French arts workers, angry about a reduction in their work benefits, are staging strikes, threatening major summer arts festivals. “The first three days of a July opera festival in the southern city of Aix-en-Provence have already been pushed back, with director Stephane Lissner warning that the entire three-week event could be in jeopardy. Also at risk is the Festival d’Avignon, one of Europe’s most prestigious drama festivals due to begin on July 8. The event drew 98,000 theater-lovers last year, according to culture ministry figures.”
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Arts On The Tube – A Difficult Sell
Why is arts programming such a difficult sell for TV? “For the commercial broadcasters, the problem is manifold: arts TV is expensive to do properly, it’s difficult to schedule and it attracts only niche advertising and niche viewing. In short, it’s a lot of effort for little return. For the BBC, the problem is different: if you run a minority channel and a highbrow digital channel as well, why would you want arts bunging up your main service?”
Actors Unions Voting On Merging
Members of the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists have been voting on whether to merge their unions. Ballots were “due Monday and will be counted Tuesday. The consolidation must be approved by 60 percent of the voting members of each union.”
Hollywood’s High-Tech Transformation
The typical Hollywood movie studio is looking more like a high-tech company than a traditional movie maker these days. “Hollywood companies will spend roughly $500 million on data storage in 2003, and expenditures will increase about 70 percent each year. By 2006, the annual storage needs of film studios, video and television production companies, and distribution outfits will reach 740 petabytes, or 740 million gigabytes. These trends are forcing spending on information technology tremendously up,”
Strikes Could Cripple Festivals
“Summer festivals in France and throughout Europe have become big business. Last year about 900,000 spectators attended a staggering 650 music, dance and theater festivals across France. French tourism has already suffered this year from the sharp drop in the value of the dollar, the political fallout from the war with Iraq (which France opposed) and fears of the SARS virus. In cities like Avignon and Aix-en-Provence festival organizers and local business rely heavily on the income from the summer festivals, and the cancellations could be financially disastrous.”
Record Book Sales – At Discount Prices
This is turning into a record sales summer for the book business. “The impressive sales totals partly reflect the growing power of big discounters like Wal-Mart and price clubs like Costco. In a sea change for the publishing business, those outlets accounted for as much as half of the early sales of the three books and can claim as large a share as traditional bookstores and online outlets, according to the publishers and an analysis of sales of figures. The power of the price clubs and discounters to move huge numbers of certain books is giddily unnerving for book publishers. The good news is that millions of consumers bought books last month. The bad news is that a lot of them skipped a trip to the bookstore, where they may have bought even more books. For a growing number of consumers, however, the nontraditional outlets simply mean cheaper books.”
A Season-Long Celebration Of Balanchine
To celebrate George Balanchine’s 100th birthday, New York City Ballet is planning a season-long retrospective of his work, presenting 81 of his ballets. “Among those who will participate are Valery Gergiev, the conductor and director of the Kirov Theater in St. Petersburg, Balanchine’s birthplace in Russia, and the Georgian State Dance company, the professional folk dance company from Tbilisi. Balanchine, who died in 1983, was of Georgian descent.”
Neighbors Save Bookstore
When a small neighborhood bookstore in San Francisco announced it was closing, neighbors banded together, pledging to buy a book a month and raising money to keep the store open. “This is probably not the sort of investment your accountant would suggest as a sure thing or, for that matter, even a longshot. Even if the store gets back on its feet, the investors won’t make money. Instead of interest, they get a 25 percent discount on all books they buy there. The loans will be repaid over six years.”
Will NY City Opera Really Relocate?
For some months it’s been assumed in many quarters that New York City Opera would be leaving Lincoln Center to anchor a new cultural complex in the World Trade Center project. But directors of the project are putting out a general call for cultural groups who might be interested in locating downtown, leading to speculation that City Opera’s relocation is not a done deal. “Today’s expected invitation from the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation seems intended to send the message that decisions about a cultural element at ground zero will not be based on personal, political or professional connections. ‘We want to cast a broad net to see what’s out there’.”
Jazz Reopens For Business In San Francisco
Amazingly, San Francisco’s last jazz club closed down at the end of April. But the jazz scene won’t stay dark for long in a city at one time known for its jazz; new clubs are opening up. “It’s nearly impossible for musicians in San Francisco to play in a nice venue. We decided we had to open our own place,”