Learn To Stop Worrying And Love The Data by Joe Patti

Last month, the Cultural Data Project released a study they commissioned to investigate the use of data by arts organizations and what impediments to effectiveness exist. If you aren’t…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 8:04pm on February 5, 2014☆⚑

Joy Is Easy In The Arts"Just Get Out Of The Way by Joe Patti

As promised, I am posting the video of the “Five Minutes To Shine” speech my former colleague and assistant theatre manager, Lehua Simon gave at the Association of Performing Art…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 8:40pm on February 4, 2014☆⚑

There's No Quitting In Dance by Joe Patti

I was a little surprised by the news last week that the entire board of Minnesota Dance Theatre resigned. I thought at first that perhaps there had been a rift in the board and many of them …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 9:06am on February 3, 2014☆⚑

Info You Can Use: Netflix HR Policies and the Arts by Joe Patti

Apparently Netflix Powerpoint presentation on human resources has been getting a lot of views this last month. I remember being able to read the accompanying article on Harvard Business Revi…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 8:31pm on January 29, 2014☆⚑

Is A Ticket A Contract? by Joe Patti

Yesterday, commenter Lee Saylor asked a question about foul weather and refunds on a post I did a couple weeks ago regarding that subject. He noted that like many performing arts organizatio…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 8:36pm on January 28, 2014☆⚑

Stuff To Ponder: The Working Job Interview by Joe Patti

Earlier this month, I read an interview with WordPress creator Matt Mullenweg about his company, Automattic’s, hiring process. The title of the interview, Hire by Audition, Not Resumes…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 7:44pm on January 27, 2014☆⚑

Imagining Doing Many Things With The Rest of Your Life by Joe Patti

It is something of a trope that when you are a teenager without a lot of work experience looking to get a better job, you get creative about how you describe your past experience, claiming t…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 7:36pm on January 22, 2014☆⚑

Artist, Value Thyself by Joe Patti

One of the more interesting discussion sessions at the Arts Presenters conference I attended was related to a study/discussion conducted by the Brooklyn Commune Project that was released las…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 7:47pm on January 21, 2014☆⚑

APAP Reflections by Joe Patti

I just got back in the office today after attending the Association of Performing Arts Presenters Conference in NYC and I wanted to share some quick impressions and highlights from the exper…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 8:16pm on January 15, 2014☆⚑

What Will Make You Stop? by Joe Patti

While I am at the Arts Presenters conference this week, there is sure to be many discussions about how to attract and retain audiences for arts programming. Back in 2007 I took umbrage with …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 10:44am on January 14, 2014☆⚑

A Conferencing We Go by Joe Patti

I am off at the Association of Performing Arts Presenters conference in NYC today. So as I am wont to do, I am reaching back to my archives for my post today. I thought it was appropriate to…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 10:26am on January 13, 2014☆⚑

Stuff To Ponder: What Is The Definition of Emergency? by Joe Patti

This last week I have gotten some real lessons in the importance of disaster planning. During the quiet of the holidays I started a conversation with some colleagues about how we would handl…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 9:55pm on January 8, 2014☆⚑

Wait! I Didn't Mean YOU by Joe Patti

I was taken off guard by the news today that the Trey McIntyre Project is disbanding. I always half wondered if the company wasn’t meant to be permanent based on the fact they kept lab…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 6:30pm on January 7, 2014☆⚑

Presenting Works By Indigenous Artists by Joe Patti

A week from today, I will be presenting a panel at the Association of Performing Arts Presenters conference on “Presenting Works By Indigenous Artists.” Our session is currently …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 7:24pm on January 6, 2014☆⚑

Forgive Your Mistakes by Joe Patti

As the year ended, it was announced that Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark, was closing this January. Given the interminable previews, technical problems and public discussion of Julie TaymorR…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 7:07pm on December 31, 2013☆⚑

Know Who You Are Dealing With by Joe Patti

In about two weeks I will be attending the Association of Performing Arts Presenters conference in NYC. I will be hosting a discussion panel, but my primary objective is to learn about diffe…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 7:11pm on December 30, 2013☆⚑

You Think You Know Scrooge? by Joe Patti

Like I assume most of you, I thought I pretty much knew everything there was to know about A Christmas Carol. I had seen dozens of adaptations, (not including the Klingon version) and revisi…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 3:50pm on December 24, 2013☆⚑

Please j'onn, Don't Eat Me by Joe Patti

Not to be outdone by Drew McManus’ generous referral last week of donations toward Jon Silpayamanant's Mae Mai blog, I went to see him perform this week. It was a dangerous trek across…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 7:55pm on December 23, 2013☆⚑

Info You Can Use: Speed Dating For Volunteers by Joe Patti

Last month Non-Profit Quarterly (NPQ) had a small piece on a “Speed Dating” event that 15 Sacramento non-profits organized to recruit volunteers. In addition to it being a great …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 7:29pm on December 18, 2013☆⚑

Allow Yourself The Same Patience You Would A Baby by Joe Patti

I don’t recall who it was that provided the link. I want to credit Maria Popova at Brain Pickings because this is the sort of thing that appears there. But someone directed me to Steph…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 10:37pm on December 17, 2013☆⚑

Wherein I Hallucinate About Internships by Joe Patti

I recently misread the title of a post on Museum 2.0. But in that second of misapprehension, my brain flooded with assumptions about the subject of the post. I misread “A Shared Ethics…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 5:35pm on December 16, 2013☆⚑

Hard To Pronounce Show? There Is An App For That! by Joe Patti

We all know that an online ticket platform can make it more convenient for people to purchase tickets at their leisure, but a recent article on Slate suggests that it may also help sell tick…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 8:31pm on December 11, 2013☆⚑

Info You Can Use: Save The Charity, Save Your Company by Joe Patti

I loved this story on Non Profit Quarterly about a Maine restaurant which actually revived its business when it started holding all you can eat fundraisers for charities. …the eatery t…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 6:46pm on December 10, 2013☆⚑

Economic Impact Ain't Everything by Joe Patti

Drew McManus cautions a little today against putting a lot of stock in studies about the economic impact of the arts. I had been thinking along the same lines because so many people were cro…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 9:00pm on December 9, 2013☆⚑

Don't Be Nervous, It's Not About You by Joe Patti

I do a lot of public speaking and am generally pretty comfortable doing it. The place I get most nervous is up on stage. In a classroom or hall full of 50-100 people, no problem. On stage, i…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 7:54pm on December 4, 2013☆⚑