paid much attention to stadium naming news, but the insight the article provided about some of the arrangements and how beneficial it has been to the company stock† sheds light in an easily digestible format into an area which isn’t widely reported on.

†Since I frequently mention that not all measure of value are relevant, I feel I should point out that just because the stock for many of these companies didn’t do well doesn’t mean the naming arrangements weren’t valuable to the companies in other ways.

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