Good Service is (Nearly) Free

Ken Davenport wrote a spot-on piece today in the new Live Entertainment Marketing blog called, well, Entertainment Marketing.  (I’ll tell you more about that in a second.)
To summarize (though you should definitely go read the piece), Ken shows a picture that he took of a “guest services” desk at a movie theatre and asks why [...]

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“How Do I Go Viral?”

Yesterday, I spoke on a very interesting panel at the very first version of the Commercial Theatre Institute’s Intensive Production Workshop.  I may have gotten the name slightly wrong, but the idea of the conference/workshop is that budding theatre producers learn the tricks of the trade at these, and this is their first time in [...]

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More Pie Now!

A couple days ago, I participated in a Panel at Tickets.com’s excellent Executive Summit in Long Beach.  This gathering, in its second year, is one of a  kind in that it brings together top executives across the live entertainment business for a brief, but powerful conference on a wide range of issues that affect the [...]

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The Past Is Gone

For human beings, the past is a presence.  It’s with us all the time in both simple and complex ways.  When we step off the curb into a busy street, the hundreds of times we’ve successfully crossed a street safely guide our decisions or the story we heard about a person who didn’t.  When we [...]

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The Springsteen Refunds

Here’s the news: The FTC has told Ticketmaster to refund those consumers who bought tickets to 14 Bruce Springsteen concerts last year.  What happened was that since Ticketmaster had acquired secondary market seller, Ticketsnow, the company was passing ticket buyers over to Ticketsnow when its full price tickets had been sold.  The result is that [...]

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Membership Has Its Rewards

I found this story about  Goldstar supplier and major regional theatre ACT (Seattle) extremely interesting.  Here’s a tidbit:
“In early 2003, ACT Theater was down to its last $3,000. Only an aggressive fund–raising campaign and ruthless budget cuts kept the theater afloat. Despite the belt tightening, over the past five years ACT has piled up another [...]

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Should You Be Selling “The Arts”?

Back in the 90s, banks got this idea that people didn’t want to do business with just a bank.  They wanted to do business with an organization that could give them their mortgage, be their stockbroker, set up their 401(k), and issue them a credit card.
They went from being banks to providing “Financial Services.”
I guess [...]

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Shutting Down the Factory…not a Key to Success

Michael Kaiser of the Kennedy Center wrote this in the Huffington Post:

“Many arts managers are angry with me. They do not appreciate my advice not to cut programming during this recession. I continue to say that creating large, important projects is central to creating fiscal health. Especially when there is less money for the arts [...]

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My Interview on Mixergy

Andrew Warner, the impresario of Mixergy, was kind enough to interview me live on the site yesterday. His is an excellent site for entrepreneurs, and he interviews entrepreneurs who hopefully have something to teach other entrepreneurs. It’s a terrific site, and you should check it out!
In the meantime, you can watch the interview [...]

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