Author: Douglas McLennan

Huge Data Set On Audience Buying Behavior Released

There are now more than 600 organisations participating in Audience Finder, including “performing arts venues, touring companies, museums, galleries, festivals, outdoor arts and many other kinds of cultural organisations”. Their ticketing data has been gathered over the past seven years and dates back to 2011/12, although data from these early years is less comprehensive and accessible than more recently gathered information.

What Hollywood Could Learn From Success Of “Crazy Rich Asians”

Studios today gravitate more toward sequels and established franchises because they tend to be safer box-office bets. But audiences aren’t nearly as narrow-minded as the Hollywood development process might suggest. Time and again, films that appeal to a broader demographic range, or that belong to under-sung genres, sell many more tickets than predicted. Which is to say that multiple times every year, a film like Girls Trip, or Black Panther, or Crazy Rich Asians is dubbed a “surprise” success. But moving forward, industry experts—whether studios or box-office analysts—will have fewer reasons to be caught off guard.

Feeling Oppressed By Information Overload? There Are Historical Parallels

In the coming years, it may be that conversational, artificially intelligent assistants will become part of the answer, deciding whether or not to alert us to messages, helping us retrieve information and recommending items of interest. But figuring out book reviews, indexes and the rest took several centuries, so we shouldn’t expect an immediate solution. In the meantime we must endure information overload: the feeling that arises in the space of time between a sudden increase in the flow of information and the development of the tools to enable us to cope with it.

This Is A Critical Time For LA’s Museum Of Contemporary Art As New Director Steps In

There’s been a lack of clarity in terms of the museum’s vision for 20 years now—it’s time for a plan that moves the institution forward. There’s also a critical mass of institutions of high ambitions now that makes for a very challenging and competitive landscape—Lacma is more engaged with contemporary art than ever before, and the Hammer [Museum] is at its most energetic and creative.

Have We Locked Ourselves Into Funding Only The Same Old Arts And Institutions?

“In Australia,” she told me, “we continue to have the debate about whether putting the majority of our cultural subsidy into the same 30 or so companies for more than 30 years, to produce works for the same audiences, in same venues, often with the same artists, is a good idea. It raises the same level of disbelief as our recent ‘referendum’ on marriage equality or whether the country should boot out Her Maj as our head of state and become a republic.

Christie’s To Auction First Art By Artificial Intelligence

A canvas print of art collective Obvious’ (and GAN’s) creation will be included in Christie’s late October auction of Prints and Multiples, the New York-based auction house reports. It remains to be seen how bidders will react to the AI work, but Obvious remains optimistic, citing an estimated sale price of €7,000 to €10,000, or roughly $8,000 to $11,500.

Nashville Is Becoming A Serious Place For Jazz

A couple of years ago I did some recon at ground level, meeting with players like Spivey, guitarist Andy Reiss and saxophonists Jeff Coffin and Evan Cobb. Everybody told me the same thing: that Nashville has always nurtured a small but serious jazz culture, and that its constituency, like so much else in this booming city, is growing at a prodigious rate.