Who Gave You Your First Break? by Joe Patti

Tweets responding to UK based Arts Emergency's new campaign were filling my Twitter feed today. I have written about them a couple times before. They are essentially focused on cultivating t…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 9:54pm on October 13, 2021☆⚑

Composer Was A Rock Star Of Their Day? Rock Stars Aren't Even The Rock Stars Of Today by Joe Patti

I often read about classical music composers being the rock star of their day, but don't often get a lot of detail about what that meant. I just happened upon an article in Lapham's Quarterl…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 9:36pm on October 12, 2021☆⚑

Maybe The Cult Rules Aren't As Important As We Thought by Joe Patti

Seema Rao at Museum 2.0 shared notes from a session she conducted at the Museum Computer Network conference last week titled "Are Museums A Cult?" The answer, as I am sure you have anticipat…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 9:18pm on October 11, 2021☆⚑

Bach Is Raking It In On Spotify by Joe Patti

h/t to Alex Tabarrok who posted about a Classicfm.com story on how much money classical music composers would make from Spotify streams of their music. Using the estimate figure of $0.0037 (…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 7:36am on October 7, 2021☆⚑

An Orchestra Where You Don't Have To Read Music? Depends On Who Is Invited To Play by Joe Patti

H/T to Artsjournal.com which included an article about the Philadelphia Public Orchestra, (PPO) being billed as the World's First Public Orchestra. The way the article describes it, this is …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 7:24pm on October 6, 2021☆⚑

"Feels Like A Luxury To Feel Valued" by Joe Patti

Last month, NextCity had something of a preliminary update on the guaranteed income for artists programs in San Francisco, CA and St. Paul, MN I wrote about last April. Both programs started…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 12:42am on October 5, 2021☆⚑

Your Programming Is More Inclusive, But What About Giving Opportunities? by Joe Patti

Hat tip to Artsjournal.com which featured an article that seems to indicate it is better to diversify the donor base rather than continue to ask the same pool of donors to give more.  The…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 10:54am on September 30, 2021☆⚑

Do Me A Favor And Get The Word Out? by Joe Patti

Seth Godin recently made a post where he noted that while at one time asking someone for a favor involved a personal, one-to-one appeal, email lists and databases have made it easy to make a…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 4:36am on September 29, 2021☆⚑

How Much More Tolerance Left For Crushing Summer Internship As Career Starter by Joe Patti

When I was an undergraduate, and even after I graduated college, I applied to work at the Williamstown Theater Festival, one of the most prestigious summer theaters in the country. Recent re…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 10:18am on September 28, 2021☆⚑

I Wish I Was Going With You Approach To Customer Service by Joe Patti

This morning I attended a brand reveal for a Marriott hotel slated to open half a block from my venue in/around January. This particular collection of hotels is highly customized to the comm…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 2:32am on September 23, 2021☆⚑

Visitor Expectations Of Proof of Vaccination? " Not Yet, But Maybe Soon by Joe Patti

People working or closely aligned with arts organizations know that a central topic of conversation in recent weeks is whether to require proof of vaccination for audiences. Drew McManus has…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 8:18pm on September 22, 2021☆⚑

Advocacy Gameshow Is Now Documentary, But Will People Still Think Of Fundraising As A Competition? by Joe Patti

You may have seen last week that CBS quickly shifted directions when their planned show to pit activists against each other in a game show like competition drew extremely negative responses …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 7:54pm on September 21, 2021☆⚑

Enters Stage Right, Wearing Mask by Joe Patti

There have been a lot of stories about shows re-opening on Broadway and how important that is to the economy of NYC. While I haven't read everything single article, one that appeared on Bloo…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 5:42am on September 16, 2021☆⚑

There Is A Lot Of Grand Out There by Joe Patti

My day job is Executive Director of The Grand Opera House in Macon, GA.  Around the end of the 19th century and early part of the 20th century, it was vogue to name theaters as Grand Oper…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 11:32am on September 15, 2021☆⚑

When You Actually Want Your Sidewalk To Fall To Disrepair by Joe Patti

More great stories of artists being part of infrastructure projects, this time from a Next City article that came out last week. I have written about these type of projects before and one of…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 10:48pm on September 13, 2021☆⚑

Maybe I Should Have Held Out For A House, Too by Joe Patti

For Purpose Law Group posted the second installment of their "Nonprofits: What Not To Do," series yesterday. The first installment dealt with the infamous Indianapolis Museum of Art job post…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 9:06am on September 9, 2021☆⚑

Forgetting Artists Bring Value To The Art by Joe Patti

Last week, Sunil Iyengar is the NEA director of the Office of Research & Analysis, penned a piece aligned with the occasion of Labor Day, commenting that the value of art often subtracts…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 2:48am on September 8, 2021☆⚑

Sometimes You're The Wind, Sometimes You're The Weathervane by Joe Patti

Seth Godin made an interesting post that intersects somewhat with the questions arts organizations are having about putting content on digital platforms. Alas, I don't know that it provides …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 12:24am on September 1, 2021☆⚑

Gentrification Is For More Than Just City Neighborhoods by Joe Patti

Shelterforce posted a video and article about how the term gentrification manifests in different ways and thus doesn't always conform to the same definition in every community, leading to th…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 12:12pm on August 31, 2021☆⚑

Seats Are Open, But So Are The Doors For More Diverse Stories by Joe Patti

On Friday one of my colleagues at work is flying to NYC to see Springsteen on Broadway, the show that re-opened earlier than pretty much all the others. She purchased the tickets months ago …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 4:32pm on August 26, 2021☆⚑

Info You Can Use: Database of Performing Arts Venue Vax Policies by Joe Patti

Drew McManus has started a database of the different policies performing arts venues around the country have enacted.  He started it last Friday and announced the 100th entry this morning…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 9:54pm on August 24, 2021☆⚑

You Can Lead A Patron To The Door, But Only They Decide If They Feel Safe Stepping In by Joe Patti

As something of a dovetail to my post yesterday about Drew McManus' effort to compile a database of performing arts venue vaccination policies, (Drew reported a surge of new entries to the d…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 9:54pm on August 24, 2021☆⚑

Considering Appropriateness of Funding Set-Aside Practices by Joe Patti

Washington Post reported an interesting development in the Washington, D.C. arts and cultural environment last week. The D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities asked the D.C. Council to …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 1:48am on August 19, 2021☆⚑

Searching For The Unforced Substitute by Joe Patti

Via Artsjournal.com is a FastCompany article by Amy Globus whose thesis is that Covid-19 gave the arts world the kick in the butt required to motivate it to think about how to leverage digit…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 1:48am on August 19, 2021☆⚑

Oh Jellyfish, Where Is Thy Sting? by Joe Patti

Hat tip to Georgia Council for the Arts which posted a link to the Smithsonian article, Why Science Needs Art.  The article focuses largely on marine life, but the basic gist is that ther…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 1:03am on August 17, 2021☆⚑