I hope your summer is going well and opportunities to enjoy all kinds of creative activities are presenting themselves. I have tried to find four recent articles or postings that can serve as conversation starters about managing the arts.<\/p>\n
First up is an interesting article about the cost of free when it comes to opening and running an art museum. Continuing on the free theme, I thought the article discussing two recent books on the music industry offered some valuable perspective about the dramatic changes that have occurred in the last 20 years. The Guardian article about the habits of theatergoes resonated with me, especially after having attended a session at the recent TCG National Conference (June 18-20) where the focus was on building and enhancing loyalty programs at regional theatres in America. Lastly, there is a book review of Curtains!<\/em> which offers a good overview of the key arguments Michael Kaiser put forth about challenges facing performing arts organizations over the next two decades.<\/p>\n Enjoy and feel free to comment on these and related arts management topics. Cheers.<\/p>\n Bill Byrnes<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Museums find they\u2019re scrambling to adapt their business models \u2014 with mixed results.<\/em><\/p>\n by Amy Langfield JUNE 1, 2015, 7:32 AM EDT, Fortune<\/em><\/p>\n When The Broad contemporary art museum opens its doors this fall in Los Angeles, it will join the ranks of America\u2019s big free museums, reviving a frequent refrain: Why aren\u2019t they all free? http:\/\/fortune.com\/2015\/06\/01\/free-museums\/<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Bob Stanley unpicks the recording industry\u2019s tangled history of takeovers, piracy and changing technology.<\/em><\/p>\n BY BOB STANLEY PUBLISHED 11 JUNE, 2015 \u2013 NewStatesman<\/em><\/p>\n If you had attended the Audio Engineering Society\u2019s Paris trade fair in February 1995, you would have encountered debates on architectural acoustics, audio signal processing and psychoacoustics. You would also have found a booth, unhailed and unloved in a corner, belonging to a German state-funded research team run by Karlheinz Brandenburg. His team of six scientists was seated at a small desk that presented a three-way vision for the future of music distribution: an encoder on a floppy disk for creating sound files, a home computer for playback and a hand-held player for portable listening. http:\/\/www.newstatesman.com\/culture\/2015\/06\/music-free-now-and-industry-only-has-itself-blame<\/p>\n Resource: Cowboys and Indies: the Epic History of the Record Industry<\/em> <\/p>\n We all know that theatregoing is a habit \u2013 the more you see, the more you want to see. But how do you encourage audiences to try new venues?<\/em><\/p>\n Lyn Gardner, June 19, 2015, Stage Theatre blog, The Guardian<\/em><\/p>\n Recent British Theatre Consortium research found that 2013 marked the first time that more new work was staged in UK theatres than revivals and classics. One of the lesser reported aspects of the research was the finding that 36 long-running shows, representing 2% of all performances, accounted for 45% of the total number of seats sold.<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/stage\/theatreblog\/2015\/jun\/19\/do-we-need-disloyalty-cards-for-theatre<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In his new book, former Kennedy Center impresario Michael Kaiser argues that the future of the arts lies with quality, subsidy, and daring\u2014all of which are in dangerously short supply.<\/em><\/p>\n BY MICHAEL BLOOM, June 18, 2015, American Theatre<\/em><\/p>\n There may be no one better suited to predicting the future of the arts in America than Michael Kaiser. Not only does he boast an extraordinary track record as the field\u2019s foremost turnaround artist; with the exception of his 13-year tenure at Kennedy Center, he has worked his magic in absurdly short bursts of time at institutions that present every major performing art form. So when Michael Kaiser speaks or writes, attention should be paid.<\/p>\n Curtains? is his forecast for a climate change every bit as alarming, in its own right, as Mother Earth\u2019s. In this monograph-long book, whose title announces the gravity of his project, Kaiser conjures a Darwinian future of haves and have-nots, winners\u2014and mostly losers. For Kaiser, today\u2019s storm clouds are the harbinger of a sharply divided cosmos and a great industry reset.<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.americantheatre.org\/2015\/06\/18\/the-performing-arts-headed-for-a-perfect-storm\/<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I hope your summer is going well and opportunities to enjoy all kinds of creative activities are presenting themselves. I have tried to find four recent articles or postings that can serve as conversation starters about managing the arts. First up is an interesting article about the cost of free when it comes to opening […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-portfolio"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9mams-kB","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/managementandthearts.com\/5e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/managementandthearts.com\/5e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/managementandthearts.com\/5e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/managementandthearts.com\/5e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/managementandthearts.com\/5e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1277"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/managementandthearts.com\/5e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1282,"href":"https:\/\/managementandthearts.com\/5e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1277\/revisions\/1282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/managementandthearts.com\/5e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/managementandthearts.com\/5e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/managementandthearts.com\/5e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Art museums find going free comes with a cost<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\nIn the case of The Broad, it\u2019s almost entirely philanthropy supporting the bottom line.<\/p>\nMusic is free now \u2013 and the industry only has itself to blame<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\nBrandenburg\u2019s team had come up with the idea for the MP3 nine years earlier and was now ready to market it to the music industry. Synthetic German funk came out of its home computer speakers. Delegates walked on by. One executive from Philips, the company that had created the then industry-standard compact disc, told it straight: \u201cThere will never be a commercial MP3 player.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nHow Music Got Free: What Happens When an Entire Generation Commits the Same Crime?<\/em>
\nStephen Witt, Bodley Head, 296pp, \u00a320 [US $31.50]<\/p>\n
\nGareth Murphy, Serpent\u2019s Tail, 400pp, \u00a314.99 [US $23.60]<\/p>\nDo we need disloyalty cards for theatre?<\/strong><\/h3>\n
The Performing Arts: Headed for a Perfect Storm?<\/strong><\/h3>\n