The Utah Symphony & Opera, which has faced mounting criticism in recent months from within its musician ranks and from others in the music industry for a perceived failure of management, has announced that it is on track to implement a financial recovery plan. “The organization had achieved 90 percent of its fundraising goals as of June 6 and ticket sales as of May 31 exceeded goals by $128,000, according to the report, which emerged from a task force set up by the US&O board to ensure recovery from operating deficits that followed the 2002 merger of Utah Symphony and Utah Opera.” The success of the plan is critical – the US&O had vowed to consider layoffs if revenue projections were not met.
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The Decline Of The Movie Audience Over Many Decades
“Whatever the box-office blips, the regular movie audience has been so decimated over the past 56 years that the habitual weekly adult moviegoer will soon qualify as an endangered species. In 1948, 90 million Americans—65 percent of the population—went to a movie house in an average week; in 2004, 30 million Americans—roughly 10 percent of the population—went to see a movie in an average week. What changed in the interval was that virtually every American family bought a TV set, and home entertainment largely replaced theater entertainment. More important than mere numbers, the nature of the audience changed in this secular decline.”
Dance USA (It’s Thriving)
“Dance in America is very much alive, and the competitive dance circuit – in which children as young as 6 strut their sequined stuff in jazz, hip-hop, tap and lyrical dance numbers at dozens of events across the nation – is among the most exhilarating and, some say, least artistic of its manifestations. The proliferation of competitions, which were sparse 30 years ago but now draw tens of thousands of participants, most between the ages of 10 and 16, has helped to fuel the growth of private dance studios and to raise the caliber of dance teachers and students.”
A West End Check Up – How To Keep It Healthy
London’s West End is doing well right now. But how to keep it thriving? How might it have to change to stay succesful in 20 years time? Herewith some strong opinions…
A Tax Break For Performing Arts Radio?
A proposal before the US Congress would give tax incentives to a commercial radio station that gave over its license to performing arts groups. “The Cultural Radio Tax Credit Act of 2005 (or HR 2904) was introduced June 15 and would provide a tax credit to the owner of a radio broadcasting station that “donates the license and other assets of said station to a nonprofit corporation for purposes of supporting nonprofit fine arts and performing arts organizations.”
Blockbuster In Perilous Times
“Blockbuster, with $6 billion in annual revenue, still dominates the movie-rental industry, but lately that business has been shrinking faster than Lindsay Lohan’s waistline. As DVDs have replaced VHS tapes, more Americans have shifted to buying movies instead of renting them—and most don’t buy them at Blockbuster. In 2003 U.S. movie rentals were an $8.2 billion business, but by 2009 that will shrink to $6.3 billion.” So what to do?
How Computers Decide Where You’ll Shop
Wondering how companies decide where to locate stores? Now computers decide. “High tech has given a new twist to the old real estate mantra: location, location, location. Ever wonder why sometimes you see two Starbucks coffee shops located within the same block — or right across the street from each other? It’s not by chance. Site selection has been fine-tuned to a digital art. A retailer can now closely analyze all of the sales information that it has to understand the lifestyles and preferences of its customers. Then, companies can combine that info with mapping and demographic software to decide whether it’s worthwhile to open a store at a given location.”
UK’s Australian Invasion
Why are Australians running some of the UK’s biggest arts institutions? “Little in their sunkissed insularity has equipped them for the ethnic and economic diversity of British arts and their focus is so short-term that only the most desperate of boards would, it seems to me, choose a second-string Aussie above a locally experienced, lifelong committed Brit. It makes no sense at all. More alarming still is the effect of their mass defection on the morale and infrastructure of Australian culture.”
What Have You Got Against The Neoromantics?
“Neoromanticism has almost always been regarded with suspicion by critics, even though it has been embraced by at least as many composers as has neoclassicism. (The second edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians devotes twice as much space to neoclassicism as to neoromanticism.) Is this because neoromantic music is inferior in quality? Or is it merely the last gasp of the same prejudice in favor of innovation for its own sake that once led avant-garde composers and their critical sympathizers to dismiss all tonal music as “useless”?”
The Cover With Two Books (Uh-Oh)
“Sometimes the photographs on book covers are not just similar, but exact duplicates. Rather than pay photographers’ day rates, most book designers turn to stock-photography agencies. Top agencies charge $1,200 to $1,500 a photograph, and twice that for exclusive rights, a premium publishers are loath to pay. That’s where the trouble starts.”