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Saudi Arabia’s $15 Billion Scheme To Create A Global Cultural Capital Almost From Scratch

The site for the project is AlUla, a historical site with ancient rock-hewn buildings similar to those in Petra, Jordan. The plan is for five different cultural districts connected by a tram running along 12-mile greenway; attractions are to include museums and galleries, an archaeology and conservation center, an outdoor amphitheater, a nature park, and, of course, luxury hotels....

Beleaguered StubHub Ticket Service Will Now Offer Refunds For Canceled Events

Customers complained to the press and filed lawsuits. In an interview, StubHub customer experience vice president Daron Fowlks declined to comment on litigation but said that customers who bought tickets to events in the U.S. or Canada on or before March 25, 2020, and were issued credits for cancellations, will now get refunds. Those will be paid out by...

A California Appeals Court Holds Amazon Responsible In Third-Party Sales

A hoverboard burst into flames, harming the person who bought it from a third-party seller on Amazon Marketplace and leading to a court case in which a California appeals court said Amazon can't duck out on this one. "Bottom line: Amazon — and by extension other online retailers — isn’t just a bystander when someone purchases a third-party product....

Disney Apparently Decided Not To Pay Some Authors Their Royalties

And now there's a task force trying to get the authors of novels in the Indiana Jones, Buffy, and Star Wars universes the royalties for recent sales of their books. Disney, according to author Alan Dean Foster, told him that when they bought Lucasfilm and the rights to Foster's novelization of Star Wars: A New Hope, first published in...

The Grim, Open Secret Of College Bone Collections

In recent weeks, revelations that both Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania used the bones of teenaged victims of the city of Philadelphia's bombing of a house in 1985 have shook the world outside of college forensic anthropology. But inside those worlds? It's not a surprise that the bones of Black children would be used for teaching. "Museums and...

LA Opens A Tiny Home Village For Homeless People

“The city keeps investing in these temporary shelters, but everyone acknowledges that there’s nowhere to move to from these shelters. And if it’s not permanent housing, it doesn’t actually solve homelessness,” says Shayla Myers of the Legal Aid Foundation of L.A. “Everyone says we need all of these options, and there’s no question that’s true. But at some point,...

France’s Cultural Venues Get An Official Reopening Date

"Museums, theatres, cinemas and concert halls will reopen on May 19, along with non-essential shops and outdoor seating at cafes and restaurants, Macron told regional French newspapers in a highly-anticipated announcement." - Yahoo! (AFP)

Scottish Government Ordered To Reconsider Six-Foot-Distance Reopening Rule After Arts Groups Rebel

Following a personal intervention by the culture minister, "controversial new guidelines which will force Scotland's arenas, concert halls and comedy clubs to impose two metre social distancing on audiences are to be reviewed in the wake of warnings they will force most venues to remain closed." - The Scotsman

UK Artists Demand Action On Post-Brexit Touring Crisis

"We are extremely concerned by the lack of progress which has been achieved over the last three months to unravel the mountain of costly bureaucracy and red tape which now faces the creative industries," the letter said. "With scheduling already under way for creative work later this year, you have a limited window of opportunity to resolve this crisis...

A $2 Billion Plan Would Transform LA’s Arts District

An Arts District cold-storage plant dating to the 1890s would be replaced with housing, offices, a hotel and shops in a proposal unveiled Thursday by Denver developers. With a price tag between $1.5 billion and $2 billion, the complex would rank among the largest L.A. commercial real estate developments in recent memory. - Los Angeles Times

Bard Center Explores Connections Between Arts And Human Rights

The two-year, interdisciplinary MA plans to host in-person classes at Bard’s Annandale-on-Hudson campus and welcomes “current and aspiring activists, artists, and researchers” who are committed to “understanding, exploring, and furthering the growing encounter between human rights and the arts.” - Hyperallergic

Getting In To A Concert Got A Lot More Complicated In The COVID Protocols

"Gone was the chance to rush to a concert after work and plop down into your seat as the curtain rose. Before they entered the Shed, concertgoers would need to check one of three boxes: show proof of full vaccination; demonstrate a negative PCR test taken within 72 hours of the event; or have taken a rapid antigen test,...

Ted Gioia On Finding Creative Success Outside The System

"For many of us in the creative economy, too much energy is spent on working the system. My response has been to operate in contexts where that isn’t such a time drain. I don’t work the system anymore, except as a last resort: I aim instead to bypass it. The better I have gotten at circumventing gatekeepers, the more...

‘Live Shows Are About To Come Roaring Back To Full Houses’, Says One Critic

Chris Jones: "There's real evidence now of pent-up demand. Consider what is happening in Las Vegas. Cirque du Soleil, which has emerged from bankruptcy protection and put its famous productions of both Mystère and O on sale last week …, has seen colossal demand for tickets. … Comedian Dave Chappelle sold 13,000 tickets for his July 2 concert. The...

Florida Boosts Arts Funding by 24%

"The 2021-22 budget plan agreed to by the Florida House and Senate and sent to Gov. Ron DeSantis includes $26.7 million in two of the four budget categories that provide allocations for arts and cultural organizations and individual artists. That marks a 24 percent boost over 2020, when the Legislature approved $20.2 million in three categories." - Sarasota Herald-Tribune

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