Around the horn: John Roberts edition

Astute readers will note that this edition is mostly comprised of links from the first half of June; I am a little behind in my curation and hope to catch up over the rest of this month. In the meantime, enjoy! MUSICAL CHAIRS Congratulations to Arts Marketing blogger Chad Bauman, who returns to Arena Stage asRead More

Arts Policy Library: 2008 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts

A summary, history, and analysis of the influential NEA survey.

All You Can Hear: The SPCO’s Netflix-Style Membership

In April, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra (SPCO) announced the launch of a Netflix-style membership model where you could “get all the SPCO you want for $5 a month.” Still relatively untested in the arts world, this pricing model allows subscribers to see an unlimited number of performances for a low monthly fee. Additional perksRead More

Beyond Gamification: Alternative Models for Games in Arts Organizations

A number of arts organizations are considering mobilizing games in the service of increased ticket sales, improved audience participation, and outreach to new audiences, but these so-called “gamification” efforts typically fail to take advantage of games’ full potential for creativity. Good games are hard to make, but done well, they can help arts organizations achieve their missions—and help them rewrite the rules for audience engagement.

Around the horn: I’m on a plane edition

ART AND THE GOVERNMENT Narric Rome tells us about where the arts fall in the federal government’s new tourism strategy. After threatening to cap the tax deduction available to donors as a means of raising revenue, the British government has abandoned the plan. ALL ABOUT THE BENJAMINS Barely two years after changing things up last time, theRead More

Around the horn: It Gets Better edition

ART AND THE GOVERNMENT Weird, the very day that the Huffington Post published my “debate” with Carla Escoda about arts funding, the New York Times published a “Room for Debate” feature on a very similar topic. Something in the water? Anyway, Sean Bowie has a nice summary if you don’t have time to read all eight entries. TheRead More

Cool jobs of the month

Director, Bolz Center for Arts Administration, University of Wisconsin [From outgoing director Andrew Taylor:] If you’re passionate about arts and cultural management and leadership. If you’re able not only to do the work, but teach the work to brilliant business-focused professionals. If you bring a vital network of cultural professionals and can plug into anRead More

Creative Placemaking Has an Outcomes Problem

Federal policymakers and private philanthropists are spending millions of dollars on creative placemaking without having developed a clear and detailed theory of how it works.

On Trey McIntyre Project and Both/And Creative Placemaking

(David B. Pankratz, Ph.D., is the Principal of Creative Sector Research in South Pasadena, California. He can be reached at creativesectorresearch@gmail.com.) In TINA vs. LOIS: Bringing the Arts Back Home, community arts advocate Scott Walters applies a concept developed by author Michael Shuman in The Small-Mart Revolution to cultural economies in American communities. TINA (ThereRead More

Around the horn: American Bandstand edition

ART AND THE GOVERNMENT The California Arts Council is in danger of losing its right to solicit voluntary contributions from California citizens through their state income tax returns. Though that wasn’t proving to be a very effective way of raising money anyway – the agency banked only $165,000 from CA’s nearly 40 million residents last year. ArtsRead More