Category: issues

British Olympic Association spokesman Darryl Seibel said Thursday that officials have reminded team leaders of “the importance of protecting our corporate partners” and of rules against endorsing commercial products on Twitter.

“Some – such as the British Museum, where visitor numbers are down by 25% and some West End theatres down by a third – have seen visitor numbers plunge since the Games started, but others, including the National Theatre, report business as good as last year, with near full houses every night.”

“A Somali comedian murdered in Mogadishu had received death threats from Islamist militants after dressing up as a woman and a suicide bomber in satirical sketches, friends and colleagues said on Thursday. Abdi Jeylani Malaq, better known as Marshale, was shot on Tuesday as he returned home from the radio station where he worked in Mogadishu.”

“The survey finds that London puts on nearly 32,500 theatre shows while New York has just over 43,000 and the UK capital hosts just under 3,000 annual dance performances while New York has over 6,000.”

The arts in Spain — including the big film sector that gave the world Pedro Almodovar — is in peril from a sharp rise in sales tax that will drive away audiences, top cultural figures say.

Going for a millage, DIA Director Graham Beal says, “is the only realistic option.” It would temporarily restore the DIA’s “original business model” of public support, while an endowment campaign takes place for the long term–a fiscal-responsibility argument that Mr. Beal says is proving effective in its drive to sell the millage to voters.

“As austerity sweeps Europe, artistic and cultural institutions have been among the first to face cuts, with theatres, opera houses, orchestras, galleries and educational programmes all facing existential threats as their budgets and public subsidies are slashed. But as far as audiences are concerned, things couldn’t be better.”

One of the report’s central points is that world cities are as important in terms of culture as they are in finance or trade. The report says: “Culture in all its diverse forms is central to what makes a city appealing to educated people and hence to the businesses which seek to employ them.”

“The poll, which surveyed 237 adults in the three counties, found that 69% plan to vote for the millage and 2% are leaning toward voting yes, while 25% plan to vote no and 4% are undecided.”

“Known as the intermittents du spectacle system, it has sparked the French arts world’s biggest strikes and most flamboyant street demonstrations whenever a government has sought to scale it down. … Currently 100,000 creative workers benefit from the special unemployment system, but it is running at a huge deficit of around €1bn.”