Sales are slowing. Browse the official Ticketmaster website and you will see availability, pretty good availability, for midweek shows in January, and these are not resale inventory. They’re as yet unsold. They will be sold, by show time. But they won’t command the same prices and those weekly grosses will not be $3 million. It behooves “Hamilton” to leave with audiences still wanting more, leaving some room for a return by popular demand.
Author: Douglas McLennan
Report: Falling Below The Bottom Line? America’s Arts Organizations Struggle To Keep Up
The central question raised in this report is: “Are organizations bringing in enough revenue to cover their expenses?” Looking at unrestricted surplus (before depreciation), the average organization saw an unrestricted surplus of 2.1% of expenses in 2016. In the same year, overall operating bottom line (before depreciation) was 0.4% of expenses—virtually break-even. However, surpluses fell to a negative 4.2% when factoring in depreciation, meaning that the average organization is not reserving sufficient funds to repair and replace their fixed assets, which can lead to future challenges, particularly for organizations with high levels of fixed assets.
Could A Scheme Cooked Up For Cricket Coverage Work For Covering The Arts?
Despite the surge in peer-to-peer recommendation via social media, research by the National Theatre demonstrates that reviews by paid critics are still a key driver of ticket sales. If each network review persuaded its readers to buy as few as five £20 tickets for that show between them, an additional £75,000 would flow into theatre’s economy and the scheme would pay for itself.
The Creativity Construct
E. O. Wilson’s new book, “The Origins of Creativity,” is about the role of the humanities in an intellectual culture increasingly dominated by science. Wilson values the humanities, but he wants them to have closer ties to some of the sciences, an argument that draws on his view of the relationships between human biology, thought and culture.
Say Goodbye To PS122 (And Hello To A Bigger Ambition)
Jenny Schlenzka, Performance Space’s artistic and executive director, said the organization had decided “nothing would be too holy to be rethought.” The new name, she added, “is signaling an ambition to be relevant and accessible to all of New York.”
Museum Values V. Trump Values
Adrian Ellis: “Whatever the longer-term causes and effects, the current reality is that his agenda—and the values he is modelling, encouraging and appealing to in his electoral base—are starkly at odds with the values that most museums hold at their core. This is an unusual and increasingly uncomfortable experience for a museum community whose priorities and rhetoric have been—throughout my professional life, at least—broadly congruent with the prevailing values of society and echoed routinely, albeit sometimes too faintly, by our political leaders.”
How Did The High-Culture New Criterion Possibly Come To Embrace Trump?
Traditionally we think of decadence as an excess of self-consciousness; when irony and reflection come to dominate a culture, we are told its faith in itself has been sapped and it has not long to go. But as the conservative intellectual teaches us, it is the lack, rather than the surfeit, of self-reflection that is really fatal. Without it, erudition calcifies into ornament, and the act of thinking itself becomes a mere pretense.
Live-Streaming Broadway Makes Sense. But It’s Been REALLY Hard To Get There
In reality, much of Broadway’s success comes from a handful of breakout hits, while the majority of shows never turn a profit. Long-running favorites like The Lion King or Wicked may consistently attract tourists, but that doesn’t help the houses that either struggle to fill seats or aren’t reaching their full potential. Of the 32 or 33 shows listed the boards during a typical week, some may not even bring in half of their earning capacity. Streaming could fill in those gaps, the argument goes, by either helping to promote shows while they’re still running or offering producers a new revenue stream that exists long after the show is closed. Easier access to shows could also help democratize Broadway’s stubbornly homogenous audience–last season, 77% of ticket buyers were white, and most had an income of over $75,000 a year.
Are Trump’s Border Wall Prototypes Art? One Artist Is Running Sold-Out Tours
Tours depart from the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, stopping at the Instituto Municipal de Arte y Cultura in Tijuana before continuing on to the border wall prototypes. Büchel’s reasoning behind the project? “[The prototypes] need to be preserved because they can signify and change meaning through time.
As US Becomes Less Friendly To Foreigners, China Welcomes International Students
“For decades, the U.S. has been the No. 1 destination for international students seeking a foreign college or graduate school education. The U.K. has been second. But in recent years, China has suddenly appeared in the No. 3 slot, and Allan Goodman, president of the Institute of International Education, tells Axios that it is on track to overtake the U.K. and capture No. 2 this year.”