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Looks Like Streaming Is Here To Stay A Bit Longer

by:

Joe Patti

I saw on FastCompany that Live Nation is wiring some of their venues for livestreaming and wondered what, if any impact it may have on the way performing arts venues operate in the future.

This is potentially a brilliant business move, because not only will livestreaming repeatedly capture superfans who would happily spend an evening and $120-$600 on tickets, but it will increase access for fans whose towns and budgets do not align with tours. Perhaps more critically, it will reach the many (many) semi-fans who would not tromp through crowds to see Pink, but would totally pay $15-40 to project her onto their living room wall.

Here are some of the things this got me thinking-

Pretty much at every community in which I have worked, people will complain there is too much they want to participate going on at the same time and they wish organizations would coordinate their calendars. (Of course there is often an overlap with the people who say there is nothing to do in the community.) Am I going to be in a position where I not only have to worry about what is going on in immediate area, but also a big event 300 miles away that people who live in a 10 mile radius of my venue are staying home to see?

There is plenty of precedent for this in relation to college sports. I have frequently been advised not to program during home football games of universities 200 miles away, during NCAA finals and similar events. Now granted, I don’t have empirical evidence this is a factor since it is difficult to survey people who chose not to come, but these events are frequently cited as a reason for low attendance.

Another concern is that performers may see less of a need to tour so extensively if they feel live streaming is extending their reach to people who live in the spaces between major markets, but won’t travel that far to see the show. Touring isn’t cheap or easy so it isn’t inconceivable that performers will skip places that may have gone in the past, especially if any sort of formal or informal social distancing conventions persist in the coming years. That decision will rob many communities of the economic impact of those tours.

The negative impact of casinos showrooms on performing arts venues has been widely acknowledged due to their ability to pay performers extremely well and require non-compete clauses over a broad geographic radius. I am not sure that Live Nation venues would require similarly large radii given the appeal of livestream broadcasts are not geographically bound, but performers feeling satisfied they are reaching who they need to reach via livestream may inadvertently have the same effect.

Now granted, this last hypothesis while possible, may not manifest. If there is enough perceived demand in smaller markets, touring groups are likely to make more money with a live performance than they would from streaming it 200 miles away. In fact, the streaming may increase the interest in seeing the liveshow.

As with so many things, its the unanticipated impacts of trends for which one needs to remain alert. Even if you don’t see your operation as being on the same scale as those of Live Nation’s, the ripples may impact you just the same. I can see plenty of positive potential as well as other performers move to fill in the gaps and find themselves thriving.

Arts Facilities, Arts in an Age of Technology, Audience Relations, Working In The Arts

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Jigglers Were About Spending Time Together, But It Sold Alot of Jell-O

by:

Joe Patti

Economist Tyler Cowen had a rather extensive conversation with poet and former NEA Chair, Dana Gioia, on a plethora of topics. The one that most quickly grabbed me was right out of the gate when Cowen asks Gioia about his success at marketing Jell-O. He said it took him 2.5 years to conceptualize and then sell General Foods on Jell-o Jigglers which ended up reversing a 25 year downward trend and doubling sales overnight.

Gioia says that while General Foods was the best food company around in the 1950s, by the 1980s they were foundering because they didn’t know how to re-imagine their products. If you grew up in the 70s and 80s, you may remember that there were all these recipes that involved using Jell-O in intricate ways. (My family had one of their cookbooks and actually made a few.)

Gioia’s approach was to greatly simplify the use to re-imagine the product and make it relevant to consumers.

…rather than creating an elaborate recipe, which was what we were trying to sell people for 40 years, simply a way that you could add water with your kids, put it in the refrigerator and have it ready as a finger food in one hour.

…it was the way of using three times as much Jell-O for an occasion in which people would never use Jell-O, which is to make your own gummy bears. It became a mom-kid activity. We sold every box of Jell-O in the United States for several months.

When I read that, it made me think in the 1980s Gioia was basically doing what we in the arts have only just started to do recently –focus on how our product creates connection with family and friends.

Gioia also talks about how he brought a poet’s humanities based creativity to solve problems for a disciplined, data-driven corporation:

I was a poet, but I needed a job, so, I went to business school, I got an MBA, and I ended up in marketing at General Foods which is a highly analytic company with a very military organization. It was absolutely fantastic at managing existing businesses with a maximum of efficiency. What they were not good at was, in a sense, reconceptualizing a business that was in trouble, because they would simply try to do more or less of what they had done before.

…but with each promotion at General Foods, actually the particular skills I had, which was in a sense of — I’m very good at reconceptualizing things, taking a solution that people have had, breaking it apart, and creating a new solution. I essentially brought creativity that was completely in command of the numbers, if you can understand. That’s a very fairly rare combination, and I was able to transform several businesses there.

Definitely lessons in there for the arts and culture sector as they try to reconstitute and reinvent themselves in the coming years. Cowen and Gioia go on to talk about poetry, religion, opera (“What is opera except the suffering of people with high voices.”) among other things throughout the interview.

Audience Relations, Building Public Will For Arts And Culture, Management Philosophy, Marketing/PR, State of the Arts

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There Are A Lot Of Arts Jobs Being Advertised. Let’s Pay Attention To Who Is Getting Hired

by:

Joe Patti

Drew McManus tweeted today that he was two resumes submissions away from being able to launch the candidate resume feature on the Arts Admin Jobs site. So if you are looking for a job, or looking to hire, check the site out.

I am going to take this opportunity to raise a question that has been bouncing around my head for a number of months now– what is the state of employment in arts administration?

There has been a lot of conversation about the willingness of audiences to return to arts and cultural venues and events, but where do things stand with staff and creatives?

I am asking because I have been seeing a TON of employment listings just on a passive basis for every level of administration at organizations of various sizes. When I started to actively look at job sites to see where things stood, I was pretty flabbergasted to see how many screens I had to advance through just to review all the openings listed in the previous seven day period and so there were so many more listings after that.

Executive level positions seem to be over represented and there are surprising number at large institutions. It may be that once those jobs are filled there will be a surge in listings for lower level positions.

I am really curious to know what has happened to cause this. Yes, there is an increased sense of optimism which would lead organizations to staff up again, but why aren’t they hiring back laid off staff?

Have those furloughed staff chosen not to return/left the industry? Is there an attempt to take this opportunity to diversify the composition of staff and replace people to contributed to toxic work environments?

Have people on the executive level chosen to retire at this point? Is the financial outlook for the organization such that executive level staff don’t feel they are suited to revitalize it or operate under the constraints that will exist moving forward?

One thing that has become clear over the last year is that companies of all types need to examine how expectations have shifted. If people are used to running organizations that are imbued with a certain sense of grandeur and that is no longer possible financially or prudent if the organization wishes present itself as relevant in the community, these leaders may decide it is best to step aside in favor of another.

I would really love it if folks could share any insight they have about openings in their own organization or local community.

I also think that we should collectively pay attention to who is being hired into these positions.  Take a look at the job boards that serve your particular discipline and make note of the open positions and then in 6-9 months visit the websites of those places or seek out news stories to see who was hired and what ambitions the organization hoped they would achieve.

Working In The Arts

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What Impact Can Guaranteed Basic Income Have On Art?

by:

Joe Patti

In case you missed it, somethings to keep an eye on over the next two years or so are the guaranteed income program for artists that have been established in St. Paul and San Francisco.  The NY Times reported on these efforts today. In San Francisco, 130 artists will receive $1000 for the next six months from the city  In St. Paul, Springboard for the Arts will be providing $500 to 25 artists over the next 18 months.

An article on MinnPost has more details about the St. Paul program:

Springboard’s pilot program will provide direct, no-strings-attached cash support to artists affected by the pandemic. It will explore the impact of guaranteed income on artists, culture bearers and creative workers at a neighborhood level. And “it gives us the opportunity to demonstrate and advocate nationally that culture makers need to be included in the work to make our economy more equitable and just,” Springboard Executive Director Laura Zabel said in a statement.

Recipients will be selected at random from an eligible pool of artists who have received support from Springboard’s Emergency Relief Fund. At least 75 percent will be Black, Native and/or people of color.

Just last month the results studying the first year of Stockton, CA efforts at providing $500/month to 125 residents for 24 months were released. According to the NPR story,

Among the key findings outlined in a 25-page white paper are that the unconditional cash reduced the month-to-month income fluctuations that households face, increased recipients’ full-time employment by 12 percentage points and decreased their measurable feelings of anxiety and depression, compared with their control-group counterparts.

The study also found that by alleviating financial hardship, the guaranteed income created “new opportunities for self-determination, choice, goal-setting, and risk-taking.”

Obviously, it will be interesting to see what the results of providing creatives with a basic guaranteed income over a period of time. One obvious positive benefit would be if it encouraged the same risk-taking that it did with participants in Stockton’s program, though with artistic choices moreso than life decisions.

I am sure there will be some unanticipated outcomes as well. Stockton’s program was described as having a ripple effect because it general improved and removed pressure from the lives of those the income recipients depended for food and other necessities.

Art(ist) Education, Arts in an Age of Technology, State of the Arts

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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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