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Empathy In Hiking

November 26, 2025

by:

Joe Patti

Seth Godin made a post about empathy a few weeks ago that is somewhat apt for the upcoming holiday season.

Every hiker is intimately aware of their backpack. They picked it out, choosing from dozens of options. They know which straps are loose and which are digging into their skin. They can tell you if it’s lopsided, and what is in each pocket.

And yet…

Even after days on the trail, they probably couldn’t tell you a thing about anyone else’s backpack. Except, perhaps, that everyone else has one.

That’s the first step toward empathy: Realizing that everyone else has a backpack, and that it’s different from yours.

Source

I would also add that for an activity that is pretty stripped down from the accoutrement of our daily lives, there are a lot of rules to learn regarding hiking. It requires some empathy to realize new folks may not be aware of the rules.

Usually those descending yield to those ascending. Everyone yields to horse, bikes yield to hikers.

Carry out trash and waste. (You folks leaving the bags of dog poop on the side of the trail to “pick up on the return trip” aren’t fooling anyone)

If you are going any distance into the hills and mountains, put your cell phone in airplane mode so that the battery doesn’t run down as it seeks a signal. If you encounter an emergency and have to a hike to a place where there is a signal, you’ll be grateful you preserved the charge.

While people might not be able to tell you everything about someone else’s backpack, you can often spot if they struggling with the weight of the pack because the straps aren’t adjusted correctly. Being willing to give people tips about how to ease their burden is a way of welcoming people into the activity.

There was a time I pointed out a guy was wearing his ice spikes backwards that immediately led me to recall when a couple hikers gave me advice about the best spikes to buy as I was gingerly edging my way down a trail.

This can all metaphorically be applied to other parts of life because they are practical applications of decency in everyday life.

General Musings

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Apparently Construction Scaffolding Doesn’t Have To Be A Dark Maze

November 25, 2025

by:

Joe Patti

Maybe it is because I have had street construction occurring around my venue since February (reaching my block December 1!) but my interest was piqued when I saw a FastCompany article about the effort to redesign the scaffolding used on construction projects in New York City.

The goal is to make the structures, also called construction sheds, less obtrusive and overbearing for pedestrians and more attractive overall.

I have written about efforts to make construction zones more welcoming in order to maintain a welcoming environment and sense of ease of access so that people continue to patronize businesses in construction zone.

While New Yorkers seem undeterred by the never ending construction they are surrounded with on a daily basis, the design concepts would most certainly facilitate the experience of people in other cities.

I will admit I never considered that there might be alternatives to the boxy, dark passages that loom over the sidewalks of cities. There is obviously a need to protect passersby from falling debris and separate construction zones from the streets. As the article notes, the scaffolding is not only an obstacle for pedestrians to navigate, but they frequently block building entrances and limit where people can exit their cars.

Some of the designs submitted are much more open on the sides and above allowing light to better suffuse the space. One design is even stronger than current structures even with fewer cross bracing. Others accommodate the current placement of benches, street lights, public art, fire escapes and other structures maintaining safety features and avoiding the need to remove amenities and attractions.

For me this was a little more evidence of how creativity and utility can intersect to improve quality of life for communities.

Arts Facilities, Audience Relations, creativity

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Case For Gov’t Support Of House Concerts

November 24, 2025

by:

Joe Patti

FastCompany recently had a post by Matt Mandrella, the music officer for Huntsville, AL advocating for cities to support house concerts as a method for stimulating economic and creative vitality. According Mandrella, Huntsville has a handful of people who have set up their basements and garages to host concerts.

This raised a lot of questions in my mind about how the neighbors were impacted by traffic, parking, and possibly noise.

Mandrella said cities shouldn’t just be building amphitheaters (Huntsville has one), they should be supporting neighborhood level cultural infrastructure which are more fan and creator focused.

House shows fill a different and equally vital gap. They empower artists to control ticket prices and profit margins, bypassing bar-sales-driven venue models. They create peer networking opportunities and act as incubators for emerging talent, offering artists the chance to book, promote and manage shows on a small scale, thereby building skills that can scale to larger venues.

Most importantly, house shows democratize music, embedding it in communities instead of keeping it behind ticketing paywalls. In short, they rebalance the live music economy.

Source

He says among the things Huntsville is doing to support these small concert venues is helping people form LLCs in order to separate owners’ liability from their personal assets; advising on sound, lighting, and ticketing; having conversations about artist pay and sustainability.

And perhaps most importantly from the neighbors’ point of view – “Guiding artists through compliance with sound ordinances and neighborhood approvals.”

Mandrella also pitches vibrant house concert networks as a possible response to AI generated music in the sense that it creates local, accessible opportunities for people to connect with their neighbors and perhaps generate a sense of ownership and pride.

To some extent, this isn’t an entirely new idea. About 10 years ago I wrote about the PorchRokr Festival near Akron, OH where people hosted concerts on their porches. I subsequently became aware of other porch based concert series around the country. This is the first time I have read about a city intentionally working to create an infrastructure to support and encourage house concerts as a going concern.

Audience Relations, Building Public Will For Arts And Culture, Business Models, Government Relations, New Initiatives

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New UK Rules Prohibit Reselling Tickets Above Face Value

November 18, 2025

by:

Joe Patti

Rainer Glaap recently linked to a story about new legislation in the UK which will prohibit selling tickets for any amount above face value. (Apparently there was discussion about capping it at 130% of face value at one point.) Service fees on resales will be permitted, but there will be a cap on them to prevent them from becoming inflated.

There will also be rules against speculative sales where the reseller doesn’t actually have all the tickets they claim to possess.

Resellers will be prevented from listing more tickets than they could have legitimately purchased from the original point of sale under event-imposed limits. However, it’s unknown if promoters will be required to disclose the number of tickets held back from initial sale to promote a sense of scarcity.

Source

According to a corresponding article on The Guardian news site, resellers who make speculative sales are often banking on being able to buy tickets elsewhere for less than they are charging.

My venue has encountered a variation of this recently. Typically we might have a call about purchasing tickets on a reseller site once every six-eight weeks from people who are concerned their tickets aren’t valid.

But that number always escalates as the Christmas holidays approach. Last week we had three calls in a single day. One person wanted to change her seats to sit next to friends. However, the information she received was that her seats were in the back row of the balcony. We asked her to find out what her specific seats numbers were.

When she called back the next day with the seat numbers, we discovered those seats were purchased at 1:30 am that morning. In other words, the reseller didn’t purchase the tickets until after the buyer asked for the seat numbers.

We have also noticed that resellers are promising people seats in the back row of the balcony betting on the fact those seats will sell last. In some cases, purchasers end up being the only one in that row of 25 seats with four empty rows between them and the next group of audience members.

We take a lot of steps to make people aware of the correct website to visit. There is a mention in our monthly email newsletter. There is a poster in the ticketing lobby and rack cards people can take with them. We also have slides on our lobby monitors and the pre-show slide show in the theater. Plus I mention the issue in my curtain speeches.

Still there are many people who end up purchasing from the wrong websites while insisting they were on ours. We are in the process of assembling a list of warning signs to make new posters and slides in the hopes of doing a better job of making people aware of the websites masquerading as ours.

Arts in an Age of Technology, Audience Relations, Marketing/PR, Pricing

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