“The RIAA released its 2017 year-end revenue report on Thursday, showing that revenue from digital downloads plummeted 25 percent to $1.3 billion over the previous year. Revenue from physical products, by contrast, fell 4 percent to $1.5 billion. Overall, the music industry grew for the second straight year. And with $8.7 billion in total revenue, it’s the healthiest it has been since 2008.”
Category: AUDIENCE
Forget Chasing Youth – Venues Should Focus On Older Audiences To Survive: Study
“Arts organisations will need to focus more on older audiences over the next 10 years to cater for England’s ageing population, new research has claimed. Engagement with audiences by theatres and other cultural organisations, along with their workforces, business models and use of technology, is set to change over the next decade, according to a report by development agency Nesta commissioned by [funder] Arts Council England.”
Audiences Are Really Like Murmurations Of Starlings
Matt Trueman: “A few years ago, I learned how birds fly in flocks. It’s a complex science. When they murmur, seemingly so completely in sync, starlings are in fact steering themselves independently: each to its own. There’s no leader, no one follows, but the flock falls into line because each bird reacts to those around it. … If one flinches, those next to it follow suit; climb and the whole flock climbs with you. Every individual impulse ripples through the group and it grows as it goes. Audiences are the same.”
‘The Parrotheads Were After Me’ – New York Times’ Jesse Green On Writing Negative Theater Reviews
“I don’t take writing pans lightly. For one thing, I’m as thin-skinned as anyone else, and don’t enjoy being excoriated on Twitter or mocked as a theater snob or told on Facebook to just ‘relax’ – as if my being uptight were what made the show bad. … So when I get home from the theater with my notebook bristling with scribbles like ‘what is happening?’ and ‘kill me now,’ I ask myself a few questions. Was there anything at all I admired? Can I imagine why someone else might like it? Are there people I would send to the show despite my own distaste for it?”
‘Opera Isn’t Elitist. If I Can Learn To Love It So Can Anybody.’
British comedian Chris Addison writes about how a chance event in a bar on a beer-soaked Friday night helped turn him into an opera fan – and how the same thing could happen to most anyone. “I’ve never seen a four-pints-down crowd focus like that; there was a stillness to the place – a wonder, really – as she sang. And when she finished, they went crazy. Standing screaming crazy.”
Report: Small Galleries Struggle To Stay Open
Why are galleries that incubate emerging talent finding it so difficult to survive? Is it simply the pressure of rising rents in expensive cities like London and New York? Or is there a wider problem? “The collectors aren’t going to galleries any more, they’re going to art fairs,” said John Martin, a dealer in contemporary art who has a gallery in the Mayfair district of London. “They’re less intimidating, more social, more convenient, and they’re open in the evenings and at the weekend,” he added. “People are time-poor.”
A New Generation Of Self-Help Book Recommendation Columns
A field of advice columns that lob texts at people’s troubles has flowered recently, from the Times’ “Match Book” to Lit Hub’s “Dear Book Therapist” to the Paris Review Daily’s “Poetry Rx.” The series run the gamut from straightforward recommendation engines (ask for a thriller, receive a thriller) to columns that see books not as frigates or loaded gunsbut as medicine, selected from the canon’s well-lit pharmacy by a critic in a smock.
Are All Artists Liberal? So Where Are The Conservatives?
When we in the arts champion “diversity, equity and inclusion,” do we mean everyone? Do we mean conservatives? Religiously, culturally or otherwise? Are conservative artists not identifying as artists because the arts are a predominantly liberal sector?
This Production Of ‘Julius Caesar’ Needs Stage Managers Versed In Crowd Control – For The Audience
Nicholas Hytner’s staging for the Bridge Theatre in London (starring Ben Whishaw and David Morrissey) takes place on a series of platforms right in the middle of the audience, and the ticket-holders standing in the pit at the center of it all play the mob. Fergus Morgan talks to the stage managers about how they wrangle a new crowd for every performance.
Saudi Arabia Starts Building An Entertainment Industry From Scratch
“Saudi Arabia has long been known as one of the world’s most conservative places … Concerts and theater were largely banned, and even the notion of fun was often frowned upon as un-Islamic. Now the kingdom is lightening up with comic book festivals, dance performances, concerts and monster truck rallies. … [The kingdom] needs to build an ‘entire ecosystem’ for arts, tourism and entertainment, [and] has budgeted $64 billion for it over the next decade.”