Should we be investing in festivals rather than more arts buildings? Google’s hi-rez art cam is ingesting art from the world’s great museums. Some evidence that live-streaming might be hurting live audience box office. Some doubts about streaming as the future of how we get music. And the futility of chasing millennials.
- Is The Future Of the Arts In Festivals? Over the past thirty years we’ve invested billions of dollars on arts buildings and sports facilities. There is plenty of research now that questions whether these are prudent community investments. Most require subsidy (so do roads, and pretty much every other public amenity essential to an advanced culture). But now that we have amenities, where do we invest next? Jonathan Wynn: “Given the economic costs and risks, why do museums, stadiums and other ‘concrete culture’ receive such a privileged place in urban development? After spending the past 10 years conducting research on the topic, I’ve found that this privilege should end; as an alternative, cities should champion music festivals as a cheaper, adaptable way to bolster urban communities.” No question, festivals are a growth industry, with tens of thousands of them springing up…
- The Google Art Camera Is Traveling The World: Google developed a custom-built camera that creates “ultra-high resolution ‘gigapixel’ images” of art. It makes the images available online, allowing anyone with internet access to examine the originals in amazing detail. In fact, you can get closer to the art online than you can in the museums where they live. So what’s in it for the museums that participate? Most of the museums believe that this is a way to get their art out to a wider audience and in a different way. Critics wonder whether having such good images online will discourage people from actually going to the museums to see the originals in person.
- Speaking Of Digital Access Cannibalizing Live Experience… There has been much debate about whether live-streaming arts performances cannibalizes live theatre attendance. The Metropolitan Opera is the giant here, and earns millions from streaming live to theatres all over the world. Most other companies haven’t replicated the Met’s success, and critics say the Met streams may have been detrimental to the fortunes of local opera companies where the streams show. Now a study backs the fears: “ETO’s 2014 research with Guildhall School of Music and Drama found that 81% of cinema opera attenders were over 60, had an age profile “slightly older” than that typically found at live opera, and reported no increased motivation to attend live opera afterwards.”
- The Future Of Music Is Streaming? Not So Fast… “A YouGov survey last week produced the interesting statistic that only 6 per cent of 35-55 year olds subscribe to a music streaming service. As you’d expect, 16 per cent of 14-34 year olds have subscriptions, and only 3 per cent of those over 55 are signed up. Still, that Gen X figure sticks out a little. The reasons put forward for disliking streaming include complexity of existing services, the subscription angle, and the fact that CDs and radio are easier to use.” An alternative take: this data suggest that streaming services still have some improvements to make to make streaming more user friendly. It’s not that music fans are rejecting streaming – it’s that there are still some significant bumps in the user experience.
- Amazing: In The Age Of Big Data We’re Still Talking About Millennials: Here’s a rant about chasing after millennials: “Sure, the demographic group exists as an amorphous bloc. But you are as likely to come upon an archetypal millennial as you are to run into Joe Sixpack or be invited to a barbecue at the median American household. It’s hard to believe this even needs to be said, yet here we are: Macroscale demographic trends rarely govern most individuals’ life and work decisions.” Long after Google and others have shown that behavior trumps demographics, we still insist on lumping groups together based on demographics. And there’s as much range of behavior in millennials as there has been in any other age cohort…
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