Author Archive for Drew McManus
Regularly quoted as an industry expert in international newspapers and trade journals, arts consultant and industry expert Drew McManus has been involved with every aspect of nonprofit performing arts organizations. He has become one of the most unique individuals in this industry who is trusted and respected by administrators, academics, board members, music directors, musicians, and union officials alike.
And You Thought The AFM Was Tough
You’ve probably read about the 2/28/2010 “incident” at Italy’s famed Pantheon where employees stopped a concert before it was over because it was closing time (thus prompting musician and audience ire). The incident embarrassed the Italian government enough that it ultimately prompted Italian Culture Minister Sandro Bondi to issue an official apology to the Russian musicians. But did you know there was video… (more…)
Venture Project Update: Big News For Small Budget Groups
From the very beginning, The Venture Project has been focused on serving as a paradigm shift in the way many performing arts organizations improve marketing, revenue, and outreach performance. To that end, the overall cost has been an integral component in that process but the reality is that the existing lowest price point was best suited for groups starting at the $1 mil annual budget level on up. But thanks to some big-brain thinking from the developer, BlueprintDS, it is looking more and more likely that will change for the better… (more…)
Reveling In Microsite Goodness
As promised at the middle of last month, the new official resource site for the Take A Friend To The Orchestra program is up and running. The virtual ribbon was cut last night and you are now free to stop by and stay awhile. I’m very pleased with how this microsite turned out and like any worthwhile effort, it’s designed to be simple to use, easy to navigate, and provide a variety of indexed search options. But most of all, it’s designed to inspire… (more…)
The French Are Not As Forgiving
Dan Wakin’s article in the 3/3/2010 edition of the New York Times does an excellent job at reporting on the Moscow State Radio Symphony Orchestra’s working conditions. According to his report, the musicians earn $40 per concert with no per diems and a number of the musicians go on record talking about unsatisfactory working and travel conditions. If this doesn’t sound familiar, it should. At the end of 2005, conductor Volker Hartung and his Cologne New Philharmonic made international news after French authorities arrested and jailed him for two days as a result of breaking French labor law… (more…)
Ouch. My Pride.
Over at Proper Discord, one of my posts from 2004 made it to the #5 position in the list of “30 things that won’t save classical music.” Proper Discord’s author asserts “Classical music doesn’t need saving and the only thing that will increase its reach is for the people involved to do their jobs better.” For the most part, I agree with the latter half of that sentiment and would go so far as mentioning that was exactly the point from my article that made the #5 spot… (more…)
Dead Cat Bounce
For those unfamiliar with the expression “Dead Cat Bounce,” it comes from the world of finance as a way to describe “a temporary recovery from a prolonged decline or bear market, after which the market continues to fall (source)” – even a dead cat will bounce if dropped from high enough. This phrase came to mind after reading an article by Jeffrey Sheban in the 3/5/2010 edition of the Columbus Dispatch that reports on a 16.6 % budget cut at the Columbus Symphony Orchestra (CSO) over and above the 28% cut from the previous season… (more…)
Who’s Minding The Score?
It’s official, there is now a comic strip dedicated to the insanity we call the orchestra business. Who’s Minding The Score? will be published (more or less) every Sunday and you can keep track of the satirical goodness at: http://www.adaptistration.com/toons. The newest toon goes live this Sunday, 3/7/2010 and we’ll be adding supplementary content to the site on a regular basis over the next several months so make sure you stop by to see what’s new… (more…)
The Pros And Cons Of Cultural Edu-Care
Inspired by furniture retailing giant IKEA, Holly Mulcahy posted an article over at Neo Classical about the potential merits of orchestras incorporating child edu-care centers along the same lines as IKEA’s Smaland centers. For those unfamiliar, Smaland is a supervised play area where parents can leave children while they wallow in me-centric shopping time. She makes a number of compelling observations but are the enormous logistical hurdles and expense worth potential gains? (more…)
Join The RSS Love
For reasons yet to be determined, Adaptistration has enjoyed a nice spike in RSS feed subscriptions over the past few weeks. This heady leap made me realize that I rarely promote all of the useful RSS options readers have available to follow posts, comments, and comment threads; as such, there’s no better time than the present… (more…)
When Is The Philadelphia Orchestra Not The Philadelphia Orchestra?
Most folks have likely noticed the news about the Philadelphia Orchestra musicians accepting pay and hiring freezes for most positions along with some hefty pension concessions. The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Peter Dobrin reports on those concessions in an article from 2/27/2010. In and of itself, there’s nothing remarkable here; the Philadelphia players are mirroring what their colleagues elsewhere are doing by accepting concessions that help reduce immediate financial pressure. What is of interest is this nugget buried at the bottom of the article… (more…)
Venture Project Update: Fun With Wireframes
The Venture Project has been officially underway for a little while now and one of the first items to be addressed is designing the Creative Control Engine (CCE), Venture’s extraordinary website publishing system and content management component. In short, CCE is how users will be able to manage and control a large, dynamic collection of web based material as well as providing direct control over all elements related to building and revising an institutional website. The initial step in that process is solidifying the design architecture by developing a series of wireframes, or visual guides… (more…)
It’s As Though You Were In The Room
QuickTime videos from January’s American Orchestra Summit, including my session, Thinking Outside the Box: Organizational Structures and Strategies, are now available at the Summit website. Based on the segments I’ve watched, it looks like the sessions are presented unedited and although the sound can be a little soft, video quality is good and offered in large dimensions. The summit produced some intriguing discussions; in particular, my session touched on the dynamic impact of Cleveland Orchestra’s Miami residency (which pops up around the 48:00 mark in the video)… (more…)
Drew McManus wrote:
patty wrote:
Rory Williams wrote:
vinyl hero wrote:
Chris Blair wrote:
RWOlson wrote:
Richard wrote:
Adaptistration is authored by orchestra consultant Drew McManus and since its launch in 2003, the blog has become standard reading for arts administrators and arts administration programs throughout the world.
