Take A Friend To The Orchestra Survey Results And A 14 Year Anniversary

First off, a thousand thanks to everyone who took the time to vote on whether or not the Take A Friend To The Orchestra initiative should return in 2016. There were just over 500 votes cast and although the overwhelming majority of those favored the return, the cumulative number still fell short of the 1,000 minimum votes needed.

At the same time, we’ll revisit this again for another vote, but this time in the fall of 2016.

Speaking of survey participation, the Reader Segmentation Survey is generating more participation than the past few years, which is all around terrific news. But if you haven’t taken the time to participate yet, don’t wait too long as Friday, 2/26/16 will be the final day. So far, there’s been a good upswing in women and minority readers completing the survey, which is terrific but I’d love to see more, especially since the surveys play such a key role in shaping future content.

Happy Anniversary Butts In The Seats!

I want to take a moment to highlight the 12 year anniversary for Joe Patti’s excellent culture blog, Butts In The Seats; Musings on Practical Solutions For Arts Management. I was enormously pleased when Joe decided to include his blog among the Inside The Arts ranks and at nearly 1,800 posts it is one of the longest running culture blogs around.

Year 12 has been one of not only deserved growth but Joe has continued to garner an equally warranted amount of attention including being listed by Barry Hessenius 2014 and 2015 Top 50 Most Powerful and Influential People in the Nonprofit Arts (USA) and his 15 Favorite Nonprofit Arts Blogs.

If that wasn’t enough, he’s also a regular contributor at ArtsHacker.com where his posts are among the site’s most frequently visited so you aren’t already familiar with Joe’s blog, stop by and set aside a meaningful amount of time to go through everything Butts In The Seats has to offer.

Butts In The Seats

About Drew McManus

"I hear that every time you show up to work with an orchestra, people get fired." Those were the first words out of an executive's mouth after her board chair introduced us. That executive is now a dear colleague and friend but the day that consulting contract began with her orchestra, she was convinced I was a hatchet-man brought in by the board to clean house.

I understand where the trepidation comes from as a great deal of my consulting and technology provider work for arts organizations involves due diligence, separating fact from fiction, interpreting spin, as well as performance review and oversight. So yes, sometimes that work results in one or two individuals "aggressively embracing career change" but far more often than not, it reinforces and clarifies exactly what works and why.

In short, it doesn't matter if you know where all the bodies are buried if you can't keep your own clients out of the ground, and I'm fortunate enough to say that for more than 15 years, I've done exactly that for groups of all budget size from Qatar to Kathmandu.

For fun, I write a daily blog about the orchestra business, provide a platform for arts insiders to speak their mind, keep track of what people in this business get paid, help write a satirical cartoon about orchestra life, hack the arts, and love a good coffee drink.

Related Posts

3 thoughts on “Take A Friend To The Orchestra Survey Results And A 14 Year Anniversary”

Leave a Comment