For What It's Worth

I wrote a book looking at how different ways of moral and political theorizing drew different conclusions regarding whether the state should, or should not, subsidize the arts. At the very end of the book I give something of a personal view. There is a review circulating that is terribly confused about this (I won’t link - I read it so you don’t have to), and so I thought it would be worthwhile to just put out there what I wrote in this short conclusion, edited for brevity. First, to make a claim for public funding for the arts it is … [Read more...]

The Guardian has a new editorial up about how the price of a theatre ticket in London is too darn high. I imagine it would be possible to write a similar piece about theatre in any big North American city as well. But it makes some questionable claims and assumptions, so, here we go… “Theatre’s in a perilous state. My wife went the other day, it cost her nearly £200 – who could afford that?” asked the actor David Harewood. Well, for a start … your wife? Not to be (too) flippant about this, but a necessary condition for any … [Read more...]

I have a chapter on dynamic pricing in my old book. In a nutshell: dynamic pricing is where the seller adjusts the current price upwards or downwards based upon the most recent information on market conditions. This is not the same as a cinema having discount Tuesdays, since it will offer that each week as a result of known factors about the demand for tickets. Dynamic pricing is where you make changes on the go, where the price change might be up or down, depending. I suggested in the book that while airlines and hotels are pretty good at … [Read more...]

In a New York Times op-ed, Laura Raicovich and Laura Hanna call for a generous increase in the way the government, in particular the federal government, funds arts institutions: As policymakers in Washington gather to draft a new budget for fiscal year 2025, they could solve culture’s current financial crisis and radically reshape how we think about sustaining the arts. They could do this by tapping into abundant appropriations that already enjoy bipartisan support. To make this possible, first we need to stop treating museums, theaters and … [Read more...]

Reasonable people can disagree on the amount of military support the US ought to give to Ukraine. But no reasonable person can think that the costs of this are actually benefits in terms of spending and US job creation. The benefit to the public of the arts is the arts, not the money that we spend on the arts. The benefit to the public of aid to Ukraine is the aid to Ukraine, not the money that was spent on providing that aid. … [Read more...]

We had a lively and sometimes contentious discussion earlier today - it will appear on YouTube at some point, I will post it then. In the meantime, a condensed version... … [Read more...]

One week from today, Wednesday October 18, at noon eastern time, my colleague Dr. Joanna Woronkowicz will be interviewing me, and taking questions, on my recently published book, as part of the Center for Cultural Affairs workshop series (we meet every two weeks via Zoom, for the latest in arts management and policy research). It's free to register - please join us! UPDATE: Here is the video - I really enjoyed the discussion … [Read more...]

New Yorkers who are interested in seeing the film Barbie at the local multiplex will pay $25.49 per ticket. If, on the same weekend, they wish to also see Oppenheimer, as I read, in about one hundred and forty-seven news reports, people were doing, then we are up to $51. If baseball is more your thing, $30.80 will put you in the highest tier right field bleachers to watch the rather mediocre Yankees take on the Tampa Bay Rays tonight. Many people will do these things. The New York Times reports on major big-city museums raising their single … [Read more...]

In the New York Times, Isaac Butler sounds the alarm for the fate of live theatre in the US: The American theater is on the verge of collapse. ... Regional and nonprofit theaters were in trouble well before 2020 and the force majeure of the pandemic. Most regional and nonprofit theaters were built on a subscription model, in which loyal patrons paid for a full season of tickets upfront. Foundation grants, donations and single ticket sales made up the balance of the budgets. For much of the 20th century, this model worked. It locked … [Read more...]

Here's what the Internal Revenue Service says: Organizations organized and operated exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, testing for public safety, literary, educational, or other specified purposes and that meet certain other requirements are tax exempt under Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3). Organizations whose primary focus is literary or educational are exempt from the corporate income tax (they are also typically exempt from state property taxes, but that is a state government matter). An orchestra or museum … [Read more...]