Don't Ignore "Can't Use My Tickets" Posts On Your Social Media Page by Joe Patti

I wrote a post that appeared on Artshacker today about ticket scams occurring in the comments section of performing arts organization social media accounts. Essentially, what happens is that…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 7:12am on March 3, 2020[SHARE]

Scammers In Your Social Media Community by Joe Patti

On my personal blog, I have written about the problem of ticketing websites that masquerade as legitimate performance venues and either sell fake or highly marked up tickets.  I have to s…

SOURCE: artshacker.com at 3:00am on March 2, 2020[SHARE]

Problems So Obvious A College Student Can Analyze Them In A Week by Joe Patti

Earlier this month, Vu Le at Non-Profit AF made one of those posts you didn't know you needed until it was written. In it he addressed the stress higher education school projects have on alr…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 11:03pm on February 26, 2020[SHARE]

Sweetening Incentives To Experience Creativity With Strangers by Joe Patti

Knowing that one of the biggest barriers people experience when planning to go to an event is not having someone to accompany them, five years ago I was inspired by a Brazilian bus company t…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 9:54am on February 26, 2020[SHARE]

When The Docent Is Just As Storied As The Artifact by Joe Patti

Back in November 2018, I wrote about how the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology was hiring refugees from Middle Eastern countries to act as docents for galleri…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 8:03pm on February 24, 2020[SHARE]

Finally, A Procurement Platform For Non-Profit Arts by Joe Patti

Finally, a dream a decade in the making is coming to fruition!   Though I am sure he doesn't recall it at all, in a post back in 2010 I had suggested that Drew McManus' Venture Industr…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 8:06pm on February 19, 2020[SHARE]

There Is No Business Case For Social & Cultural Advancement by Joe Patti

H/T to Artsjournal.com for linking to a FastCompany article about the problem with making a business case for diversity. I saw a lot of parallels between the rationale laid out by author, Sa…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 12:36am on February 19, 2020[SHARE]

You Can Tap Into The Arts, But No One Will Think It Does Any Good by Joe Patti

In the wake of Kobe Bryant's death, Dance Magazine related a short anecdote about Bryant taking tap dance lessons to help prevent additional injury to his ankles. That summer, he researched …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 11:32pm on February 17, 2020[SHARE]

Pop Music, Now With Less Pep by Joe Patti

Via Arts and Letters Daily is a link to an Aeon piece that claims pop songs have gotten increasingly sadder and negative over the last 50 years.  They lay out their method of analyzing ly…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 10:42pm on February 12, 2020[SHARE]

The Socio-Economic-Ethnically Diverse Audience You Seek Is At The Library by Joe Patti

There was an article on the Arts Professional site urging care in the Arts Council of England's initiative to increase investment in libraries over the next decade. The author of the piece, …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 4:12am on February 12, 2020[SHARE]

The First Rule Of Modern Composer Club, Don't Talk About Modern Composer Club by Joe Patti

Conductor Robert Trevino had a novel idea of getting people to attend concerts by modern composers…don't tell people what the program was going to be. Counter-intuitively, the concerts had…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 3:03am on February 11, 2020[SHARE]

Reading Rebranding As "You Aren't Wanted" by Joe Patti

Last month you may have read a number of news stories about the Methodist church in Minnesota with declining attendance that decided to kick out all their old members so they could attract y…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 3:48pm on February 6, 2020[SHARE]

One Does Not Simply Walk Into The Met Opera Orchestra Pit by Joe Patti

Hat tip to Drew McManus for reposting a link to timpanist Jason Haaheim's summary of his 13 part series on the value of deliberate practice. I figure Drew just reposted the link as bait to m…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 2:04am on February 5, 2020[SHARE]

Art Helps Get The Buses Running On Time And Where They Are Needed by Joe Patti

Last week Shelterforce had an article about places around the country that are using arts and culture strategies as part of transit planning processes. They provide examples of projects in b…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 12:48am on February 4, 2020[SHARE]

Glasses Are Just One Way To Hear People's Light by Joe Patti

About two weeks ago, I wrote about how England's National Theatre has been developing technology and processes to provide closed captioning glasses to audience members who may be D/deaf and …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 1:18am on January 30, 2020[SHARE]

Creative Placemaking Is More Than Just Murals by Joe Patti

Recently the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco published an issue of their Community Development Innovation Review  (CDIR) focused on "Transforming Community Development through Arts …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 10:36pm on January 27, 2020[SHARE]

Worrying Prohibition Or License To Get Out Of Boring Meetings? by Joe Patti

A couple years ago I wrote a piece for ArtsHacker debunking the notion that anyone who was an ex officio member of a non-profit board did not have the power to vote. The fact is, they have t…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 9:42pm on January 22, 2020[SHARE]

Don't Call It An Arts Desert by Joe Patti

Last week Springboard for the Arts' Executive Director Laura Zabel addressed the concept of solving "arts deserts" in a series of tweets. But, please, let's not let this "arts desert" idea t…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 3:33pm on January 22, 2020[SHARE]

Does Your State Prohibit Non-Voting Board Directors? by Joe Patti

A few years back I made a post addressing the assumption that ex officio positions on a board of directors were automatically non-voting. Spoilers: That is not the case. Apropos to that, I r…

SOURCE: artshacker.com at 3:00am on January 21, 2020[SHARE]

Daydreaming The Way To Better Performance by Joe Patti

Tyler Cowen shared a link on his Marginal Revolution blog about Hillary Hahn discussing daydreaming as a form of practice. The link went to blog post by Bill Benzon featuring a video of an i…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 7:36pm on January 20, 2020[SHARE]

Donate For The Tote Bag by Joe Patti

I don't know how I missed it on Vox.com, but Non-Profit Quarterly recently pointed out an article the site about the effectiveness of swag in non-profit fundraising. The TL:DR version is, ot…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 10:12pm on January 15, 2020[SHARE]

Social Class & Wealth And The Pursuit Of Creative Careers by Joe Patti

It appears that concerns about how social class and wealth limit access to creative careers may be a hot topic of discussion in England these days. Via Artsjournal.com is a The Stage piece b…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 8:33pm on January 14, 2020[SHARE]

Is The Key Focusing On Accessibility First? by Joe Patti

Via Artsjournal last week was an article about the London Short Film Festival using glasses technology developed by the National Theatre to provide captioning to D/deaf and hard of hearing a…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 1:42am on January 14, 2020[SHARE]

The Artist Is In Residence In More Places Than You Think by Joe Patti

So Drew McManus must be reading my mind, or at least my reading list. Yesterday I was reading an ArtsNet piece about an artist-in-residence program with the Philadelphia district attorney's …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 1:18pm on January 9, 2020[SHARE]

Possible Setback In Push To Eliminate Unpaid Internships by Joe Patti

Just before Christmas Non-Profit Quarterly called attention to a situation of some concern. Recently the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) overturned an administrative law judge's ruling…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 11:42pm on January 7, 2020[SHARE]