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Some Things To Consider Before Getting In To Performance Streaming

May 18, 2020

by:

Joe Patti

The challenges of Covid-19 raise for arts organizations has resulted in a number of valuable resources being produced. When I came across them, I am often torn between writing about them on this blog and creating a post for ArtsHacker. Since the latter is more specifically focused on resources for arts professionals, I often opt to write something up for that site.

Let me tell you, it often hurts me to make this decision because I am inevitably trying to find something to post about on Butts In The Seats and it means I gotta keep looking. But fortunately, I can point to the Arts Hacker article at a later time here.

That is a long way round of saying…I am going to be pointing you at a few ArtsHacker pieces I wrote over the next week or so, dear reader.

The most recent one is on the legal considerations for streaming content. I think I am pretty secure in saying that as revenue from live performance rights decline, organizations that administer performance rights are going to start paying closer attention to what is being performed in people’s living rooms.

The Alliance of Performing Arts Conferences issued a guide on The Legal Landscape of Live Streaming that covers a lot of the questions about livestreaming content as well as providing good information about what the pros and cons of different streaming services, depending on your goals and needs.

On the legal side, one of the first things you need to know is that your live performance license, whether it was for music, musicals, plays, etc doesn’t cover live streaming. Your live streaming license in turn doesn’t cover the rights to make a recording of your live stream available for later viewing. None of the above covers permission required from the content creators be they performers, designers, arrangers, etc., or the various unions that might be involved.

Since your streamed content is reaching a much larger audience than the room capacity of your venue, there may be profanity laws of other jurisdictions as well as intellectual property rights of any brands, logos, and trademarks which may appear to consider as well.

Check out my post and the guide for more info.

Legal Considerations For Live Streaming Performances

Arts in an Age of Technology, Info You Can Use, Legal Topics

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Marquee Messaging For Morale

May 13, 2020

by:

Joe Patti

A number of theaters around the country have started posting messages on their marquees to bolster the morale of their community. Here at my venue, we were trying to think of a message to post on our marquee so my marketing director did some research and gathered these images. I identified the ones I know or could figure out. I apologize for not knowing every place. I offer this as a bit of inspiration for other places that might want to do something similar.

I wanted to figure out messaging that was more tailored to our community. We discovered that Little Richard, who had been born here in Macon, had said “I love Macon. I love it better than anywhere I’ve ever been in my life,” so we came up with the following images. We had the images up on Friday, May 1 and then Little Richard died a week later which made the whole thing a little bittersweet for us.

The third screen about picking up the beat was something we developed in consultation with the local convention and visitors bureau.

Arts Facilities, Audience Relations, Marketing/PR, State of the Arts

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Creativity Is Not The Last Thing People Need

May 12, 2020

by:

Joe Patti

When I mentioned organizations addressing issues of health and safety in my post yesterday, I was thinking about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

Between high school and my first couple years of college, I felt like every class except for foreign language and mathematics brought Maslow’s hierarchy up as a way to open up a conversation about what motivates humans. If you aren’t familiar with the pyramid below, Maslow’s theory said that the lower needs on the pyramid below had to be satisfied before people could move on to higher concerns. So you need to be secure in physiological and safety needs before you can work on intimate relationships.

It should be noted that despite the popularity of this model, there is no scientific data to back it and studies have found that different cultures prioritize needs differently.

I mention these criticisms of Maslow’s hierarchy because it is easy to look at this pyramid and get the impression that creativity has to wait until all these other needs are met. This reinforces the idea that arts and culture are a luxury that should yield before all the necessities have been addressed. I think we all know there will always be something else that needs to be solved if you subscribe to that thinking.

I will confess that I engaged in that mode of thought at one time. I was elated by the idea that being able to engage in creativity was a sign that you were approaching your fullest self, but depressed when I realized you pretty much had to be independently wealthy if you were going to check-off all the lower levels in order to get to the peak.

I think the case can easily be made that creativity has an important role at lower levels of the pyramid. Shared creative activities contributes to belongingness. Social groups or clubs whether oriented around religion, service, sports or creative activities all create a sense of belonging.

So too does creativity contribute to the next level up, esteem. Feeling that you have mastered a technique or have enough of a grasp of the fundamentals to metaphorically start drawing outside the lines with confidence can bolster self-esteem.

Continuing to develop all your skills, be it creative, personal, emotional, professional, etc eventually leads you to self-actualization as defined by Maslow and others. However, creativity for its own sake, (as opposed in pursuit of securing safety and physiological needs), begins to factor in much earlier.

So don’t be fooled by this popular image into thinking that creative activities are the last thing that people need in their lives.

Art(ist) Education, Building Public Will For Arts And Culture, State of the Arts, Terms and Ideas, Working In The Arts

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Can’t Comp And Discount Your Way To An Audience

May 11, 2020

by:

Joe Patti

You may have seen the video message by Guthrie Theatre artistic director Joseph Haj last week where he laid out why the Guthrie wouldn’t be offering their content virtually as other places had chosen to do. Instead, they will be producing three shows from March through August 2021.

In the video, he makes the case for the value of live performance based on the shared experience. Apparently there was a study in 2017 that showed audiences hearts beat in unison during live performances which generates a sense of trust and empathy you don’t experience when watching a video. (You also don’t get footnotes. I would really be interested in learning more about that study.)

I don’t know about you, but last week I started having a hard time remaining focused on Zoom sessions that were providing content that was of great importance and interest to me and my organization. Lord help me if I had pets or children around to distract me as well. Trying to deliver educational content is likewise experiencing problems with participation and retention of information.

Granted, the fact that people are trying to use a virtual platform in the same way they conduct face to face meetings is probably to blame for this disconnection. In the future we may see presentation techniques and technological features that will make the experience more valuable. Think about the fact that the first motorized vehicles literally were horseless carriages because that was the dominant mode of transportation at the time. There has been quite a bit of refinement since then in terms of design and use.

The biggest cause for concern should be that human contact and empathy is what will be refined away as the virtual delivery experience improves. While there is definitely a romance to horse based transportation and the internal combustion engine has created environment pollution problems, I don’t think there were concerns that traveling swiftly and smoothly in an environment of improved climate control was going to undermine societal bonds. (Though certainly, it may have eroded the human-equine relationship.)

If anything, the challenges of these times is probably going to really clarify where the true value of the arts resides. It is going to be the relationships that organizations build with their audiences that will bring them back. Once organizations answer the questions of health and safety, the opportunity to share an experience with others is going to be the compelling appeal, not discounts and comps. It is going to be important to listen and pay attention to what people expect of their experience. The expectations probably won’t be exactly the same as they were in January. The demographics of those most interested in inhabiting spaces and participating in activities may be quite different as well.