Tag Archives: nonprofits

A Trade Show for the Performing Arts. Huh? Yup.

conference post

 

A few of years ago I started to attend the various regional arts presenter conferences to sell my wares: um, that would be selling me. After touring a bit of the fringe circuit and self-producing my one-man shows I wanted to take the next step in my professional development and network with the gatekeepers of the performing arts industry. What I was about to embark on was incredibly strange, fulfilling, exhausting and necessary.

Let’s get one thing straight. Trying to make money as a performing artist can suck the life out of you. I’ve talked about the trial and error of self-producing at length. I got very quickly that donning on every administrative hat plus trying to write, rehearse and memorize my work was completely unsustainable. Shit, it still is. I’m actually doing the same amount of work after attending these conference for the past three years but I learned a deeply value lesson: Face time is everything. Continue reading

Giving Up the Territory: Sharing Information for Art’s Sake

Data Sharing

While riding the bus back to MA from NYC last spring I noticed a bird had shit on my backpack. The metaphor was apt for a conversation I had just been having in a wide-open conference room about how arts-focused non-profits (who all seem to be providing similar stellar services for the benefit of artists) are fearfully grasping their data through proprietary measures. Not that it doesn’t make sense. People don’t like to be shit on. Continue reading