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Working In The Arts

Opening Doesn’t Provide The Opening Bands Hope For

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Interesting bit of research by Jeff Apruzzese who looked at whether opening for a major band on tour provided a bump in fame to launch them to stardom.

Apruzzese had been a live musician on tour with the group Passion Pit for about six years. In his experience, going from doing your own shows in from of 3000 people to opening for a band playing in front of 15,000+ felt a little alienating.

Reality was different. After playing our own packed shows where fans cheered and called for encores, we suddenly found ourselves in 15,000-capacity arenas, where it seemed like everyone was ignoring us: chatting among themselves, still getting to their seats or waiting in line for food and drinks.

It was a wake-up call. The transition from being a headliner at a smaller music venue to opener for a major act didn’t feel like a step forward. It felt like starting over.

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He conducted a study of bands who opened for major groups and found there was often a surge of listenership on streaming platforms of 18-20%, with some even seeing a 200% bump. However, that listenership often faded relatively quickly after the tour was over. Success that was promised by hitching ones wagon to a big star rarely emerges.

Apruzzese suggests that musicians face a more difficult job trying to gain a following because people aren’t invested in curating their own listening experience leaving the choices to an algorithm.

In a landscape defined by passive consumption, there’s still something powerful about the shared experience of live music. A performance can create an emotional connection that a stream simply can’t.

Today, discovery often starts with a playlist. Someone hears a song and maybe adds it to their rotation. But they rarely click to learn more about the artist. Listeners follow the playlist, not the person behind the music…

Live performances offer something different. A great set can turn a casual listener into a true fan. I’ve heard countless people say a particular show changed the way they experienced that artist’s music, that it left a lasting impression and forged a bond with the singer or group.

That kind of loyalty doesn’t come from an algorithm…

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Freakonomics For You Broadway Freaks

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For the last three weeks the Freakonomics radio podcast has run a three part series on the economics of live theater, Broadway shows in particular.

They are using the example of the effort to develop the show, 3 Summers of Lincoln, for Broadway as a backdrop for the discussion of all the forces that come into play when trying to make a show succeed.

My favorite, probably unsurprisingly, is the second episode that primarily focuses on the business side of things, including the role the owners of the Broadway house play.

For those who aren’t aware, 33 of the 41 Broadway theaters are owned by one of three companies –  the Shubert Organization, the Nederlander Organization, and A.T.G. Entertainment. So they have a lot of influence over what shows appear where and how large a share of the revenue they will take. As one Broadway producer says, “ It’s a fantastic business. It’s heads I win, tails you lose.” No matter whether the show does well or not, the house always wins because they get paid first.

Of course, they also talk about the labor costs of putting on a show when 13 different unions are involved. One of the producers admits that some of the more arcane rules in the union contracts are likely the result of someone trying to cut corners at some point and creating an unsafe or exploitative environment.

But all these things are predictable. Even after 100+ years of Broadway, the producers interviewed for the episode all pretty much admit that no one really has any idea why shows do well or not. Show that were smash hits in the past get big budget revivals and fail. Meanwhile, smaller budget off-Broadway shows become unexpected runaway hits.

Even as producer Hal Luftig talks about why people may decide not to see Broadway production of Legally Blonde, there is a clear sense that while his hypothesis has merit, he simply doesn’t really know.

Shows don’t work on Broadway for a whole host of reasons. it doesn’t have to be that the show is awful. You come to Broadway, let’s just say you have 30 other choices. What people choose can be a byproduct of where they are at that moment. We learned this on 

Legally Blonde. If you are coming into the city and you have two kids, a boy and a girl, invariably, the boy said, “Oh, I don’t want to see that. That’s a girl story.” So they choose another show that everyone’s happy with.

There are people who feel like I don’t need to see that on Broadway, I saw the movie — not really comprehending that a good adaptation has its own vocabulary. It’s not just the movie on stage. If a movie is associated with a star, as was Legally Blonde with Reese Witherspoon — “Well, is Reese in it? No? I’ll go see something else.”

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A core reason I liked this episode is that it did look at all levels of the life cycle of Broadway shows. Not only the original productions and revivals, but the economics of taking the show on the road for a tour and then licensing it to high schools to produce. Sometimes a show that failed economically on Broadway ends up doing pretty well on tour and/or generating a good revenue stream in high school productions.

One of the cases they mention is the Broadway adaptation of the movie Newsies! which was only intended to have a token run on Broadway for a few weeks to placate fans. It did well on Broadway because the production costs were kept low. It did well on tour because the Broadway set was designed to be taken on tour. And it has had a great career as a high school show because the cast requirements are flexible and scalable to the needs of schools.

You Put It On, You Can’t Write It Off

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Short, interesting piece on the INC magazine site on Tax Day about tax mistakes content creators and influencers make that has a bit of overlap for all creative and arts workers.

The first about realizing you are probably considered self-employed and need to be saving to pay taxes is pretty common and a tip I have heard given at conferences for decades. Early career artists have been overlooking that requirement for quite awhile.

Something I hadn’t known was that the IRS hold expenses related to personal appearance to a higher standard when it comes to writing them off as business expenses.

If creators ever wear clothes they bought for content on their own time, for example, they can’t write the expense off. Moore says creating separation is key here—which is why he advises a makeup artist client to store her personal and professional makeup in two different containers. That way, there’s no risk of personal and business uses overlapping.

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I know many actors and other performers who may have inadvertently been in violation of this. Especially since actors will often be asked to provide many of their costume pieces. You’ll want to write off the expense to at least get a little bit of financial relief…but you also don’t want to let perfectly good clothing go to waste by not wearing them after the show is over.

Similarly, if you were allowed to take clothing home after a show, corporate gig, movie filming, etc., you may need to report that as income in addition to whatever you may or may not have been paid.

Here’s something most content creators probably don’t know: Sometimes, you need to report brand trips and gifts to the IRS. Moore and Gallegos say it depends on whether you received a “true gift” as defined by the IRS. If you did something for the brand—like post a TikTok video—in exchange for the product or trip, it’s not a true gift. It’s taxable income instead.

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Strippers Organizing, But Not Unionizing In Minneapolis

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Earlier this month I saw a news piece about strippers in Minneapolis organizing to form a guild in that city. Stories about people organizing to take collective action and engage in bargaining in industry segments you might expect often catch my eye. I have written about the unionization efforts at a strip club in Los Angeles that saw people join the Actors Equity union.

What is interesting in this case is that while the dancers in LA were fighting against being improperly categorized as independent contractors, the members of the Minneapolis Stripper Guild, which has more than 200 members and counting, values the independent contractor status. In their view, it is the dancers customers are loyal to and not the clubs. They value being able to choose where and when they work.

Among the Stripper Guild’s top issues:

-Increasing advocacy among dancers, who are all independent contractors working largely for national strip club chains.
-Educating dancers about their rights under Minneapolis’ Adult Entertainment Ordinance, passed in 2019.
-Exploring ways to collectively purchase health insurance.

[…]

The guild deviates from the traditional union structure because strippers value their independent contractor status and don’t want to become employees of clubs, Snow said. The freedom that comes with being a contractor allows dancers — many of whom are managing various disabilities — choose their workload.

“We think it’s super important for stripping to stay accessible, because it’s one of the safest forms of sex work,” said Snow. “Anyone who is excluded from being able to work at the clubs, that means they’re just working in more marginalized, less safe spaces.”

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Securing collective health insurance is a big issue for the members. Because they are operating as independent contractors they can’t get employer provided coverage. Wearing high heels all night and performing athletic movements physically stresses their bodies leading many to seek massage and chiropractic care which they need to pay out of pocket.

Go Get My Guitar

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There is a lot of conversation among arts organizations these days about the need to create connection and show the value of arts organizations to the community. I worked with an artist this weekend who really exemplified this aesthetic.

We presented the Masters of Hawaiian Music which is typically George Kahumoku and a rotating roster of 2-3 other notable musicians from Hawaii. In this case it was Herb Ohta, Jr. and Sonny Lim. Kahumoku has been hosting the Maui Slack Key show for over 20 years and has been a musician for far longer than that. He was trained as a visual artist, but is also a farmer, cook, writer in addition to being a sculptor and printmaker. Definitely a renaissance man.

When I initially contracted the show, the local museum was planning having a quilt exhibition around the same time that was going to have 2 out of 20-30 quilts from Hawaii. Over the course of the year that evolved to 100% Hawaiian quilts. I arranged for Uncle George Kahumoku to speak about quilt making the night before the performance and then join the members of a local organization for a potluck and mini-cultural exchange.

The local organization said there would be 15-20 from their group at the talk and potluck and the museum didn’t know how many would attend from their mailing list.

We got to the museum and there were already 40-50 people gathered in the gallery. Uncle George turned around and told me to go back to his hotel room to get his guitar. He really enjoyed the experience because he had never seen so many Hawaiian quilts in one place. He would watch his grandmother and her friends make quilts for every newborn, but he had never seen one placed on a bed and used because they were treated as heirlooms.

He joked when he inherited his father’s quilt, his dad let him look at it and then closed the chest up a few minutes later and told him to never open it again. He didn’t mention if he gave his son the same instructions when he passed it on.

Later at the potluck, upon learning some students of hula came an hour to hear the museum talk, he made everyone move the tables and told them to dance while he played familiar songs on his guitar.

The next night, before the show he was out in the lobby greeting audience members and handing out slips to fill out to “win stuff.” The slips were obviously a way for him to collect address so he could contact people in different parts of the country to attend his shows when he was in the area. But he was also very much making himself available to the audience to chat with him rather than delegating this job to subordinates. (Okay, so he pressed me into helping him so maybe there was a little subordination going on.)

He was back out in the lobby at intermission with Ohta and Lim chatting with the audience. (I had to nudge them back on stage.) Then they were back immediately after the show until everyone left.

It is difficult to communicate the vibe and dynamic via text. His agent may have explained it best when she mentioned his instinct leans toward creating connections and socialization. She mentioned he was likely in his happy place at the museum talk and potluck more than even at the concert.

As much as he was trying to gather people’s contact information, his goal wasn’t to optimize that process. He started drawing names to give things away as soon as I introduced him rather than waiting until the end of the show and taking the opportunity to gather more names at intermission.

Also at some point he managed to collect the names of every staff member and volunteer in the building and acknowledged them all before the performance started. The morning after the public show, I got a long text from Uncle George telling me how much being able to see the quilts meant to him and how he would write about the experience in his memoirs. Again he praised our staff.

I knew by then that he was an exemplar of the level of sincerity and investment that arts organizations need to manifest in their interactions with their community.

Still Trusted, But Some Perceptual Barriers to Overcome

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In my post yesterday I briefly referenced research Colleen Dilenschneider and the folks at IMPACTS Experience have released showing that arts and cultural organizations have gained an increased perception of trust since the relaxing of pandemic restrictions.

Last month they released some updated data collected around the end of 2024 about the perceptions working with and against 11 different types of arts and cultural organizations.(subscription required)

They used the criteria of perception of being entertaining (recall audience definition is not your definition), educational, primarily for adults, welcoming to people like me, likelihood to recommend, being an asset to the community.

Generally, exhibit based organizations (zoos, botanical gardens, museums) are regarded as being entertaining. That isn’t as true for performance based organizations. (my emphasis)

Other than live theater, performing arts organizations are on the whole perceived to be less entertaining than exhibit-based organizations.

But before you panic, symphonies/orchestras and other performing arts organizations, remember that these data represent market research, which includes perceptions from people who both do and do not attend these types of organizations. Those who visit with regularity tend to rate the entertainment value more highly … This finding may represent one of those perceptual mismatches between “insiders” and the broader market, where regular attendees who are more familiar with the type of experience offered will likely find it more engaging than those who do not know what to expect…Seeking out opportunities to increase relevance and help potential attendees engage with experiences may offer a potential pathway forward for creative performing arts leaders.

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There is a similar result in terms of perceptions of being welcoming to people like me and likelihood to recommend. Live theater is perceived as being more welcoming and have a higher tendency to be recommended than orchestras and other performing arts organizations.

Interestingly, when it comes to perceptions of being assets to the community, live theater and orchestras are about on par with each other with other performing arts organizations trailing slightly. They attribute this to a mix of high level of trust performing arts and exhibit based organizations enjoy, perception of being educational, and existence as a venerable community institution (for longer established orgs, naturally.)

I am skipping over an immense amount of content they provide. I have almost completely omitted data for exhibit based organizations and probably could have written an entry three times as long based on the performing arts data alone. Additionally, after they provide a macro level view of these trends they drill down on each of the 11 organization types with a short description and infographic summarizing the perceptions that act as headwinds and tailwinds for each.

Communicating What You Are Good For Rather Than Good At More Important Than Ever

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Last month, Forbes website hosted an article “6 Things That Arts Leaders Should Do Right Now” It is written in the context of all the funding cuts and policy changes being promulgated on the federal level.

Except for the suggestion to emphasize the economic impact of your work in the community to garner the support of local businesses and community leaders, the advice is generally to move away from transactional relationships with the community and focus on your core cause and role in society.

Identify the role that your organization has in society.

Magladry, who advises a number of museums, recounted how many museum directors are reviewing the various role that museums can play in communities (e.g., truthteller, protagonist, convener) and how their institutions can act in these roles. This strategizing might require more collaboration between managers and board members as well as artists and community members.

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Many of these recommendations are echoed in Alex Sarian’s book, The Audacity of Relevance, … Sarian argues that arts leaders must ask themselves: What are we good for? rather than What are we good at? In order to answer those questions, arts organizations should have a viable value proposition that tells people why they might engage with the organization and choose its goods and services over other institutions in a clear expression of its plans to address their wants and needs.

Karen Brooks Hopkins, formerly president of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, suggests that arts organizations need to move away from thinking in terms of only philanthropy to thinking in terms of investment. “When communities that have a density of arts organizations are successful – economically, socially, and of course, artistically – then there is a reason for cities and municipalities of all kinds to make an ongoing financial commitment to them,”

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This recalls the research by Collen Dilenschneider and IMPACTS Experience that trust in cultural organizations has been growing since the Covid pandemic and underscores the value of positioning your organization as a community resource.

The also article emphasizes the importance of changing the internal culture and structure of the organization to be less siloed so that everyone is working collaboratively to achieve these goals.

Break down siloed work environments.

Adapting to new challenges will require more internal collaboration between departments and more partnerships with other organizations in finding ways to serve audiences and communities. Reaching out and being open to new ideas and approaches may result in finding new funding sources and new audiences for your work.

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Working Out Those Work From Home Arrangements

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If you have staff working from home or are considering moving in that direction, I recently made a post on ArtsHacker regarding some tips for creating a successful asynchronous work environment.

The post largely draws from some tips assembled by ArtsMidwest about different tools and approaches an organization can use.

As I write in the ArtsHacker post, you may find the tips

…overly structured for the informal work environment of arts and cultural organizations, but there are likely some situations in which a strong framework is useful. It is easier to discard what isn’t useful than to try to fabricate guidelines whole cloth.  

On the other hand, if it feels like things are being accomplished, but in a very much seat of your pants manner, implementing a structure can be helpful. It may feel like you have artificially imposed constraints on the work environment, but once people are able to internalize the process and begin to employ an effective shared shorthand the boundaries may dissolve into the background.

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Organizing For Work At Home Staffing

What To Say About Your DEI Efforts

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Yesterday someone posted a Harvard Business Review article on LinkedIn dealing with the topic of corporate DEI programs. The authors, Kenji Yoshino, David Glasgow, and Christina Joseph, state that such training programs hold a low legal risk provided they aren’t targeted at a specific group in a manner that creates a hostile work environment.

Public relations-wise it can be a different story depending on the community and customers you serve.

HOWEVER, statements about diversity, equity, and inclusion can carry legal risk if the say too much.

DEI communications create legal risk when a statement suggests that the organization engages in what we call the “three Ps” by conferring a preference on a protected group with respect to a palpable benefit.

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They caution against statements like: ““DEI uplifts historically disadvantaged groups to ensure equal outcomes,” because it suggests that some protected groups might be getting preferential treatment.

As alternatives, they suggest:

“DEI removes unfair barriers that prevent disadvantaged groups from competing on a level playing field.”

“Talent is everywhere but opportunity is not. DEI closes the gap.”

“DEI enables people of all identities and backgrounds to feel welcome and do their best work.”

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In respect to hiring and promotion, they write:

Another risky statement is “We use diversity hiring to recruit people from underrepresented racial and ethnic backgrounds.” This one could suggest the organization considers race or ethnicity in employment decisions …Alternatives include:

  • “We conduct outreach at diverse colleges to strive for a diverse applicant pool.”
  • “While we strive for a diverse mix of candidates, all employment decisions are made without regard to race, sex, or other protected characteristics.”
  • “We look for candidates of any background who will advance our culture of diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
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They also advise staying away from any language that identifies concrete hiring targets and instead use aspirational language referencing terms like aspire, strive, aim, and hope.

Much more specific detail on these and other topics in the article, including how to engage your communications team, if any of this is of concern.

Reducing The Crowd Doesn’t Increase Satisfaction By Itself

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Last week The Guardian had an article about people being so dissatisfied with their attendance experience at The Louvre, they were determined never to visit again.

It isn’t just the crowds, but also poor signage, flow of attendees and long waits despite holding timed admission tickets which upset people.

On Monday, a 74-year-old clinical psychologist from Paris, who said she had been a regular visitor to the Louvre for 40 years, exited the popular temporary exhibition, Figures of the Fool, feeling battered.

“I’m leaving in a state of extreme fatigue and I’ve vowed never to visit again,” she said, declining to give her name. “The noise is so unbearable under the glass pyramid; it’s like a public swimming pool. Even with a timed ticket, there’s an hour to wait outside. I can’t do it anymore. Museums are supposed to be fun, but it’s no fun anymore. There’s no pleasure in coming here anymore.

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A day earlier I had seen a piece on the NBC News site where French President Emmanuel Macron announced a major renovation to the aging museum facility which would include moving the Mona Lisa to a space “accessible independently of the rest of the museum.”

I am not sure if that means it would be permanently located in a separate space or if it is only temporary for the term of the renovation. Given that many people only visit The Louvre with the express intent of viewing the Mona Lisa and leaving, it may be wise to maintain that arrangement.

As I was reading these stories, I recalled that I had written a post about organizations discovering during the pandemic that visitor satisfaction increased when capacity restrictions were in place. I had remembered that Disney had decided to limit park attendance rather than go back to pre-pandemic levels in an attempt to preserve that level of customer satisfaction.

I had forgotten that the article I cited also mentioned the Louvre was scaling back admissions from 45,000/day to 30,000/day for the same reason. I had wondered if they had reverted to admitting larger numbers again, but upon re-reading the NBC News piece, apparently they had maintained the lower capacity numbers.

In 2021, des Cars became the first woman to head the Louvre, a symbol of French culture around the world. Since then, she has introduced several measures to make the museum more accessible, including a cap on visitors in 2023 to reduce overcrowding, extending opening hours, and pushing for the creation of a second main entrance.

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If they are admitting fewer people, have an additional entrance, and longer operating hours, I wonder if the dissatisfaction is more a matter of their timed ticketing being out of synch with the flow of people into and through the museum. Perhaps they aren’t spreading admissions out over a long enough period of time. (They may have extended hours, but people are still buying admission tickets during a super concentrated period of time and later hours are fairly easy to get.) Or perhaps as people say, the signage and directions are so poor, people are taking longer to move through the galleries once they are admitted and things get backed up.

It Takes A Village To Get Everyone To Take Vacation

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Another interesting research piece that Bill Byrnes included Management and the Arts was related to burn out in non-profit organizations. A brief excerpt recounting the efforts the behavioral design firm ideas42 embarked on in 2018 appeared on Behavioral Scientist website in September 2024.

What the ideas42 team found was that staffs were engaging in a lot of performative work activity. They would address tasks that were easy to tick off lists or engage in work that made them look busy. The result was that by the end of the day, they were just starting to address the big project they were supposed to be working on.

There is probably a lot in the article that reads like an argument for allowing work at home. Among the things that were slowing people down were calls, emails, and people just dropping by to chat. It took workers an average of 23 minutes, 15 seconds to reset and refocus on their work after being interrupted. Another issue was getting called into meeting that weren’t necessary.

Among the factors contributing to performative working was the mistaken impression that co-workers and supervisors were working as much, if not more, than themselves and they needed to keep up. In fact, others may have been taking lengthy breaks from work and were checking in hours later.

 At work, all people see are others working. When they see late-night emails or texts, they often assume that their coworker or boss has been working all day and night without interruption, when in fact they might have been walking the dog or having dinner with their families. That life outside work doesn’t register because they don’t see it. (Often people don’t want to share their lives outside work with coworkers and bosses to preserve the busyness myth that they’re always working.)

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The folks from ideas42 worked up a number of initiatives to shift the work culture of the organization. One of the things they found was that the interventions that worked least were focused on solving work-life balance issues for an individual whereas the ones that worked best were focused on solving the issues for the whole organization. Essentially, the work-life balance doesn’t get better for the individual if they perceive they are out of synch with the overall behavior of the whole.

Among the things they implemented were having supervisors model they behavior they wanted for the whole organization: visibly going to lunch, taking vacation time, talking about the time they are spending with family and friends. Eliminate the late night emails and texts. Similarly, the number of meetings and those needed to attend the meetings should be reduced.

People should be encouraged to schedule more slack time in their weeks to allow for the fact that tasks will take longer than expected. That way you don’t feel like you are behind because there is unscheduled time in which to make progress. Along the same lines, people were encouraged to schedule vacation months in advance when the future calendar is not cluttered with projects and meetings. Those scheduling time off a couple weeks in advance often try to do so around things already populating their calendars and will either take less time off or feel anxious about doing so and work from their vacation.

Along those lines one of the most interesting intervention ideas mentioned in the article was “vacation roulette.” Everyone that hadn’t taken vacation in a 90 day period would get a note copied to their supervisor listing their vacation balance and encouraging them to take time off.

They then sent them an invitation to take a random Monday or Friday off and signed the note, “From your vacation fairy godmother.” Often, the managers would encourage workers to take a break. 

[…]

….during the “vacation roulette” intervention—where managers were copied on an email encouraging employees with high vacation balances to take a day off—participating organizations saw a boost in days off for over 20 employees, and the highest rate of vacation taking for India-based employees in 5 years. 

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Not Creating Enough Of A Negative Impact To Be Worthwhile

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About a year ago, we were contacted by a company proposing we enter a contract to use their reusable cup service. They would deliver the cups, retrieve them from the special collection bins, wash them, and provide us with more. We were told that since each cup could be reused up to 40 times we would be removing a lot of material from the waste stream.

Last week we were told they were dropping us as a client because we weren’t using enough of their cups. Basically, they expect us to use five times as many cups. We were told “we recognize that we are not achieving the environmental objectives we are targeting with small groups.”

Our consumption rate wasn’t any mystery to them. Before we contract with them they provided us with an estimate of how many cups we would use in a year. We actually ended up surpassing that estimate in 6-7 months so we are using more of their product than expected.

The suggestion that they weren’t achieving their environmental objectives with smaller customers does recall the argument that home based recycling isn’t really contributing to saving the environment and that these sort of changes need to be made by larger entities in order to have any impact.

We started on this service based on the recommendations of other colleagues. I wonder how many of them may be dropped by the company as well.

The cancellation of the service is disappointing because we have done quite a bit of work to educate our audiences about the use of the cups. There are signs all over the venue encouraging people to return the cups to the special bins. We have the information on lobby slide shows and pre-show informational displays.

We even tasked a specific group of volunteers to help collect the cups at the end of the evening. Not only because people would tend to throw them out after placing them inside popcorn buckets, but also because they would insist on wanting to take the cups home despite the cup company’s efforts to make them as unattractive as possible.

Essentially, we were getting to a point where we were finally creating a culture and practice with our customers and volunteers and now it is going to appear we abandoned our commitment. To the volunteers’ credit they haven’t hesitated to diligently hover near the trashcans and help people sort their refuse. They have also been good about encouraging people to return to the cups to their special bins when they are selling food and drinks. There was an immediate investment on their part.

As the title of the post says, it is strange to be judged as not having enough of a negative impact on the environment to be worth a company’s efforts to help you avoid it.

Heist, Jailbreak, Ambush, Heartbreak, Revenge All In One Concerto

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I got to see a performance of The Rose of Sonora this weekend. It is a concerto in five scenes performed by Holly Mulcahy and composed by George S. Clinton.  I had first written about it around 3 years ago. 

One of the things that piqued my interest was that the piece tells the story of a heist, jail break, ambush, and revenge carried out by a female outlaw in 19th Century Territory of Arizona and had its own narrative and images meant to accompany the performance.

I was a little disappointed that the images weren’t used as part of the performance. That is likely because the composer was there to read each part live.

The composer did an interview with Symphony of the Rockies conductor, Devin Patrick Hughes, about his career. Brief explanation of Rose on Tiktok and longer interview here.

The Rose of Sonora was the last piece performed by the Symphony of the Rockies as part of a whole night of Western themed music. The program included music from The Magnificent Seven and The Good, The Bad, The Ugly; William Tell Overture, and “Hoedown” from Rodeo.

The whole orchestra was dressed in Western themed clothes. At one point 2/3 of the violin section was wearing their bandanas over their mouths. The conductor made a production of drawing his baton from a holster.

It should be noted that the concert was occurring in Denver on the night the Great Western Stock Show started. So it was all very much in theme.

It also bears mentioning that Holly grew up in greater Denver and got paid to perform with the Symphony of the Rockies as a teenager. During the Q&A after the concert a young violinist asked how Holly remained so calm and poised. Holly told her she would let us know in 20 years because not only did she perform before her friends and family, many of her teachers and mentors were in the audience that night so she felt a lot of pressure.

I overheard a lot of positive comments from people around me during Holly’s performance that weren’t made during the rest of the night so the piece seemed well-received.  During the Q&A I really wished there were a way to have gotten up and ask attendees what their thoughts were on having a bit of narration between movements since that doesn’t generally happen during orchestra performances.

The conductor had made some comments at the beginning of the evening suggesting Rose of Sonora would provide an opportunity to create a story in our minds. With the one-two sentence prompts provided at the start of each chapter, I wonder how vividly the story unfolded in each person’s mind’s eye as they listened to the music.

About a year ago Holly performed the Rose of Sonora on the other side of the state in Grand Junction, CO and apparently word of mouth saw a line around the block for the second night of performances.

As I drove home Saturday, I was wondering if that was a reaction to the quality of the piece or that the imagery/narration and topic made the experience accessible. Basically, was the audience for the second day aficionados or people who really want to try the orchestra experience but were intimidated and heard a great deal of the mystery was removed in this piece?

Thinking back to the post I made on Monday about storytelling notes next to visual art works helping people focus better on the work before them, would providing similar storytelling prompts with orchestra pieces help people enjoy the music more if they are able to provide their own mental video accompaniment? Many symphonies have started using video in conjunction with performances. But I wonder if people will feel the music is more relatable if they are creating their own narrative in response to an evocative prompt.

Storytelling Approach Bolsters Focus And Engagement

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Some research how adults and children focus on visual art pieces in different ways provides some insight into how to write and present introductory and educational information to children. Not only for visual art pieces but things to call attention to with performances and other types of experience.

In an article Francesco Walker, Assistant Professor in Psychology, Leiden University, wrote for The Conversation, he talks about using eye tracking technology to see what children focus on when given different types of descriptions/prompts in advance.

Walker cites some past research which had found that children tend to focus on bright colors and bold shapes in paintings. While adults viewing the same work will call upon existing knowledge and information and orient on other elements like brush strokes.

Walker and his colleagues conducted their study tracking eye motions around three works at Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. They watched how children age 10-12 interacted with the paintings after they had been provided with existing adult oriented explanatory labels, playful storytelling labels, or no labels at all.

What they found was that children who had been provided adult oriented labels interacted with the paintings in the same way as children who had not been provided any labels at all. Whereas children provided with the playful spent more time engaging with the work and were focused on specific areas.

The children provided with child-focused, narrative-driven labels engaged with the artworks in ways we did not see at all with those who read adult-focused descriptions. They directed their gaze towards key elements of the paintings highlighted by the playful descriptions, and spent more time examining them.

In contrast, the children who received adult-oriented explanations behaved in the same way as children who received no information at all. Their attention was scattered and unfocused.

Source

An example of the adult text:

The high vantage point of this painting turns it into a sampler of human – and animal – activity during a harsh winter. Hundreds of people are out on the ice, most of them for pleasure, others working out of dire necessity. Avercamp did not shy away from grim details: in the left foreground crows and a dog feast on the carcass of a horse that has frozen to death.

The child oriented text for the same painting

He could have painted me anywhere, but where am I? Right in the middle of the picture, with my snout on the ice! The spot where everyone can see me. A man in blue pants almost trips over me. Two girls next to me giggle at my clumsiness. But I won’t give up. I’ll get back on my feet and keep going. Before winter is over, I’ll be skating like a pro!

The article provides heat maps showing where attention focused based on the three content scenarios.

Walker suggests the results of their study suggest that art education classes should shift from textbook based classroom lessons toward a more storytelling mode. He notes that art history students find it difficult to connect with the art when the information is transmitted in lectures or via text book.

And by the way, the two studies I linked to in the previous sentence were studies conducted with undergraduate students, not grade school students so a storytelling approach can positively impact everyone’s experience and engagement

Vibing On Those Dance Steps

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An interesting intersection of art and technology I saw in an article in The Harvard Gazette where an assistant professor of bioengineering, Shriya Srinivasan, created a phone app which would allow audiences to feel dancers movement through a smartphone’s vibrations.

The app makes use of the haptic feedback tools built into smartphones. When you type/dial on your phone you may experience a small vibration which reinforces the fact you successfully depressed button. (Haptic is only related to touch. The artificial click you may hear as a confirmation is audible feedback.)

Because the vibrations on a phone can vary in intensity, Srinivasan’s app is able to convey a range of sensations to the viewer. Her inspiration for creating the app was her own artistic practice in bharata natyam Indian dance. She and her team developed sensors which are attached to the ankles of dancers which transmit a signal to the phone app.

Srinivasan says the technology has the potential to make dance performances more accessible for the lay viewer, as well as visually- or hearing-impaired people.

To make the haptic feedback stimuli convey the feel of the footwork, researchers set the vibrations to different intensity levels. Light, flowing movements were represented by vibrations targeting surface-level mechanoreceptors in the skin, while more intense, punchier movements penetrated to deeper skin layers,…

Source

They worked with Indian Classical Dance group Anubhava Dance Company to use the devices in a performance called Decoded Rhythms. PBS discussed the technology on their Nova program. I also found the following video the dance company posted which briefly discusses the use of the sensors in performance.

Springboard Into An Ice Rink?

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I have been a big fan of Springboard for the Arts and the work they do for a number of years. I look forward to their annual reports which have been depicted as infographics for the last decade or so.

They recently released the infographic for their 2024 annual report.

There is a short written annual report that accompanies this graphic which discusses the success of their programs. Among these were the expansion of their basic income program to include 100 artists for five years and their efforts to support the arts in rural locations which included supporting placemaking leaders in rural and Native Nations, hosting a Rural Futures summit, and expanding their Rural Regenerator Fellow program to include artists in Nebraska and Kansas.

Despite the claim that I could read the report to find out more about the programs depicted in the infographic, there was no mention of the 450 square foot mini-ice rink! You can’t tease us with such things and make no further mention of it!

A quick search turned up their Springboard on Ice page which lists some programs and open skate opportunities at the ice rink they set up at their new headquarters.

Seeking Outsider Staff With Outsider Ideas

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The last two days I have been covering some of the responses the National Endowment for the Arts received in the dozen listening sessions they conducted with theaters in spring and summer of 2024.

The full discussion can be found in their publication Defying Gravity Conversations with Leaders from Nonprofit Theater.

The overall theme of the responses seemed to be that theater leadership doesn’t have the education and training it needs to address the challenges it currently faces. This held true in the section regarding workforce.

Staff members have new expectations regarding their work environment. They are no longer willing to work long hours and flirt with mental and physical burn out. A number of theaters already began to move in this direction 2-3 years ago, but:

Multiple participants said that many theaters and other arts organizations are poorly run, and that this mismanagement exacts a considerable toll on theater workers and artists. As one way to address this need, listening session participants said they would like to see more training and education for new entrants or even those currently in the field.

Defying Gravity page 10

A number of participants discussed outsourcing some functions or exploring combining back office functions with other arts organizations. Because many people left the arts industry during and after the pandemic, many organizations are looking to hire people from outside the industry and are finding these new hires are bringing new perspectives and ideas. Similarly, theaters are exploring ways to lower barriers to entry for those that don’t have the economic means and network to support themselves through low paying jobs as they seek to develop a career.

One participant said, “We’re trying to get creative in terms of how we look at job descriptions and try to hire outside the industry and train people such as, like, expert project managers or data specialists to come into development or come into our production industry

Defying Gravity page 10

There was also recognition that those in mid- and advanced career positions need some form of continuing education program for their own career development.

One strategy mentioned was to extend accessible opportunities for professional growth across different theater roles through accreditation or certifications in specific areas of expertise. This could be achieved through theater service organizations focusing on theater development by providing support for “accreditation and professional development in a higher-skilled way

Defying Gravity

In that same vein, some participants suggested theaters could host training programs in their own communities to teach people the different tasks required to put on a show (i.e. costumes, lighting, set design, stage management, and technical direction).

I have actually tried to offer these sort of training modules in different communities in which I have worked, mostly focused toward community arts groups and renters who might be looking to improve the quality of their work and facilitate their preparation and planning process. With few exceptions I wasn’t able to get buy-in from the groups. 

Those that did avail themselves were mostly renters and only interested in specific areas. But let me tell you, things got a lot easier for both the organization and my staff once they started using what they had learned.

Need More Education And Time To Absorb It

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Today I am following on yesterdays post about the National Endowment for the Art’s report on a dozen listening sessions they conducted this past spring and summer, Defying Gravity: Conversations with Leaders from Nonprofit Theater.

Yesterday, I focused on theater leadership’s perception that they didn’t have enough time to digest research on promising practices* and a desire to have access to big thinkers on systemic change from outside the theater world.

The sense that theater managers were feeling lost and unsure about how to tackle the challenges they were facing seemed to be the subtext of the responses the listening session participants provided. On an individual basis, I am sure these professionals generally felt they are competent at their jobs and secure in the knowledge they possess. In aggregate the responses almost painted a picture of a group that is struggling and didn’t feel equal to the task.

While the image of a harried, overworked staff has been a stereotype for theaters for decades if not centuries, some of the quotes the report includes about needing to have good manners when speaking with donors doesn’t do theater professionals any favors. I hope it was taken out of context.

As one participant said, “We’re finding it difficult to keep up with foundations or our state agencies and what their requirements are in terms of changing what panelists are looking at.”

Similarly, there was a recognized need for financial consultative services in many topic areas. These areas included how best to use existing funds, how to become financially stable, and how to price services or tickets. “Perhaps an area of expertise that we’re struggling with is that we are quickly having to learn how to be a single ticket shop,” one participant said. Another remarked: “It would be nice to also get funding for support in terms of financial advisement.”

…“If you’re asking people for money, you … have to have the good manners to speak their language,” one participant noted, “that’s something that would be helpful … if you can help teach or give our organization resources on the language that you need to keep your donors and your boards happy.” This service might help theaters to become transparent about their financial needs and current fiscal standing and, therefore, to communicate more effectively with employees, donors, boards, and other funders.

….Participants proposed using technological tools such as AI, electronic tip jars, ticketing apps, management apps, and fundraising software to help theaters increase and manage their financial resources.

…“We want investment from the tech sector to fix this, one participant said. “I wish we could do better because it’s hard enough … even to get working internet in our theaters so people can check the QR codes that we’ve given them already.”

Defying Gravity, PDF pgs 8-9

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, there are already people addressing many of these issues but there is definitely a need for more robust and widespread education and resources on finances, ticket pricing, technology, communication, programming design and philosophy etc., in order to effectively respond to trends and expectations.

But again, as I suggested yesterday, does the availability of these resources do any good if those who might benefit most don’t feel they have the time and bandwidth (and money) to receive and use them?

*Want to give credit to Anika Tene from CreativeWest for introducing me to the term “promising practices” instead of best practices. Although it was a quick mention in a webinar she was leading, I immediately realized that the term relieves pressure on organizations to immediately implement new practices at the most effective level. Also, there is a suggestion in promising practices that these practices are not one size fits all organizations. They may be beneficial, but the value may not manifest in the same manner or degree for everyone.

NEA Report Suggests You Won’t Have Time To Read And Digest It

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This morning the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) released Defying Gravity: Conversations with Leaders from Nonprofit Theater. The result of the report are based on conversations during 12 virtual listening sessions the NEA conducted with non-profit theater staff in spring and summer 2024. The composition of each of the listening session cohorts may be found on PDF page 27 or in the image below.

Among them were freelance artists, journalists, Theaters for Young Audiences, Leadership Alumnae and Interim Managers, Black, Indigenous and Theaters of Color. Perhaps most interesting and most appropriate given the recent theater operating environment was a session composed of Recently Close Theaters. The report authors cite the responses of the recently closed theater participants with some frequency.

The image below gives a sense of the operational challenges focused on by each of the 12 listening session cohorts

The report is only 28 pages, but I intend to highlight different topics over a couple days to keep things bite size. I am also going to largely skip over discussion of issues that seem widely known like financial difficulties, diminishing donations and ticket sales for some more focused and nuanced observations. I encourage readers to take a look at the full report if they want deeper insight.

While I often encourage people to read research and highlight how short the document is and/or how easy a read it is, we all know that arts professionals rarely can find the time to do so. And that comes up in the NEA’s report:

One participant referenced a bandwidth issue, saying, “The ability to monitor, intake, synthesize, regurgitate, [and] present on data is just something that always moves to [the] sidelines.” Research investments should include supporting the personnel required to conduct and translate it.

Another type of investment is to bring in voices from outside the theater industry to help address larger issues facing organizations. One participant said, “I would love if there was a way to bring some brilliant systematic thinkers in … who are not involved necessarily in theater, but who are working with extreme systematic change.” This approach could afford theater organizations the opportunity to engage with a more objective, external view on how to address challenges.

Listening session participants wanted to know what is or has been successful for other non-theater art forms to see if those practices could transfer to theater. As one participant asked, “What are the opportunities that are seeing dramatic growth beyond our discipline? And what might this mean?”

Defying Gravity, PDF page 17

I almost feel like there is self-reinforcing vicious circle here because there are a number of people talking about systemic change from outside the arts using frameworks and terminologies that make the concepts relatable to arts professionals. But I am aware of these people because I read a lot of research and discussion where others haven’t created the bandwidth to do so.

Even if these arts insiders discussing these non-arts industry concepts aren’t able to provide the guidance for full extreme systemic change the listening session participants ultimately seek, they can probably provide a transitional frame of reference that would allow arts professionals to more effectively translate this change into theater practice.

Seems Like The Kitchener-Waterloo Musicians Deserve A LOT More Credit Than First Appeared

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A few weeks ago I wrote about how the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony appeared to have found a path to return to activity, albeit tenuous, after the musicians were blindsided by a bankruptcy announcement.

In my post last month, I cited the board chair as saying the musicians invested a lot of effort in helping to save the symphony.

But let me tell you, after reading an additional piece in The Globe and Mail, I think that may have been an understatement. From the account on the newspaper site, it sounds like not only did the musicians raise $500,000 to support the out of work musicians and put on their own concerts, they also did the research and formulated the plan through which the symphony could be restored.

{French horn player Kathy] Robertson and a group of other musicians began to wonder what was salvageable from the original orchestra. If very few potential creditors would get paid from bankruptcy proceedings given the multimillion-dollar shortfall, the musicians reckoned it wouldn’t affect creditors too greatly if they avoided bankruptcy entirely and still didn’t get paid.

So they went to the Canadian Federation of Musicians, who connected the musicians with lawyers – who in turn confirmed that if they could find a way to satisfy creditors, it might be possible to save the orchestra.

Source

New board members contributed expertise and represented the orchestra in negotiations with creditors, but it sounds like the musicians provided the impetus and significant amounts of sweat necessary to get things back to a tentative footing. I am not sure what the laws in Canada allow, but it seems like the new Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony should be constituted as something of an employee owned and operated entity.

United States Of Arts Participation

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In October the National Endowment for the Arts Quick Study podcast (transcript available) took a look at how arts participation broke down across the United States via data collected in 2022 by the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts.

What I found most interesting was how participation and attendance of different arts and cultural activities varied from state to state. While we might think of places like NYC as being a cultural center in the US, that isn’t necessarily the case. In fact, New York State’s numbers were lower than one might expect though NEA Director of Research and Analysis Sunil Iyengar partially attributed that to the fact there were still Covid restrictions on Broadway productions during 2022.

According to Iyengar,

…higher than average attendance was clocked by seven states. Utah, Vermont, Nebraska, North Dakota, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Per capita, Washington DC also drew more arts participation than most states

Utah, Vermont, and Nebraska vastly outstripped the national average for attending at least one live performance. Massachusetts exceeded the national average for art museum attendance and Vermont and DC exceeded the national average for overall museum attendance.

Nebraska, Wisconsin, and Montana had higher levels of people attending stage plays or musicals (school based performances were not counted). South Dakotans attended dance in higher levels than the rest of the nation.

When it came to music, Massachusetts was on top for classical music, DC turned out for jazz, New Mexico was triple the US average for Latin, Spanish, and salsa concerts.

Iyengar said the survey didn’t drill down on every performing arts discipline and used some catch-all categories. Indiana topped attendance in that category.

“…types we do not ask about on the survey, these may have been rock or pop concerts, rap or hip hop, or even comedy shows, circuses, or magic shows. That’s a kind of lump all category. We find that 37% of Indiana residents went to one of these types of events in the last year compared to 21% of adults in general. In Michigan, another Midwestern state, the rate was also high, 34%. And out East in Delaware, it was 35%.

Of course, someone has to generate all that creative content and the survey measured that as well:

…the states that did particularly well in terms of arts creation were Wisconsin, Maine, Montana, Vermont, Nebraska, Utah, Oregon, Washington State and Ohio. All these states had above average shares of residents who personally created or performed art…. Wisconsin, where the rate of arts creation in the course of a year was 73%, versus 52% of the U.S. as a whole. Wisconsin had an especially strong showing with people doing dance, taking photographs for artistic purposes and making visual art in general. And Maine, where 71% of people made their own art, included a lot of folks working with textiles, weaving, crocheting, quilting or doing needlepoint, knitting or sewing.

The full report, 50 States of Arts Participation: 2022, can be found on the National Endowment for the Arts website. There is a quick drop down menu to show some highlights for each state, but the report does a much better job of providing specific detail.

One of the things I take from the survey is the suspicion that many people down really perceive themselves as participating in artistic and creative practice. When I see that Hawaii pretty significantly is below the national average for participation in social or artistic dancing and playing a musical instrument, it doesn’t correspond with my experience living there where everyone seemed to at least dabble a little in both if not regularly perform or take instruction.

One Wicked Sing-A-Long Debate

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For the record, I am not on the side of singing along with the movie in the theater.

That said, I think it is to the theater world’s credit that there is a notable debate raging about whether people should be allowed to sing along during screenings of the movie based on the Broadway musical Wicked.

The movie is very much based on the musical since it is only part 1, though it isn’t advertised as such, and even as Part 1 has a longer running time than the original musical. According to some reviewers the movie doesn’t seem to drag even though it is being stretched out.

Part 2 will apparently contain new songs by composer Stephen Schwartz which may mitigate concerns about people singing along to some degree when that movie comes out.

One of the obvious solutions to the sing-a-long issue is for movie theaters to offer audience participation screenings and no audience participation screenings. After all the same issue came up about a year ago with the Taylor Swift concert movie where some fans felt like there was too much audience participation while others were upset that the next screening over seemed to be creating a more communal experience than they were having. If theater were paying attention the last time, they could proactively address those concerns for Wicked.

I should probably amend that first sentence of this post to say I am not on the side of a sing-a-long when I am not expecting that experience. I have definitely tried to license the sing-a-long version of Song of Music and have hosted a number of screenings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show where participation is expected.

As I said, I think it is great that the debate is occurring with Wicked because it will likely raise awareness about the Broadway show and perhaps generate curiosity about other Broadway shows.

Though stretching the story out across two movies creates a tenuous situation. If the extended version is boring and drags, that could reflect badly on the original show. (I’m looking at you movie adaptation of The Hobbit) If it is well received, it could create expectations that a Broadway show half the length (at least) can’t meet.

AI May Not Be The Best Tool For Writing Personnel Reviews

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We are constantly told about the hazards of inputting sensitive personal data into unsecure websites. That is pretty much what you are doing when you provide information to an AI bot and ask them to create something for you. For this reason there are some significant concerns associated with using AI to write annual reviews and evaluations. Anything you provide the AI is being used to train the AI to do a better job and has the possibility of being retrieved by third parties.

I recently had a post on ArtsHacker discussing these issues in greater detail. In that post I note using AI for annual reviews is a viable option as long as you steer clear of identifiable information like names, don’t reference things like medical conditions, or use discriminatory language related to protected classes like age, race, national origin, etc.

Dangers Of Using AI For Annual Reviews

 

Ephemera Becomes Increasingly Ephemeral

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Via Arts and Letters Daily is an article by Bailey Sincox about how theater tickets and programs, long regarded as ephemera are becoming increasingly ephemeral thanks to technology.

Tickets and programs had a life measured in terms of the dates of performance. Once the date had passed and the show run completed, tickets and programs had no value. Except in terms of a remembrance of time spent and a record of who contributed to the creation of the show. As Sincox writes, saving those tickets and programs as memorabilia has been practiced for 400-500 years.

But the move to digital delivery on tickets means there isn’t anything to save unless you specifically request to pick up tickets at will call or choose to print at home. Sincox notes that some ticketing services like TodayTix don’t deliver tickets to their app on your phone until 24 hours prior to the show time and then disappear at midnight of the show day.

As for programs, Covid saw an elimination in their use and the post-pandemic period has seen their diminished use as venues trend away from them. Even the vaunted Playbill program one gets at Broadway shows and other venues across the US was impacted as never before in its history:

Playbill’s presses ceased operations between March 2020 and August 2021 for the first time since the magazine’s 1884 founding. As Playbill’s editors reminded readers in the first postvaccine issue, the magazine had not stopped for two world wars, for Y2K, or for anything in between….After August 2021, many theaters made Playbill accessible via QR codes scanned in the lobby, much like the now-ubiquitous virtual restaurant menu

All this being said, Sincox observes near the end of the article that delivery of tickets and program content virtually still has its shortcomings. As a venue manager, I can attest that her struggles in retrieving her tickets on her phone is a common occurrence across the nation, if not the world. In the end, a good many attendees depend on the availability of the ticket office to print hard copies of their tickets so that they and their friends may share an enjoyable experience.

One Year Later Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Emerges From Bankruptcy

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A year ago I wrote about how the musicians of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony were blindsided by the organization declaring bankruptcy.  There had been no communication prior to the declaration indicating there were any financial concerns. Indeed, the symphony had negotiated a pay increase with the musicians a month earlier.

Last week there was news that the organization was emerging from bankruptcy.  From what I have read this seems to have been a result of creditors forgiving their debt rather than an immense fundraising campaign so the future of the organization remains to be seen. There will be a few concerts performed at a church to close out 2024.

A column in the Waterloo Regional Record cited the board chair, Bill Poole’s, belief that it may be some time before the organization returns to offering a full series of concerts with their former complement of musicians:

Poole acknowledges that the previous setup, in which 52 instrumental musicians were full-time employees, might not be deemed viable in the future. It isn’t clear yet what that working relationship will look like.

The musicians will have work, he said, and there will be concerts starting in early 2025 for which the symphony will pay them. But right now, the musicians don’t have steady jobs.

He can’t say if there will be a 2025-26 season that music lovers can subscribe to, nor if the concerts will happen at Centre in the Square, which was originally built for that orchestra.

Poole acknowledged there is a lot of trust to be earned back. I imagine that is the case with both the audience and the musicians. Though according to Poole, the musicians invested a lot of effort into helping to restore the orchestra to its current footing, precarious as it may be, including helping to recruit new board members.

The musicians raised nearly $500,000 Canadian through GoFundMe to produce their own series of concerts, support the unemployed musicians, and provide legal services.

NEA Starts Surveying About Loneliness & Social Support In Relation To Arts Participation

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The National Endowment for the Arts recently released the arts related results of the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey. Unlike the Survey on Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA) which asks people about their behavior across the previous 12 months, the Pulse Survey asks about people’s behavior in the previous 30 days. They say this provides greater detail of the rate at which people are engaging with arts related activities post-Covid. The Pulse survey was conducted between April – July 2024.

There is both a summary press release and a more detailed report available.

In addition to asking people how often they engaged in arts attendance and arts creation and their perception of the availability of arts and cultural amenities in their community, the Pulse Survey specifically asked new questions related to loneliness and social connection. The data shows the response of attendees, creators, non-attendees, and non-creators to questions about participation in social clubs/activities, phone conversations with family and friends, and spending time with family and friends.

I was somewhat perplexed that they did not address how age and other demographic factors may have impacted whether people spoke on the phone with family and friends as they did with other categories. They only broke down the results in terms of attendees vs non-attendees and creators vs. non-creators.

In terms of loneliness and social support, for the most part those that attended events experienced less loneliness than non-attendees and creators experienced it less than non-creators. Similarly, those who perceived themselves as having access to arts activities also felt loneliness less than those who perceived themselves as having low or no access.

However, there was a noted exception in the creator category:

Adults who created art were more likely to report experiencing loneliness “sometimes” or “rarely” (31.9 and 34.7 percent, respectively) than were those who had not created art (27.2 and 32.2 percent, respectively). However, at least some level of loneliness proved more familiar to creators of art than to non-creators. That is, 18.4 percent of those who created art in the last month reported “never” experiencing loneliness, versus 27.3 percent of those who did not create art.

There were somewhat similar results related to feeling social and emotional support. Those who attended or created art or those who felt they had high access to arts resources felt a greater level of support than those who didn’t attend, create or have access to resources.

Again there was a difference on the absolute end of the scale among creatives (my emphasis)

Adults who created art were more likely to say they usually received social support than those who did not create art (38.8 percent compared to 30.2 percent for non-creators “usually” receiving support). Arts creators were also less likely to say they never received support (4.1 percent versus 10.1 percent of non-creators). However, non-creators were more likely to say they “always” receive social and emotional support than were arts creators (28.8 percent of creators versus 24.6 percent of non-creators).

While I have some theories bumping around my head, I am not exactly sure what all the implications of that might be. On a very basically level of course, the creative act will always require a degree of loneliness associated with it. Even if you are in a large orchestra, there is a lot of time spent practicing alone. Even in a small music group the folks writing the words and lyrics may feel isolated from other members of the group. And the creative who hasn’t felt they don’t have social and emotional support for their endeavors are few indeed.

Numeracy Is An Important Skill In Data Driven Decision Making

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Museums As Progress sponsored a talk with John Falk today on a chapter from his upcoming book Leaning Into Value: Becoming a User-Focused Museum.

The chapter  addressed the value of data to museums, but I was obviously approaching it from the perspective of the value of data for all sorts of organizations. Falk mentioned many museums aren’t really clear about what to measure. They often don’t understand what data points matter most to their organization.

He acknowledged most institutions don’t have the resources to have a data focused team on staff or engage an entity to help them collect and manage their data. He felt there must be a collective effort through some of the larger museum service and advocacy institutions to collect some of this data. Though at the same time, individual entities must work on collecting data that is specifically relevant to their communities.

A person attending the session asked how organizations can survive and thrive executive leadership transitions. Falk’s response was that middle managers needed to identify the data that is most persuasive to leadership, not just colleagues and one’s self. He noted that the financial bottom line is often the most persuasive factor for executive leadership so you often have to show how your ideas and data will advance that concern.

This suggestion gave me a little pause because it felt like it reinforces short term goals over long term changes to culture that will have impact. One of the real issues facing both commercial and non-profit entities is the adoption of the flavor of the week. This also seemed to advocate for catering to the HiPPO in room (Highest Paid Person’s Opinion).

I am not sure that Falk was advocating for catering to the highest paid person’s opinion because the conversation soon turned to the need to break down internal organizational silos. People mentioned that often data is difficult to acquire because internal parties gatekeep access to it. Falk said that leadership is responsible for opening access to data across the organization both in the direction of top down, from the bottom up, and internal to each department pressing to de-silo that information. There is a need to share data and understand each other’s data.

When asked what the most desirable qualities of a museum leader were, Falk said it was a degree of numeracy. He said people didn’t need to be statisticians or a data wonk, but needed to at least appreciate the value of data in decision making. Ideally they should have some ability to analyze and employ data. Discussing an example from his book where someone thought the most important knowledge set for a museum executive was art history, Falk said you can hire people who know art history but as an executive leader you need to know how to work with data.

He also felt it was important for a leader to have the capacity and judgment to hire staff who possessed the people skills to serve an audience. Museum success is all about people after all so you need a staff which is adept at creating a welcoming environment for attendees.

As much as the conversation for the session revolved around data, Falk emphasized the value of co-creation with the community. He said you can build an exhibition designed to achieve certain learning objectives and it might meet those objectives. However, it is far, far, far better to go to the community and say we can create an exhibition around X subject or concept, what would you want this exhibit to help you learn about this subject? While this is much more time and labor intensive, Falk felt that the outcomes are far greater when the end user is involved with the co-creation.

I felt like this really dovetailed well with my post yesterday about the length and content of labels in museum exhibits. One of the final passages I quoted from the article mentioned that museum staff would observe how people interacted with labels and question them about whether they derived the information they wanted from the labels. I think that is probably a good practice regardless, but it might not be necessary to revise the labels so much if some of the target audience had provided input about desired outcomes of an exhibition.

It’s Not The Length Of The Label, Its The Quality Of The Content

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Ruth Hartt had reposted an Observer debating what sort of information and how much makes for a good museum label. It immediately occurred to me that this can be a tall order based on the fact that museum visitors may have different agenda every time they enter the doors. Thinking about the types of museum attendees discussed by John Falk, people may be coming to explore one day, facilitate friends and family another day, approach the experience through a more professional lens the next time, or just want to unwind and recharge.

My thoughts went to the Axios.com site which uses Zoom In, Zoom Out, and Go Deeper sub-heads in many of their articles. I thought that might be a good format so that people could decide how much detail they wanted about an object. However, there were people interviewed for the Observer article who not only thought less is more, in some cases they advocated that nothing is more.

 Ours is a literate culture rather than a visual one, and “there is a comfort in reading a label,” Gary Vikan, former director of the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, told Observer. “You are offered facts that are very relatable, whereas artworks themselves aren’t so easily contained. Labels are a left-brain experience, while art is experiential and not a test of knowledge. In my world, people wouldn’t need the damn label at all.”

[…]

“Every year, I take my students to the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, which doesn’t provide any labels for artworks on display,” James Pawelski, director of education at Penn’s Positive Psychology Center, told Observer. “There is no intermediary between the viewer and the art, so students have to deal directly with the art.” He is not opposed to labels per se, but like many others, Pawleski has something to say about the many museum placards he sees. “You don’t want the label to take away the mystery of the artwork, what makes it interesting and inspiring. That’s why I prefer labels that help people become immersed in a work of art.”

Some of those that do use labels engage in a lengthy creation and editing process that spans different departments, acknowledging that museum professionals are so close to their work they often use insider terminology or emphasize aspects that appeal to professionals rather than the lay person.

At Atlanta’s High Museum of Art, labels originate with a curator, “written with the assistance of curatorial research associates,” and are then passed to the Department of Museum Interpretation for a review of “clarity of narrative and messaging, tone of voice, reading level and word count,” Mekala Krishnan, the museum’s associate director of museum interpretation, told Observer. But they’re not done yet. “There is usually some back and forth between the curatorial and interpretation departments before it then gets passed to our editor, who is the final gatekeeper for formatting, spelling, grammar and punctuation, as well as for overall clarity….

Some institutions keep working on their labels even after they are installed, with staffers watching visitors as they move through galleries, timing how long they stand in front of any object and watching their eyes to see if they are reading more than looking. Visitors may be questioned about what they saw: “What did you take away from this exhibition?” or “What do you know now that you didn’t know before?” This is quite labor-intensive and expensive, but it may be the only way to know for certain if the label did its job.

The article goes much deeper into the nuance and considerations that factor into label design. There is a fair bit of overlap between the philosophy of what to include on museum labels and performer bios and performance notes for live events…not to mention promotional materials. It is worth reading the article even if you aren’t in the exhibit based world in order to gain something of a disinterested perspective you can apply to experiences you may offer to audiences.

Art On The Farm

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It has been a few years since I posted anything about the Wormfarm Institute  so I was happy to read a Hyperallergic post via Artsjournal.com about Wormfarm’s annual Farm/Art D’tour which occurred a couple weeks ago.

People can drive around the farm land of Wisconsin to see various art installations and performances staged in the fields. The whole circuit is about 50 miles. Among the performances this year were the Hay Rake Ballet choreographing the movements of three tractors. There is video in the Hyperallergic article. It appears there may have been a line dancing component involved as well based on a call for participants on the Wormfarm site.

According to the choreographer Sarah Butler,

“It’s not every day that these farmers are driving and doing pirouettes with the tractors,” said Butler in an interview with Hyperallergic. “But nothing I was asking them to do was something they don’t do every day. It was really cool to see these three guys who are total masters of their craft being celebrated by their own community, as well as people visiting who are coming to see the DTour … for things they do every day that are oftentimes not really recognized as art.”

The concept behind Farm/Art D’tour is to raise awareness of the process by which food reaches people’s table and diminish perceptions that farmers and farming are disconnected from art. Based on the experience of one of the farmers participating in Hay Rake Ballet, he and some of his friends and neighbors are beginning to see that connection:

While some farmers refused to take part and one even backed out during rehearsals, Enge said he and his two fellow performers were exhilarated. “Seeing the joy in the other drivers and in the crowd … it really touched me.” On the drive home one of the other farmers told Enge, “Hey, if they’re going to do it again, count me in.”

There are some good images of some of the other projects in the Hyperallergic piece and on Wormfarm’s Facebook page.

Now May Be The Best Time For A Story Circle

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At one of my previous positions, I had started a conversation with a local storytelling group about partnering on a curated storytelling series. This conversation happened a month before the outbreak of the pandemic. The series went on more or less as planned, albeit in a much larger space that allowed for social distancing. I credit that series with helping to breakdown perceptual barriers about our venue and who it as for and contributing to the further development of a relationship between under served segments of our community.

A couple weeks ago, Arts Midwest posted a piece about facilitating story circles by Ben Fink. I have written about Fink and the work he did at Appalshop in Whitesburg, KY a few years back. The Arts Midwest piece contains a guide for hosting a story circle, including a link to download the materials. In my former position, we hadn’t used the story circle format, but according to Fink the community can experience similar outcomes.

There are a number of rules for participation he outlines, but one of those appears to be key to the experience is:

And finally (this is important) everyone is asked not to share the story they think of when they hear the initial prompt (more on prompts below), but to listen carefully to the stories that come before theirs, and then to share a story that complements, complicates, contradicts, or otherwise responds to the stories they’ve heard so far.

Near the end Fink provides the following insight from his decade experience participating in story circles:

In a story circle, people who tend to dominate discussions learn to listen, knowing they’ll have their turn to speak and be heard; and people who tend to hold back find themselves speaking up, knowing that no one will interrupt or talk over them. At the end, when the group reflects together about the stories they’ve just heard, they inevitably discover elements of a “story in the center of the circle”–a story that they find, to their surprise, they all somehow share.

The rules and guidelines – and the facilitation guide makes a distinction between the two – are designed to achieve this sort of result where the garrulous listen and the introverted are allowed the space to speak.

Better To Adjust Price Vs. Discount

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Dave Wakeman’s appearance on Angela Meleca’s ARTS Redefined podcast was making the rounds of LinkedIn last week. One section in particular where Wakeman discussed his opposition to discounting caught my attention. (Starting at 27:10, the index in the video is way off for some reason)

Wakeman says people tell stories about themselves –what type of person they are, what value they have in the world. He says discounts do the exact opposite – it removes the value narrative and says you are a commodity and suggests you don’t believe in the value you are offering.

Wakeman recalls one of his marketing professors taught him that for every 1% you discount, you can lose up to 40% of your profit. Wakeman acknowledges it is an extreme example and the typical loss is around 10-11%. He cites additional research on the other side that shows for every 1% you raise your price, you gain 10-11% in profitability.

He says that the first time you discount, you might get good results but then people learn to wait for the discount. The better approach is to just recognize you set the price too high, change the price and continue with that new price.

Without naming names, Meleca gives Wakeman the example of an arts organization that makes all their tickets $11 with the expectation that people will enjoy the experience and come back again at a higher price.

This is clearly a reference to Opera Philadelphia’s  $11 pay what you want campaign that was introduced at the end of August. I suspect the podcast episode must have been recorded around then because Wakeman doesn’t seem aware of this and I am reasonably confident I saw him comment on the story in early September.

I will say that based on Opera Philadelphia reported ticket revenue being generally 13% of their revenue, I don’t necessarily think they were depending on people returning at a much higher price point in the future. Fundraising is probably at the core of their plan to stay in the black.

Interestingly, Wakeman brings up a “not going to name name’s” example of a sports team that did the same thing. He characterizes the belief that people will come back at a higher price as just stupid. He says it is much tougher to raise a price when you have lowered it.

He goes into detail about the approach of just changing the price and how to communicate it in a way that is positive for you. Announcing a whole new block of seats at $20 Vs  20% off ticket price is a more constructive framing. The discount raises questions about the value of the show and how it is selling.

That said, I want to point out you can only do that so much. There were a lot of concerts this past summer where people had purchased tickets at $300 or more several months out only to find them selling at around $50 dollars a couple weeks out from the show. Based on what I saw unfold on regional concert venues this summer, I am pretty sure some of that is attributable to 3rd parties buying up all the tickets, ratcheting the price,  and then trying to unload them when they wouldn’t sell.

Whether it was 3rd parties or the venue themselves, there were a lot of pissed off people making videos and comments on social media because their perception shifted from being smart for getting tickets early to being cheated of the hundreds or thousands of dollars difference between their purchase price and the current sale price.

Wakeman talks about this shift in perceived value in regard to discounting as well. He suggests having a strong data based process in place for price setting so that you have the best chance of creating an accurate price in the first place.

He says pegging it to the actual cost of presenting the show is bad because that often doesn’t align with perceived value.

Once you set the price, don’t be timid or apologize for it – promote it confidently and proudly.

 

90 Years Of Cultivating Community Around Flowers

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Last month, the Bloemencorso Zundert, caught my attention. It is the largest flower parade in the world held in Zundert, Netherlands. Twenty hamlets compete to have their parade float judged as the best. Apparently, they only use dahlias are used in the Zundert parade and six of the nearly eight million flowers are cultivated in Zundert. The parade started in 1936 with 17 hamlets. The other three have joined more recently.

The entire effort appears to be volunteer run from the cultivation of the flowers, to the design, to the assembly of the flowers just days before the parade. Not to mention the movement – the floats tend to be human powered. If you look closely at some of the videos below, you can see the feet of the people acting as the internal engines. The webpage for the event translates relatively well into English.

Being a Tolkien fan, a video of the Khazad-Dum float is what had initially caught my attention and led me to do some further investigation of the event.

However, that wasn’t the winner. It appears it didn’t rank well with the official judges, but took 2nd place in a vote for audience favorite.

This is the one that won:

Here are a few more that caught my eye.

Kickstarter CEO Say More Needs To Be Done To Support Participation In Arts

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The National Endowment for the Arts asked a number of different people to respond to the 2022 Surveys of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA).

One of those asked to respond was Everette Taylor, CEO of Kickstarter, a site that has essentially become the alternative to foundations, governments, and institutional funders as a funding source for creative projects.

He says a partnership with Skoll Foundation, Mellon Foundation, and Creative Capital to provide $700,000 in funding to 600 BIPOC creators helping them raise $11.7 million.

“In recent research, still unpublished, Kickstarter creators report earning $5.15 in additional revenue from each dollar raised on Kickstarter. That places the total estimated economic impact of the $700,000 fund at close to $70,000,000, a 100x return on that cultural investment.”

That data comes from one of his recommendations about making funding to creatives more accessible, especially for smaller scale projects. Part of that includes making it easier for people to apply with fewer strings and follow up reporting burden attached.

His second recommendation is about strengthening community among art makers by providing some infrastructure for creating networks and sharing work, and encouraging cross-pollination and collaboration.

His third recommendation referenced changing the definition of art making, including who gets to participate in making art. He lists all the projects that have been funded by Kickstarter highlighting the expansive storytelling techniques facilitated by books, tabletop games, roleplaying games receiving support. He points to these games as something of an underdeveloped framework for allowing more people to participate in a creative process.

He warns that AI is in a position to marginalize and supplant many of the burgeoning creatives who have only just begun to realize success through opportunities for funding that platforms like Kickstarter provides. There is something of an implication that as much as Kickstarter has done to help these artists, their capacity is still comparatively too narrow to provide the support and resources the creative community needs to succeed.

President Carter & The Arts

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In honor of former President Jimmy Carter’s 100th birthday, I thought I would share a piece that appeared in ArtsATL about Carter’s interaction and appreciation for the arts.

The article initially caught my attention due to its focus on Carter’s interactions with musicians who lived in Macon, GA where I had lived for a time:

In that interview, Carter mentioned that when he became governor, he got to know some of the people at Capricorn Records in Macon, Georgia — among them Otis Redding.

“It was they who began to meld the White and Black music industries, and that was quite a sociological change for the region. So as I began to travel around Georgia I made contact a few days every month or so with Capitol Records, just to stay in touch with people in the state, and got to know all the Allman Brothers, Dickey Betts and others. Later on, I met Charlie Daniels and the Marshall Tucker Band.” As time went on, Carter realized the importance of the arts and music to bringing people together, says Paige Alexander, CEO of the Carter Center.

Not everything he did as governor of Georgia was always pro-arts. During his tenure the State Arts Commission was eliminated and arts funding severely cut. Though by the end of his term in 1975, the funding increased from $128,000 to $183,000 ($1,069,256 today).

In 1973, apparently in the wake of the success of the movie Deliverance, he created the State Motion Picture & Television Advisory Commission in an effort to tout Georgia as a filming location. Not quite the movie I would be promoting as a good representation of the people and locations available in the state. But the state has become a very active filming location, especially in recent years.

Carter himself became interested in woodworking and painting when he was in the Navy and took it up more actively after his term as president. And, of course, he was active in wood working of another sort via Habitat for Humanity.

Adults Find Joy Returning To Ballet Without A Lot Of The Baggage

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Over the last decade or so, I have been pleased to periodically read articles about people taking up dance classes as adults. As someone who advocates for people to recognize they have the capacity to be creative, it is always encouraging to read that people are connecting to that aspect of themselves.

Though I feel like it is rare to see articles about people taking up their instruments, singing, acting, or visual arts practice again. We know it is happening, but maybe it isn’t deemed as news worthy?

In any case, the LA Times recently ran a piece about the trend of people returning to or picking up ballet in a pretty significant way.

Interest in adult ballet has increased by 75% over the last three to five years, according to Patti Ashby, U.S. National Director of Royal Academy of Dance, the primary ballet organization in the country that trains teachers and tracks national engagement with ballet. And the number of adult ballet summer intensive programs have nearly doubled since the pandemic, according to the weekly online ballet-centric magazine Pointe.

And as you might expect, there is an “adult ballet” TikTok trend which probably both reflects and cultivates this.

The trend is also alive and well on TikTok, where the popular hashtag “adult ballet” retrieves countless videos of women documenting their progress in the dance form. Professional ballerinas such as Mary Helen Bowers, with half a million followers on Instagram (@balletbeautiful), stream ballet-inspired workouts that focus on feeling beautiful while building strength.

An encouraging positive aspect accompanying this return to dance is that many participants aren’t experiencing the focus on ideal body standards associated with the dance form. Some of those interviewed expressed they had some anxiety in that regard prior to starting classes. Finding that the old stereotypes didn’t exist in these classes, they were free to enjoy the experience and focus on their practice.

Arts & Culture Orgs Still Important, The Basic Requisite Skills Have Changed

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Seth Godin recently wrote that while many professions are just as important as they were 30-50 years ago, the basic skills required for those professions have changed.  Pharmacists no longer have to mix their own medicines, opticians no longer have to grind lens, lawyers have templates from which to generate documents, graphic designers aren’t required to be skilled in drawing by hand.

He concludes with:

In your work, are you fighting the change or leading it?

It’s hard to see us going back.

I attended a webinar Ruth Hartt was delivering today where she made a similar point about audience expectations, noting that while everyone acknowledges audiences for arts and cultural activities are shrinking, programming and marketing still tends to center the tastes of the older, diminishing audience and donor base.

To some extent, while it is important to have programming that reflects a broader segment of the community you wish to serve, Aubrey Bergauer has often spoken about audience feedback that focused more on the language, images, and experiences being focused on the arts organization and their needs vs. externally focused externally on audience expectations and needs. She has mentioned very few comments are about the programming, compared to comments about promotional language “reading like inside baseball.”

These observations are much in-line with Ruth Hartt’s discussion of Clayton Christensen’s research indicating consumers respond best to language and images that tells them how the product fulfills a need they have or aligns with what is important to them.

Good Sign When Funders Reflect On Their Programs and Practices

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h/t Artsjournal.com which posted a story about the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council’s (GPAC) heartfelt admission that it hadn’t been an effective administrator of arts programs.

CEO Patrick Fisher — while acknowledging that his group has done much good over the years — writes that “regardless of intentions, the Arts Council has caused harm by being inconsistent, unresponsive, or culturally inept.”

[…]

Fisher said it has sometimes been through poor planning and management of initiatives like the Disabled Artists Creative Cohort and the Black Arts Action Committee. GPAC “over-promised and under-delivered” on these underfunded attempts to increase opportunities for disabled and Black artists and left behind disappointed constituencies, he said.

Other programs that initially served a purpose failed to change as needed. One, Fisher said, was Art on the Walls, which at first addressed a very real lack of exhibition opportunities for emerging and mid-career artists. But it also kept diverting resources from more urgent projects even after other opportunities for such artists emerged, he said.

Likewise, certain grant programs for local artists ran out of money, leaving artists in the lurch.

Last April I wrote about the group, Crappy Funding Practices, which has been calling attention to onerous requirements and problematic expectations that funding entities have for grantees. The ultimate goal has been nudge funders to engage in the sort of self-examination that GPAC has undertaken.

As far as I recall, GPAC hasn’t been a subject of a post by Crappy Funding Practices, but some of those mentioned by the group have revised their practices when it has been called to their attention. It is to their credit that the CEO and members of the arts council have engaged in a listening tour, solicited feedback, and made changing some of these practices part of their next strategic plan.

FTC Enforcing Penalties Against Misleading Reviews

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I have made a number of posts over the years on the practice of contextomy which is the practice of selectively editing quotes, often in connection with movie and show reviews, to make it appear reviewers enjoyed what they saw.

Or I should probably say that is the usual practice. Recently, the movie trailer for Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis created fake negative quotes to suggest the director has been underestimated in the past.

Entertainment lawyer Gordon Firemark recently called attention to new Federal Trade Commission rules (FTC) regarding the buying and selling of fake reviews and testimonials. While the rule has a relatively wide application, (unsurprisingly inaccurately excerpting movie critic reviews in ads is the first example listed as a violation), Firemark addresses it in regard to reviews for podcasts and similar content.

Firemark writes:

Creators who engage with these promoters or otherwise participate in the purchase of fake reviews are now squarely in the FTC’s crosshairs. The FTC has made it clear that ignorance is no defense; if you’re benefiting from fake reviews, even if you didn’t personally buy them, you could be held liable. This could result in hefty fines, legal action, and irreparable damage to your brand’s reputation.

He lists a number of practices podcasters can employ– mostly avoiding the temptation to buy reviews, vetting promoters, focusing on creating good content, and encouraging sincere reviews.

Gorgeous Mountain Vista Costs A Couple Hours Of Heavy Climbing

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Seth Godin recently made a post in which he stated the following:

The end of the trail is usually difficult, but without the long and winding approach, there isn’t much of a mountain.

The greatest hits reel and the stunning photographs leave out most of the hard work.

This aligns with a theme of many posts I have made over the years that creative expression is part of a lengthy development process rather than a lightning bolt moment–something that even artists themselves forget.

About a week ago, Haydn Corrodus posted this fun video from the Beamish Museum on LinkedIn

I appreciated Haydn making the following comment which acknowledges it takes time to achieve a level of virality, especially when employing modern slang with a deadpan delivery:

From looking at their page briefly, it seems like it was only a matter of time before one of their videos went viral.

They consistently post and get decent views.

@beamishmuseum

This is slay #genz #slay #demure #fyp #viral #genzlife #sweet

♬ original sound – Beamish Museum

National Dance and Theater Projects Sunsetting Soon

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There was some disappointing news a week or so ago when the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) announced the sunsetting after 28 years of the National Theater Project and National Dance Project due to a priority shift by the Mellon Foundation.

Across the course of my career, I availed myself of the opportunity to present dance companies supported by the National Dance Project. The support helped to cultivate an audience for dance in a couple communities in which I worked. The funding helped remove some of the risk inherent to introducing dance to communities who had low to no familiarity with the art form.

The deadline for the last phase of the National Theater Project is in October and the final iteration of the National Dance Project will be in Januar/February.

The preliminary application for the final NTP grant cycle in its current form opens on September 6, 2024, and closes on October 10, 2024.
The preliminary application for the final NDP grant cycle in its current form will open in January 2025.

The statement released by NEFA says the following about the Mellon Foundation priority shift:

…Mellon partners as they do the important work of aligning their resources to best serve social justice in the performing arts for future generations

My first impression was that they would be supporting internal capacity of arts organizations to be more equitable and inclusive along the lines of creating a better working environment by establishing fairer pay and work hours. But as I re-read the statement I realized it encompasses one of ten thousand different options. I guess we will see when Mellon chooses to clarify their new goals.

MN Guaranteed Income For Artists Pilot Phase Winds Down

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Hyperallergic wrote about the ending of the pilot phase of Springboard for the Arts’ Guaranteed Basic Income project last month.  I have been following the project since it was launched in 2021 as well as other efforts like it around the world.

Apparently I wasn’t paying close enough attention because I didn’t realize they have had more than one cohort of artists participating in separate 18 month phases. The groups in urban and rural Minnesota received $500/month to do with however they chose. All told, $675,000 was distributed through the program. This month Springboard for the Arts will host an art show compromised of the work of those supported by the project. The artists chosen for the show have received an additional $5000 to create a piece for the show.

There are teams from  Guaranteed Income Pilots Dashboard (GIPD) run by the Stanford Basic Income Lab, the University of Pennsylvania Center for Guaranteed Income Research, and the University of Tennessee who have been tracking what the artists have been spending the money on to get a better sense of how funds were being used. The funds were distributed via pre-paid debt cards which facilitated the tracking.

The GIPD studied Springboard’s guaranteed income program and found that artists used the cash primarily on retail purchases (35.94%), food and groceries (30.26%), and housing and utilities (10.04%).

According to figures Springboard provided to Hyperallergic, 70% of recipients were BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color), LGBTQ+, artists from rural areas, or artists with disabilities.

I will be interested to see if there is additional insight that emerges as they analyze and collect feedback about the pilot program. The value of these funds to the artists seemed best expressed in an article I quoted in an October 2021 blog entry during the pandemic (my emphasis):

Most importantly, the artists say, they feel valued after an incredibly difficult pandemic year. “I feel like people just don’t understand how hard [the pandemic] has hit artists — the arts just went away for over a year,” says Gamble. “It almost feels like a luxury to feel valued, because it usually feels like there’s never enough funds for artists.”

The Ole You Shouldn’t Expect To Be Paid For Having Fun Argument

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Andrew Taylor recently wrote on a topic I haven’t covered in some time – exploiting the passions of arts and cultural staff and creatives.  He points out that a lot of non-profits of all types frequently discuss the benefits they have provided which have elevated the status and experiences of customers and clientele while neglecting to provide the same treatment for their organizational staff.

To paraphrase blogger Adam Thurman who I cited many years ago, arts organizations can find it easy to use people’s passions against them.

As Taylor writes:

As it turns out, the passion-driven nature of arts work can be part of the problem. One study found that assumptions of passion and purpose in the workforce can “license poor and exploitative worker treatment” (Kim et al 2020). Across seven experiments and a meta-analysis, the authors found that:

…people do in fact deem poor worker treatment (e.g., asking employees to do demeaning tasks that are irrelevant to their job description, asking employees to work extra hours without pay) as more legitimate when workers are presumed to be “passionate” about their work.

This “legitimization of passion exploitation” flowed from two primary factors: assumptions that passionate workers would have volunteered for this work if given the chance, and beliefs that the work itself is its own reward. Either of those sound familiar?

As Taylor says, being told that you shouldn’t expect to be paid to have fun or for what you would have done anyway or even that you weren’t showing commitment to the cause are all things people in the arts have heard multiple times. And let’s not forget, needing to pay your dues when you are starting out.

Taylor cites five factors identified by the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard as essential. Those having the highest measure in all five are experiencing the most well-being. There are deeper explanations of each factor in Taylor’s piece, but in short they are: Happiness and Life Satisfaction; Mental and Physical Health; Meaning and Purpose; Character and Virtue; and Close Social Relationships.

I mention these in part to provide context for Taylor’s accompanying observation:

It may be surprising to learn that “Financial and Material Stability” is not considered a core domain, but rather a supporting variable that helps individuals maintain well-being in the other domains over time.

So in essence, proper level of remuneration can indeed help people buy/support happiness. I mean, you knew that, but it is good to see it backed by some data.

Taylor links to the Human Flourishing Program’s questionnaire to help people asset where they and their organization stand in helping staff flourish.

Other Considerations For No Phone Policies At A Performance

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The Conversation recently had an article by Will Shüler examining the strict enforcement of a no cameras policy at a theater production he attended. When he arrived, ushers put a sticker over the camera on his phone. The presence of the sticker was checked multiple times before he was seated and ushers patrolled the aisles to make sure no one removed the sticker and used their cameras during the performance.

This may sound particularly extreme until you learn the measures were taken due to the nudity of actor Kit Harrington in the London production of Jeremy O. Harris’ Slave Play.

Shuler suggests that if these measures were deemed necessary, perhaps the nudity should have been cut.

If policing the audience is necessary, perhaps the casting or the nudity needs reconsidering, otherwise both read as gimmicks. Additionally, the efforts made to protect the penis in the performance arguably point to an increasingly prudish attitude of nudity and sensuality in theatre.

It is understandable that a celebrity would want control over any images of their naked body, and in an age of social media sharing, theatre companies may feel compelled to overprotect actors appearing nude on stage. These leaked images are in contrast to the production of Ink at Sadler’s Wells, which printed images of (non-celebrity) performer Šuka Horn’s male nudity in the programme.

Shuler makes some points worth considering in arguing about nudity’s place in performances.

What occurred to me was that in the context of the increased use of intimacy coordinators in theater, film, and television, there is a need/desire for trust between the performers and audiences.  Nude performances have been around for decades now, but information about the experience was generally shared verbally and mentioning the context in which the nudity occurred. Whether you thought it was appropriate or not was discussed in relation to the performance. Actors may be willing to perform nude as long as that understanding of where and why the nudity exists is shared between themselves and the audience.

However, the use of phones to record that aspect of a performance allows video and still images to be distributed without any sort of reference to the context in which it appeared. It becomes a picture of someone naked for sake of displaying a naked image of them. There is already an issue of AI generated images of celebrities, colleagues, and classmates creating distress for the subjects of those images.

While there are probably some who will be bold and self-confident enough to say, “Might as well give them some accurate content to work off of,” I wonder how many who might otherwise be willing to appear in some state of undress are reluctant to do so due to the opportunity cell phones provide.

Cultural Institution And Daycare Pension Partnership

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A miscellaneous bit of interesting information – I recently saw a job posting for the executive director of the Cultural Institutions Retirement System (CIRS). I was totally unaware of the existence of an organization specifically dedicated to providing pension and other retirement benefits for cultural organizations. I assumed most cultural organizations arranged for retirement services independently of each other or that employees received these benefits through their union membership.

In fact, that may be largely the case outside of NYC where about 50 cultural institutions in the five boroughs of NYC, plus one in Newark, NJ participate in the retirement system. Most members are museums and gardens, but there are a few unions and organizations like American Parkinson Disease Assoc., Inc. and Animal Care & Control of NYC, Inc. who also participate.

More surprising however is that an additional 100 child care centers also offer their retirement benefits through CIRS.  The retirement system was started in 1962 by five museums, the child care centers started joining in 1964.

All in all, it seems like an interesting, though unexpected, alliance of organizational interests pooling their funds to provide retirement benefits to their members.

The Loud Part Of DEI May Be Passing, But The Goals Remain

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An article on Hyperallergic by Lise Ragbir observed that DEI hiring initiatives have started to wane in both the commercial and non-profit sector. There were a number of high profile, highly touted hires, a fair number of which were short lived due to lack of supportive infrastructure and culture.

I suspect and hope that while the overt and public efforts at DEI have faded from the news, there are organizations quietly working to advance these goals. Ragbir provides three suggestions for arts organization to employ which will generally contribute to the development of infrastructure and culture for all employees.

The first is to empower staff. The long term goal being the reduction of turn over by providing people with opportunities to take on responsibilities which feel meaningful. Though this may also mean increasing salaries as well, Ragbir notes that it often costs the organization twice as much to replace a good worker as paying them enough to retain them. Not replacing them at all can lead to increased employee dissatisfaction and departure.

The MMF data also suggests that one of the major sources of career dissatisfaction is a lack of opportunities for growth or career advancement. The report highlights the fact that “the path to promotion and seniority is long and uncertain, with an average tenure of 12 years in an institution before a promotion.” Now consider this: Entry-level workers, who make up the most diverse part of the museum workforce, are also on the longest track to promotion.

A second suggestion advocates for using interim leaders during times of transition to provide the breathing space to create more constructive policies and work culture before hiring a new permanent leader.

Jenni Kim has served in lead operating and administrative roles at major museums and cultural organizations, including MoMA PS1. In a recent email exchange, she and I discussed the value of interim leadership. Her take? “An interim leader can play the pivotal dual roles of 1) giving an organization time to find and transition to its next leader, and 2) handling immediate and short-term needs that clear the deck for the next leader.”

[…]

“A leadership transition will likely change an organization in a number of ways, planned or not,” Kim said . “So, it is a critical moment for the board to reflect and assess their readiness to support and invest in setting-up new and diverse leaders for success.” Because diverse perspectives will lead us closer to fulfilling those loud calls for change.

The third suggestion might be a little controversial – empowering and training board members to help with the process. There are a lot of executive level leaders in non-profits who would prefer to keep board members at something of a remove from the organizational operations out of concern they may engage in micro-management. However, as Ragbir notes, there are greater expectations for accountability for cultural non-profits so this level of involvement may not be something arts leaders can avoid.

She notes that there is a lot of education and training of board members to prepare them for this level of involvement, but doesn’t link to any resources. I suspect this type of effort is so new there aren’t a lot of examples and case studies from which to draw. There is going to be some degree of finding ones way.

Arts Can Still Be Part Of Your Identity Even After Practice Wanes

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About 10 years ago I wrote about a TED talk Jamie Bennett made where he noted it was easier for people to identify themselves with athletes based on sports they may have actively played years ago than it was to call themselves artists even if they were currently relatively active in creative pursuits.

In the context of that talk, I was encouraged to see an article from Salon where a woman confirmed she still considered herself a dancer even though she didn’t actively practice as much as she once did.

Janine Kovac writes:

Can I be in a traditional marriage and still have a husband who does all the grocery shopping and all the dishes? Because I do.

When I had kids, I knew I’d never go back to dancing. Am I still a ballet dancer? I think so. In our marriage, my husband and I make all our decisions together, and yet, I have no financial independence. Are we still equals? You bet.

She goes on to cite the example of Ingrid Silva and Celia Fushille who paused their careers to have families and then returned to dancing, choreography, and artistic direction of a dance company.

She also mentions she is on her way to Berlin with her daughter and her friend to attend a dance intensive program which is actually cheaper than attending a similar program near her home in the US. Like her, her friend:

My friend is also a former dancer and mother of three. In her world, she is the stable paycheck, and it is her partner who does the household logistics. Her job flies her to Barcelona and Munich, and in her spare time, she started a ballet photography company. Her life looks very different from mine but she too, has it all. Wife. Mother. Artist.

Whether they passed on their interest to their kids or their kids helped to keep it alive in their parents, it doesn’t matter. I am encouraged that people with any story about people who continue to feel connected with earlier artistic practice.

Obviously, a few examples is not indicative of a trend of a shift in sentiment. But I do think the opportunity and availability of seeing people outside your immediate social circle on social media, videos, etc who are not necessarily full-blown celebrated professions continuing to engage in creative and artistic practice in some way will help people feel that it is valid to maintain their own practice as part of their identity.

Economics Of Broadway Show Breaking Broadway Formula

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Freakanomics did a two part show about how the Broadway play Stereophonic came together. The first part is broadly about the 11 year creative process playwright David Adjmi went through to make the show. The second part focuses a bit more on the economics behind a Broadway show.

If you have been involved with the performing arts for any length of time, you can probably predict the process Adjmi underwent – cobbled together funds from two commissions and a grant, plus had two architects let him live in their house rent free for years while he wrote. He had to put some pressure on Playwrights Horizons to consider the show and the cost of over $1 million was a lot for an off-Broadway production.

But it became a hit based on essentially breaking the formula of Broadway shows – a straight play about music, but not a musical, no stars in the cast, and runs long at 3.25 hours. Apparently it has a strong appeal to men based on the observation the men’s restroom line is longer than the women’s.

There is a lot more to the story than that. The first episode is 70 minutes alone and the second about 55 minutes.

Being the arts management nerd I am, I was even more interested in the second episode which talked about the economics and decisions that were made. Everything from the cost of putting on a show in NY vs. London, who can and how to invest in shows in both cities, what the actors got paid off-Broadway vs. after the move to Broadway, decisions about pricing tickets, and the marketing mix they used.

In terms of the pricing tickets, the producers say they can now get up to $349 for a ticket though they re-evaluate their pricing three times a week, but they started out much lower during previews:

We had preview pricing that was $40, $80, $120 to start, for the month of April. But you have to catch up to it, because now we can get $229 for them. You kind of play a game of chicken with yourself and with your audience. For something like Stereophonic, because it’s an unknown title — obviously it’s getting more well-known — but two, it does not have a major mega-star in it. It has a group of incredible rising stars, but they’re not household names. The way that we get there is by getting people in the door, and really building to that moment.

Thanks to improved audience analytics tools, the producers have changed their marketing mix from what it once was as well:

Oh, it’s almost entirely all digital now. It’s all mobile. It’s all through Meta — it’s all through Instagram, Facebook. We do still take the traditional behavioral banner ads that follow you around the internet. We still do some prints, but not a ton. We have dabbled into television, but we’re taking specific ads. We’re not taking giant flights with multiple spots on Good Morning America or the Today Show, which was always your bread and butter.

[…]

The R.O.I. is much easier to figure out because you can actually track people. Our zip code reporting is way more sophisticated now than it was before, whereas you had to blanket the market with something and then you didn’t see a direct correlation. Now it’s less things, but you can still see how your wraps jump due to specific things of press, like a C.B.S. Sunday Morning piece, or if your stars are on Morning Joe. There are fewer things that give you that pop, but at least you know, “If I’m on Morning Joe, then we’re going to have a good day at the box office.”

If this sort of information interests you and you have the time, I recommend giving the pieces a listen. Host Stephen Dubner says they are working on a longer, more involved series on the economics of making theater so I am going to keep an eye out for that as well.

Smoke And Heat Becoming A Bigger Threat To Summer Theater Than Rain Storms

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American Theatre posted a really comprehensive article about the challenges summer theaters are facing.

In the wake of social unrest resulting from things like Covid, George Floyd, and Black Lives Matter, many theaters have worked to provide better working conditions for staff. Some of the changes have included shorter work hours, better pay, and childcare.

However, as expenses have gone up and philanthropic support has declined, these changes are raising increasingly difficult questions for summer theaters. Not that theaters haven’t always had a multitude of challenges to address. Staying committed to fair pay and fair hours has meant doing fewer shows, scaling back on customer service, or in one case, back office staff stepping in to sell popcorn when concessions staff exceed their hours in a week. There are concerns about whether having shorter rehearsal hours will result in lower quality performances and disappoint audiences who may be paying more for tickets than in the past.

In response to this some theaters are re-packaging their offerings for audiences. For some destination theater festivals, this may result in better experiences for audiences who felt there was more going on than they were able to experience.

Covid has continued to create consequences for these theaters. Not only have many experienced professionals left the industry, but the pandemic interrupted the continuity of training for younger professionals.

Bahr agreed, adding that “the supply chain of welders or people doing lighting is gone,” and that in Utah, the issue is deepened by the festival’s reliance on local college students, who missed several years of in-person learning. As carpenters and other skilled workers explained to him, seniors used to teach the juniors and they’d teach the sophomores, and so on, but “it’s like they’ve got four years of freshmen now.”

Climate change has also increasingly posed a challenge for summer theaters. In addition to dodging snakes and bears passing through the natural environment in which the theaters operate, forest fires and heat are becoming a central concern.

Oregon Shakespeare Festival artistic director Tim Bond noted that forest fires caused numerous cancellations in 2023:

“We had 10 cancellations last season,” he said, which is a serious financial hit. “We now have a ‘smoke team’ that monitors the smoke and the direction of the wind. They’ll know when the smoke will arrive, so sometimes we cancel even when audiences are seeing blue skies because we’ve gotten good at knowing when it will roll in.”

Utah Shakespearean Festival leadership said that smoke caused the cancellation of nine shows in 2022 resulting in a loss of $500,000.

American Theater Players in Spring Green, WI has had to cancel for heat and poor air quality and is having to budget to accommodate for increased number of refunds:

Young said that 2021 marked the first time American Players Theatre had to cancel outdoor productions in their 1,075-seat Hill Theatre for extreme heat. (Last year they lost performances due to poor air quality.) She said that while many audiences prefer matinees because they don’t want to drive at night, they increasingly have trouble sitting through them in extreme heat—weather that is also unsafe for actors. To compensate, APT is shifting outdoor matinees to late August, when it’s cooler in Wisconsin.

“We plan into our budget that we’re going to refund a certain number of tickets for weather,” she said, “but that number is getting higher, and we have to look at what it will be like in 10 years. Are we going to need a large indoor space to accommodate that shift?”

When Federal Funding Of Theater Equaled The Cost Of A Battleship

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Artsjournal.com posted an article from The Yale Review reviewing a book about the benefits the Federal Theatre Project (FTP) of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) brought to Depression Era United States.  In addition to discussing these benefits the book’s author, James Shapiro, relates efforts to dismantle FTP by conservatives as an early manifestation of the culture war we experience today.

After reading about all the activity the FTP engaged in across the country, the reviewer Charlie Tyson notes that the budget was “less than 1% of the total funds allocated for federal work relief, or about the cost to build a battleship. Tyson notes that the cost to build an air craft carrier today is around $13 billion and challenges readers to think about what arts organizations and artists could do with that sort of money today.

What was most interesting was reading about the wide scope of activities the Federal Theater Project and the related Federal Dance Theater Project engaged in. If there was ever a time in the history of the US when artistic activity was viewed as populist rather than elitist, it was during the period of 1935 and 1939 when these projects were actively creating works. The works created weren’t just lighthearted fare. There were challenging pieces on topics like poverty, housing, racism, labor relations, and inequality.

The Living Newspaper program of the FTP addressed these topics and focused some criticism upon lawmakers by quoting statements made in the Congressional Record.  It is probably no surprise that legislators who were already opposed to FDR’s New Deal programs targeted works drawing a great amounts of attention to the uncomfortable issues of the day.

The funds distributed to artists through FTP provided for a significant amount of community engagement. To a certain extent there are probably lessons to be drawn today from the activities of artists 90 years ago.  One of the things cited by Tyson was how closely tailored to a target community some of the shows were:

“Unlike Hollywood, which delivered the same products to everyone, the Project was nimble, sensitive to local variation. For example, shows were staged in Spanish in Miami and Tampa and in Yiddish in New York. The Project gave directors license to adjust performances to satisfy local tastes; audiences in different cities might see differing versions of the same play.

A string of early successes established the Federal Theatre’s rep­utation. Its first hit was a production of Macbeth in Harlem, staged by one of the program’s so-called Negro Units. (The Federal Theatre was, at the time, Harlem’s largest employer.) To direct the production, the organization tapped Orson Welles, at that time a virtually unknown twenty-year-old actor with no professional directorial experience. The Harlem Macbeth—commonly known as the Voodoo Macbeth—traded Scottish gloom for Caribbean exot­icism. Set in nineteenth-century Haiti with a large all-Black cast and filled, in Shapiro’s words, with “drumming and spectacle,” the production was a sensation. It moved from Harlem to Broadway and then embarked on a national tour with stops in the Jim Crow South. The play reached roughly 120,000 people.

Many of the shows were performed for free. There are apparently pictures of thousands of people filling parks to watch performances. (Though I imagine many performances also occurred indoors). In total, it was estimated “…thirty million Americans—roughly a quarter of the population—attended Federal Theatre productions.”

Toward the end of the piece Tyson notes that there have been recent calls for more federal funding of non-profit theaters and cites a criticism that theaters have only themselves to blame for producing works with themes criticizing the social and political environment. But Tyson notes that theatrical performances have a long history of containing social messages from Victorian melodramas pointing out the plight of the poor to the social commentary of Federal Theater Project works through to today.

Accountability Leadership

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Back in June there was an article on the Harvard Business Review site about 3 Ways to Compassionately Hold Your Team accountable.  The authors of the piece approach the topic from the cognitive processes associated with accountability. What appealed to me about the piece was the contrasting of punitive approaches with those that views an assignment as an opportunity for growth and acknowledges that mistakes are a part of that process.

Since the creative process involves generating, refining, and building upon multiple iterations, this seems an appropriate approach to apply to management and leadership practices in arts and cultural organizations.

The authors categorize these perceptions of accountability as “threatening” vs. “worthy challenge.”

Leaders should strive for the second type of accountability, as there is now significant research suggesting that encouraging a growth mindset accelerates individual performance, learning and adaptability, and overall well-being. And because growth-oriented accountability rewards employees for taking risks and encourages a growth mindset, it has knock-on benefits for team culture. In particular, it compels people to find solutions to the mistakes others have made rather than blaming or shaming them.

The three accountability methods they identify are: Think Ahead, Own Your Commitments, and Anchor on Solutions.

Think Ahead involves envisioning and communicating what success looks like to staff, including any difficulties staff may encounter. The example given in the article is a client that often interrupts to ask questions, but similar situations occur in arts and cultural environments in terms of details known about attendees, groups, board members, etc. The challenge to Thinking Ahead is being able to empathize with the person(s) being assigned the task. Not only in terms of what questions they may have on details you take for granted, but anticipating that they may be intimidated by a situation that wouldn’t ruffle you.

Own Your Commitments is essentially holding yourself to the same standard as employees and modeling the behavior for them rather than taking a “do as I say, not as I do approach.” The authors point out that if employees are held accountable for meeting certain benchmarks but their leaders are allowed slack, the dichotomy can cause all sorts of issues.

An arts organization related example that immediately comes to mind are policies like ticket changes, rental refunds, etc. Often it does fall to a leader to bend policies to accommodate certain people and situations. In those situations it is important to confirm that staff made the right decision with their initial refusal rather than blaming them for not knowing they were dealing with an important person and should have made an exception. The other approach is to explain why the decision to bend policy was made and either empower employees to make that decision themselves within that context or give them permission to pass the decision up the chain without repercussions.

Finally, Anchor on Solutions is essentially the practice of acknowledging errors and problems are part of becoming more skilled and productive. It is about reflecting, discussing, and seeking solutions rather than focusing on assigning blame.

Anchoring on solutions means letting go of blame and working to make things better. It means debriefing deeply on both wins and failures, and constantly seeking creative ways of solving problems instead of reasons for failure. Like owning your commitments, anchoring on solutions is a learnable skill that is heavily influenced by the actions of others around us. Therefore, leaders need to be intentional about focusing on the way forward, not on finding out whose fault it is.

Joe Patti's Musings on practical solutions for Arts Management

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