This year’s edition of the festival generated an estimated $76.1 million (Aus) fot the economy of South Australia, up 9% over 2017. What’s more, “a staggering 19,825 visitors of the annual arts festival last year were interstate or overseas travellers, representing a 44 percent increase on the previous year. Visitor bed nights also rose to 138,021, a 50 percent increase on 2017.”
Category: AUDIENCE
Authors Of Color Are Pulling Fantasy Fiction Away From Norse And Celtic Mythology Models – And Readers Are Following
“While the field was largely dominated by white men in decades past, today diverse writers are bringing new voices to the conversation, imagining futures based on more inclusive readings of the past, and creating multiethnic worlds that can help people understand their own. Certainly, speculative fiction writers since at least Octavia Butler – the first science-fiction writer to win a MacArthur grant – have looked beyond Europe for inspiration. But no longer can they be dismissed as niche. From the $1 billion-plus box office of Black Panther … to this spring’s breakout debut novel, Children of Blood and Bone, by Nigerian-American author Tomi Adeyemi, audiences and readers are flocking to well-drawn worlds inspired by African and Asian countries.”
How A Ten-Year-Old Funding Measure Has Transformed The Arts In Small-Town Minnesota
Legislation known as the Legacy Amendment, passed in 2008, has provided over $440 million for cultural projects in the state, and that money has had a powerful effect in rural communities like New London (pop. 1,355, about halfway between the Twin Cities and the North Dakota state line).
How Performing Arts Orgs In Dallas-Fort Worth Are Getting Millennials And Kids Through Their Doors
“Performing arts organizations have long recognized the need to attract younger audiences that will someday support them financially. In addition to retaining their current audiences, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Fort Worth Opera, Dallas Theater Center and WaterTower Theatre target two distinct demographics to expand their audiences: millennials and children.”
How Social Media Is Engineered To Hijack Your Attention
Scientists have been at this question for several years, studying people’s activity online and revealing interesting trends as to what makes content eye-catching and more likely to go viral. Emotional arousal is one key determinant. After analyzing 7,000 articles from the New York Times, Jonah Berger and Katherine Milkman from UPenn found that one of the main factors driving readers to share a story via email was how much it stirred them up.
As The Podcast Boom Continues, Can Audio-Only Fiction Catch On?
“Gimlet Media, the podcasting startup based in Brooklyn, tapped the valve of radio drama in 2016 with Homecoming, the fictional thriller podcast brought to life by Catherine Keener, Oscar Isaac and David Schwimmer.” And more high-profile fiction podcasts are coming, with the likes of Kristen Wiig, Ethan Hawke, John Cameron Mitchell, Glenn Close, Cynthia Erivo, and Patti LuPone involved. But there’s one problem: “a vast majority of the audience is not listening in a concentrated way, like they would at home while watching a Netflix drama. Successful podcasts need to reach audience that is not 100% ‘with it’ the whole time, who get distracted. And that’s a real challenge when you’re dealing with fiction.”
Why Doesn’t Great Opera Singing Get The Cheers In New York That It Gets In Barcelona, Munich, Or Vienna?
Fred Plotkin recalls the rapturous reception he’s seen terrific performances get – not just at the final curtain calls, but at the ends of acts and even after arias – and offers an idea or two as to why he so rarely sees such excitement from the audience at the Met. (It’s not just because they have trains to catch.) And, by the way, he thinks the Met should make more use of its fabulous gold curtain.
Demand For Nigerian Art Is Growing – Not Just In The West, But In Nigeria, Too
“The newfound interest there is part of a larger cultural and economic revival. It wasn’t long ago that moving abroad or catering to outsiders’ perceptions of their country was the only way for artists here to survive. But as the economy has surged — diversifying from oil into manufacturing, telecommunications and a thriving film industry to give Nigeria the biggest gross domestic product in Africa — so has interest in fashion, music and art. That has fueled a rise in the number of galleries and auction houses. It has also allowed many artists to make a living at home.”
A Children’s Librarian Tells How To Survive Storytime
Kristen Arnett: “Working children’s services sometimes means dealing with a bunch of sugared-up kids who got into a box of Lucky Charms cereal (I recognize that look — I also eat Lucky Charms to get amped). But it also means thinking on your feet and getting way outside your comfort zone. By that I mean you’ll probably have to kneel on the floor, and if you’re wearing a skirt, everyone is gonna see your underwear and four different kids will point it out loud enough for everyone in the library to hear.”
Is The Wildly Popular MoviePass About To Go Bust?
Eight months after slashing its price and expanding membership past 2 million users, MoviePass is now at risk of going bust. The parent company, Helios & Matheson Analytics Inc., which now owns 92 percent of MoviePass, said last week that it had just $15.5 million in cash at the end of April and $27.9 million on deposit with merchant processors. MoviePass has been burning through $21.7 million per month.