The Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht has been effectively disbanded, and the arts and cultural sector is now overseen by Rural Affairs. The downgrading of the department – and the inevitable downgrading of the Arts Council and Local Authority Funding is all part of the Fine Gael led neo-liberal passion for austerity and increasing inequality.

(The Campaign to Create a Department of Art, Culture and Heritage is here https://my.uplift.ie/p/dach if you wish to sign it)

The only relevant questions are how will this play out, what will the impact be, and what is the strategy for resistence.

Continue reading The Collapse of the Arts – in Every Crisis an Opportunity

Is there an opportunity for Ireland’s arts and culture industry to carve out a niche in the Event Cinema Market? After all, this is a market that has grown from nothing to almost $1 billion dollars in just under a decade; it’s a market that allows the Metropolitan Opera (the Art form with the smallest audience in the world) to post profits in the millions of dollars on its cinema seasons; it allows the National Theatre of Great Britain to reach audiences it would not otherwise reach, (sometimes in excess of 100,000 per performance) and it allows for occasional hits to break cinema box office records as in the case of Billy Elliot, The RSC’s Richard II, and of course the irrepressible Andre Rieu (who recently pushed himself to the top of the Box Office again). It also allows for exhibitions by Museums and Galleries to share both the objects and – more importantly – the stories behind them with hundreds of thousands of people around the world who would never otherwise experience them. It’s given cinema owners access to a whole new audience,  its generated a host of new distribution businesses and its opened arts and culture providers to new business models and investment sources. (Digital Theatre has built an impressive business model around an ever-increasing catalogue of live events for private consumption through an impressive subscription strategy and significant venture fund investment). Julie Taymor’s recent production of A Midsummernight’s Dream carried the art form a step further by being – to my knowledge – the first Event Cinema production to take an award at a Film Festival. Without a doubt Event Cinema is one of the more effective bridges between the cultural and creative industries.

After two years of research and networking, analyzing the business models, the marketing strategies,  the audience distribution and behavour within this industry the answer to the opening question is a resounding yes. With the following caveats:

Continue reading Event Cinema and Ireland’s Culture Industry

Have you ever walked into a bar, or a restaurant, or a shop, or even into a friends house and experienced a feeling of being unwelcome? You know the one, when everybody at the bar looks at you kinda suspicious like and you know they’re all thinking “you’re not from around here, are you”. Nearly every single time that happens we close the door and head on down the street, or we make our excuses to our friend and get the hell out of their house as soon as possible and make arrangements to meet them somewhere “neutral” next time. Why is that? It’s simple, if I open a door and I don’t see me or my people staring back at me, then there’s no way I’m staying.  Truth be told I didn’t come here to meet you, I came here to meet me.  Think about this the next time you look at your website, or your print material. People don’t want to see you, they want to see themselves. Continue reading You’re not from around here, are you? You, your audience and your Online Presence.

I’ve asked a lot of people and organisations for money and stuff over the years. Some people have said yes and some have said no. I’ve attended workshops and seminars, and researched the psychology of the ask and there’s a couple of principles you should always keep in mind. It doesn’t matter whether you’re looking for a grant, a donation or an investment.

The first principle is the most important: nobody ever gave money to somebody they didn’t know. Continue reading “You Want me to Give you WHAT??!” How to ask for money and stuff.