New PSA from The Alliance for Arts and Culture October 31, 2009

I woke up this morning to this email via my Facebook from Kevin Teichroeb, who does some of the technical/website stuff at The Alliance for Arts and Culture.

Hi Rebecca,

We’re excited about a new PSA we’ve just uploaded to YouTube. I just finished it for the Alliance for Arts and Culture with editing wizard, Jenn Strom. It’s a community project that involves the photography – both time lapse and stills – of a few dozen flickr photographers. The force of social media is behind us. I hope you like it, and will blog about it because it will give the video a real push. We want to keep expanding our reach farther and farther. If you could send this off to your contacts we would really appreciate it.

Many thanks, Kevin

It’s great. Another excellent example of using video to promote your business and cause. Please pass it on to your own Facebook/Twitter contacts.

Restore Arts Funding Now!

: : : : : : : : : : :

Update on BC Cuts to the Arts October 16, 2009

First off, I’m excited to say that a profile piece on me was published yesterday in The Vancouver Observer. Alfred DePew interviews me about the recent cuts to the arts, and how Social Media helped us to organize our protest against it.

Click here to read it.

Secondly, yesterday a delegation of 25 representatives from the non-profit and arts worlds affected by the recent cuts to the arts met yesterday with Kevin Krueger, the minister of arts and culture. It’s my understanding that not much positive came out of that meeting. So…. another rally has been planned. Similar to the one on September 9 at the VAG, this one is called The Grey Rally. It’s happening all day on Wednesday, October 28, all over the city. Here’s the information from the Facebook page (speaking of using social media to organize):

The Grey Square Grand Plan

A minimum of 16 people, dressed in GREY, walk single file SILENTLY and make a grey square SILENTLY on a city corner.
Someone in that group will be designated timekeeper.
After 15 minutes, led by the timekeeper, they walk single file to another city corner and make another square.
This goes on all day, all around the city.
People can be funneled in and out once the route and times are ascertained.

We need: people to form grey squares; volunteers to hand out leaflets; volunteers for communication and organization tasks.

This is not a protest. This is about art and artists taking their space.

Participants are asked to donate an hour of their time on Oct 28. If you are interested in participating, please contact movingjac@gmail.com.

Finally, The Alliance For Arts and Culture has created an Advocacy Toolkit. Please download it, read it, and create some action!

: : : : : : : : : : :

Alliance calls community meeting for Wednesday August 31, 2009

From Kevin McKeown, the new Director of Communications at The Alliance for Arts and Culture:

Alliance for Arts and Culture
ARTS COMMUNITY MEETING

Wednesday, September 2, 2009
1 pm to 3 pm
Museum of Vancouver
1100 Chestunut Street

The Alliance for Arts and Culture will convene a community meeting on Wednesday, September 2 at the Museum of Vancouver to discuss our options in response to this week’s announcements regarding BC Gaming Commission Direct Access Grants. The meeting will run from 1 pm to 3 pm.

We will attempt to quantify the damage, bring one-another up-to-date on protest initiatives currently being taken by individual artists, organizations and discipline sectors, and discuss the pros and cons of several possible courses of action for the future.

This meeting will NOT be open to the media, elected officials or cultural sector bureaucrats. While we appreciate the support we are receiving from many in each of these sectors, the arts community needs this opportunity to “talk among ourselves”.

This is NOT a “rally” so we are only looking for one or two pesons from each arts organizations to attend. A full-scale arts community rally in the near future will be one of the options discussed. So please don’t send your entire staff and/or membership!

Arts organizations that are not members of the Alliance are welcome to send representatives to this gathering.

Please RSVP to kdm@allianceforartsandculture.com indicating how many representatives from your organization will be attending. Seating is limited, so we need to count noses. We will begin at precisely 1 pm, so plan to arrive early.

QUANTIFYING THE DAMAGE
We have had numerous emails over the past few days from Alliance members and non-members informing us of declined Direct Access grants.

To help us quantify the damage to our community in advance of Wednesday’s community meeting, could you take a moment to email us the following details, in the order noted:

• Name of your organization.
• Amount of declined grant request.
• Whether this was a one-year or multi-year grant.
• If multi-year, which year was declined.
• How many years your organization has been receiving Direct Access funding.
• Whether your organization has a BC Arts Council grant pending.

The government now seems to be mixing apples with oranges in order to make it as difficult as possible to understand our exact standing with various sources of funding. At least one arts organization has received confirmation of a BCAC grant which cites the Gaming Grants Program as the source of the funds, and states that the money will be deposited to the recipient’s Gaming account.

If you receive a similar BCAC grant confirmation, please let us know whether that grant is for the full amount of your original BCAC funding request.

We would also like to hear from any organization which received a Direct Access Grant or grant confirmation in the past week, or does so in the coming days. So far, the only approved grants seem to be those confirmed prior to the freeze — most of them in May.

Please keep your responses to the above questions brief and factual. I will have to compile the answers in a spreadhseet, and lengthy and anecdotal replies will slow down the process.

Thank you for your collaboration.

MEDIA CONFERENCE
The Alliance for Arts and Culture will hold a media conference to announce the outcomes of Wednesday’s community meeting on Thursday, September 3, at a time and place to be determined.

: : : : : : : : : : :

Massive turnout at Press Conference in support of Spencer Hebert August 30, 2009

What a way to catch up with friends and colleagues.

The theatre community was well represented today at the press conference at Spencer Hebert’s downtown office. Many of them were my colleagues, friends, and clients. But it’s like meeting people you haven’t seen in ages a funereal: while you’re happy to see them and catch up with them, you’re sad that this is the occasion that brings you together.

So, to quickly summarize: The provincial government has promised arts and non-profit organizations money from its Gaming

Crowds spill out onto the sidewalk at the press conference today

revenue. What this means is, some of the money that they make (last year $1 Billion), from lotteries goes to non-profit and arts organisations. Some theatre companies have mult-year agreements, to the tune of $40,000 per year, for three years. This is money that they have signed a contract for with the government, and are counting on to produce shows. The money is already allocated.

In the case of some theatre companies, like Touchstone and Ruby Slippers, the money comes at the end of thier fiscal year. They made choices and spent with the knowledge that that money was coming. In the case of Touchstone, the result is that they are now facing an unprecedented (in their 35 years) deficit, because thier season is over, but they were expecting that money, which is now not coming.

I think a lot of the outrage is because of this. In the arts, we are used to having little, and to making our work on a shoestring. What is making people so angry is that this is money that they were assured they would be getting, and it is now being taken back.

If someone did something like that in the corporate world, they would be immediately sued.

The devastation is wide-spread. I don’t know of too many theatre companies in Vancouver who have not been affected. At the press conference, I spoke to the ADs of Touchstone, Ruby Slippers, Leaky Heaven Circus and Theatre Terrific, all of whom I worked for last season, all of whom are facing massive cutbacks. Presentation House is affected, but Full Figure has not yet heard.

Deb Pickman, whose Shameless Hussy Theatre company goes into rehearsals tomorrow for their latest production, Frozen, has said that the three company members (herself included) will be forced to forgo their salaries as a result of the cuts, and tour planned and advertised for the fall may have to be cut if they can’t make up the shortfall. Carol Higgins of Carousel Theatre recently posted on Facebook about how she was going to make up for the shortfall.

At this moment, I don’t know if my own work will be directly impacted, but it certainly will impact the theatre community as a whole, and future contracts will certainly be affected.

Vancouver Sun story

Global TV story

CTV story

The Province, Aug 31

A facebook group has sprung up called Organizing Against Campbell’s Cuts to the Arts.

Alliance for Arts and Culture
ARTS COMMUNITY MEETING

Wednesday, September 2, 2009
1 pm to 3 pm
Museum of Vancouver
1100 Chestunut Street

: : : : : : : : : : :

Financial Friday May 8, 2009

On Wednesday night, I attended a forum on financial management that was put on by one of my clients, Full Figure Theatre. Among the crowd were quite a few artists and actors, and they asked some good questions. I wanted to share with you some of the excellent tips and websites that I picked up.

I have always believed that I should try to have some kind of cash reserve–an emergency fund, or a savings account for a vacation or large purchase. But what I learned on Wednesday night is that having savings and debt at the same time is somewhat counterproductive. This is because you are paying high amounts of interest on your debt (maybe even up to 28% for some credit cards) and earning a very small amount of interest (maybe 2-3%) on your savings. By taking the money you have earmarked for savings and applying it to your debt, you can pay down your debt faster, and that saves you money in interest.

After your debt is cleared, set up special savings accounts, and give them names: “house,” “car,” “vacation.” Having a goal for your money will increase the odds that you won’t spend it on just anything.

Before you start this process, you need to know where your money is going. Even if you don’t have much money to spend, you might be shocked to see how much you are spending on certain things. This means tracking your spending every single day, every single penny. After you’ve done this for a few weeks, or, ideally, a month, you can start to create your spending plan.

Your spending plan needs to take into account your fixed epenses (rent/mortgage, phone, car insurance, etc), and your variable expenses, which are things like food, clothing, eating out, gifts, etc. And just know that if you overspend in one area, you don’t need to punish yourself. You may need to try to find that money somewhere else to make up for the shortfall, but it’s more about having knowlege around where your money is going, because that’s where the power is–you are controlling your money, not the other way around.

Here are some great websites I’ve discovered, or were suggested to me:

Billing Boss: This great, free tool, creates customizeable, trackable invoices. You upload your address and logo, put in the information, and it creates a professional looking invoice for  you. You can track if your client has opened it, and download the info into your accounting software. It is also PayPal enabled, so you can send the invoice and be paid all online.

CNN Debt Reduction Calculator: You put in all your debt information, credit cards, line of credit, loans, etc and their interest rates. It then calculates either how long it will take you to pay off your debt if you pay a certain amount each month, or it will calculate how much you need to pay each month in order to pay it off in a certain amount of time, say two years.

Piggy Pal: is an online money tracker. The advantage of having this information on a website is that you have access to it all the time, and can input information at work, at home, or via your smart phone.

: : : : : : : : : : :

Mid-week Tim-… er, Tid-Bits April 29, 2009

I have a couple of things to share with you today, mid-week. No real theme, just some things that have come across my desk that I thought were worthy of sharing. So, hopefully you get something out of them…

1. Where Did I Spend it All?? A free financial forum for Women: If you are living in Vancouver, are female, and feel like you are affected by the recession, or you have money issues, you should check this out!

Full Figure Theatre is pleased to present Where Did I Spend It All?, an open and frank discussion on how women feel about wealth, assets, personal worth, and our relationship with money. Produced with the generous assistance of the Vancouver Public Library, the forum, which is free, will take place May 6, at 7 pm in the Alma Van Dusen and Peter Kay rooms at the Central Branch of the VPL
Hosted by Heath, the panel will also include: Lori Bamber (Freelance Writer), Melanie Buffel (Money Skills Facilitator), Karin Mizgala (Financial Educator), and Tracy Theemes (Financial Advisor).

More info: www.fullfiguretheatre.net

2. Mad Mimi Email Marketing: Any regular reader of my blog will hear me go on and on about two things: RENT and email marketing campaigns. I am single-handedly responsible for getting a bunch of Van Theatre companies to sign up for Constant Contact–I truly should be on a reward plan. While Constant Contact is certainly the industry leader, and it’s not-for-profit discount makes it attractive to theatre companies, it can be a tad, well, shall we say, busy? I prefer clean, simple graphics, so I often recommend IContact as an alternative. However, there’s now a new alternative to simple and clean: Mad Mimi. Check them out for yourself–prices are very reasonable, starting at $8/month.

3. Finally, I recently signed up for a PR Newsfeed, which I get daily, and it is rocking my world. This was an article that was highlighted in it  a couple of days ago. Published on  a blog called Conversation Agent, it’s called When is it a good idea to include Bloggers in your Media Outreach?, and here’s a sample:

I get my fair share of press releases every day – at the tune of 4-5 per day, in fact. The best word I can use to describe them by and large is unimpressive. “I think you’re fabulous” may seem like a good idea for a subject line, but if you cannot tell me why, as in what about my work makes you say that, you’re out.

That means you not only miss the mark on what I like to write about, you show lack of interest. It is clear I’m on a hit list, but there is no effort towards understanding why. The why is the reason your press release or pitch is going nowhere. Get that, and you will begin to have some success with bloggers’ outreach.

The best pitch is no pitch at all. The best pitch is in fact a conversation. One in which the writer can find a unique story to tell. One based on an ongoing relationship with someone who writes about a specific subject matter. If journalists and editors need to think about their readers, so do bloggers.

Do yourself a favor and read the rest.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have the strangest craving for TimBits…

: : : : : : : : : : :

Surviving The Culture Change February 16, 2009

This was recently forwarded to me by Mirjana Galovich, who is the director of marketing and sales for the Vancouver Museum. It is US arts philanthropy expert Diane Ragsdale’s keynote address on the subject “Surviving the Culture Change,” which she gave to the Australia Council Arts Marketing Summit held in Melbourne on 3-4 July 2008.

Here is an excerpt:

As a result of new technologies, generational shifts and economic divides, changing demographics, increasing diversity in cities and town across America, a trend towards anti-intellectualism, increased competition for people’s leisure time, cuts in funding for the arts in K-12 education, the decline in arts coverage in newspapers, and many other forces, we are seeing a profound shift in the interrelated relationships between people, space, time, and art, and changes in the ways that people create, consume, commune, and communicate. This is the culture change to which I am referring…

…podcasts can save us? How about Facebook? I keep having this picture in my mind of arts organizations huddled up, frantically flipping through some metaphorical 21st century audience development playbook, trying to figure out the perfect combination of plays that will win over younger audiences: Should we get rid of subscriptions? Stream podcasts? Produce videos for YouTube? Hire DJs and VJs to play in the lobby after the show? Have a MySpace page? Text our patrons on their cell phones? Remake the season brochure? Host some sort of amateur art competition?

Maybe! But we can’t answer these questions until we answer some more fundamental questions. Yes, we need to bring our marketing into the 21st century; but first, we need to bring our missions into the 21st century. This is less a failure to sell well, and more a failure to see well – a failure to see that our communities have changed, and that art and artists have changed, and that we, perhaps, as institutions that exist to broker a relationship between the two (communities and artists) have not changed in response.

What I love about this keynote, is that she is talking about all good marketing, which is, at its very basis, simply relationship marketing. It’s always been that way. But if we are to survive the shrinking of the traditional media and the aging of our subscription audience and the fact that we are in a recession, we have to start thinking about relationship marketing in different ways. If we think of it as building a community.

You can read Diane’s entire keynote here. And tune in to the blog on Wednesday for some ideas that theatres around the world are implementing to make their work connect more with their audience.

I will be participating in a conference call on March 2, at 9 am PST, 1 pm EST, with The Prosperous Artists, Rosh Sillars and Dean La Douceur. Feel free to phone in with your questions (206 202 3568). We will be discussing the topic of relationship marketing. The conference call will be available for download as a podcast afterwards.

: : : : : : : : : : :

Stubmatic–a new online ticketing option January 16, 2009

If you are independently producing theatre in Vancouver, your options for ticketing are limited.

For those starting out, I’ve often seen producers get a dedicated phone line with voicemail. The outbound message gives info about the show, and people can leave a message for a reservation. They depend upon family and friends to manage the box office at the door. This is certainly the cheapest option, but, unable to actually sell tickets online or over the phone, there is nothing to keep people from just not bothering to show up.

Next up, there is Tickets Tonight. Since Festival Box Office closed their doors a couple years back, Tickets Tonight is pretty much the only game in town (with the exception of Ticketmaster, which is where the big boys play). Tickets Tonight, although it may be the only game in town, is not a bad deal. Your show gets listed on their website, and people can visit their physical ticket booth, which is conveniently located inside Tourism Vancouver. They can accept credit cards, and all the math is done for you. As well, there is no fee to the producer–the fees are paid by the patron. The customer service charge ranges from $2.14 for a ticket under $10, up to $4.28 for a $40 ticket.

Enter the new kid on the block: Stubmatic. Developed by a software company

in the UK, Stubmatic uses PayPal technology to sell tickets online. There is no customer service fee (although if you want to charge one, you can), and plans start at as little as $9/month for events that seat up to 250.

Jon Baker, the CEO of Vibrant Apps, who created Stubmatic, had this to say about it:

There are several benefits to small theatre producers using our service. Firstly, we offer them a massive cost saving over our competition. Even though some of our competition don’t charge any monthly fees they will add upwards of a 10% booking fees on top of the face value of each ticket sold. We only charge a flat monthly fee with no hidden costs. In addition we provide our users with the option to charge their own booking fee (per ticket or transaction). They can use this to cover the cost of our monthly fee as well as any PayPal fees they may incur, for example. The second benefit is that we are a small company and pride ourselves on being accessible and able to help our customers and we try to react quickly as possible to feature & support requests. Additionally we provide our users a range of tools to help market their event. These include “Buy Now” buttons that they can put on other websites to link to their box office and we also do behind the scenes search engine optimisation to improve their event page’s search engine ranking. If any of your users have a MySpace page we offer a MySpace application which can be installed. This displays / links to all events they are selling directly on their MySpace profile.

The only drawback of Stubmatic, that I can see, is that, because it’s PayPal, it charges in US dollars. Which, for some people, might be enough to keep them from using it. However, Stubmatic offers a free, no-strings-attached trial period. If you go to http://www.stubmatic.com/info/register you can sell up to three events (maximum 500 tickets per event) for free.

: : : : : : : : : : :

So, how much should you be spending on marketing and publicity? November 26, 2008

I was just reading a really interesting post by Darren Barefoot about Victoria’s Belfry Theatre, called The Economics of a Theatre. In it, he breaks down how much money the theatre is spending, and where their revenue comes from. Now, The Belfry is doing pretty good–last year, they sold 92% of their tickets, which, in an industry where you are considered to be a success at anything over 40%, is fantastic. More than half of The Belfry’s income comes from ticket sales. Very impressive.

Then I started to look at their expenses. Their greatest expense is actually production costs, things like sets, lights, costumes, and, of course, actors, designers, directors and technicians. But their second biggest expense, in fact 18% of their budget, goes to marketing and publicity. Which leads to 52% of their income coming from ticket sales.

Not to compare apples and oranges, but locally, the greatest  theatrical success story in town is undoubtedly Bard on the Beach. Last season, they did 96% at the box office. Percentage of their budget that goes to Marketing and Publicity? About 10%.

Well, to be fair, you don’t have to spend loads of dough on marketing and publicity. If–and only if–you have time. If you don’t have loads of money, but you have lots of time, you can get away with not spending so much, but your investment is still there–just an investment of a different kind.

Simon Ogden just wrapped a play, The 21st Floor, produced by Lyric Stage Project over at the PAL. The numbers are still coming in, but early reports indicate they did about 80% at the box office. In terms of expenses for marketing and publicity, they paid for things like postcards, stickers, a website, paper, printing and ink. But they also used the internet to do marketing. They set up a blog, which was written by one of the characters in the show, and handed out invitations to everyone they knew and met on the bus. They used Facebook, Twitter, and invited bloggers to come and see the show and write about it. They also managed to get some preview coverage on radio, and quite a few reviews.

So, the next time you’re producing a play, unless you are lucky enough to have someone on staff that has lots of time to devote to marketing and publicity, you should budget between 10-15% of your overall budget to help get the bums in seats.

: : : : : : : : : : :

Future Finances Part II: What the heck is ‘bounce’? November 10, 2008

This is the second in a series of posts that focus on your finances, specifically, money to support yourself and your business down the road.

I interviewed Shelley, who comes from a background of acting and arts administration, but who now works as a Consultant for Investor’s Group, a series of questions about managing our future finances as artists, and she gave me so much information, I had to stretch it over a series of blog posts! This post focuses on ‘bounce.’

TAoTB: Okay, first things first: what the heck is ‘bounce’?

S: Really simply, ‘bounce’ is an emergency fund. The fact is that, as self-employed people, we tend to have a variable income.  One month you could make $5,000, the next $500.  What happens if that latest contract you signed doesn’t pay on time and your rent/mortgage/utilities payments are due?  Everyone needs an emergency fund – whether we lose a job and need to wait 8 weeks for EI to come through (IF we’re eligible), or simply have a slow-down in work.

TAoTB: Right. That makes sense. How much of a bounce do you recommend we need, and what should I do with those funds?

S: Three months of expenses would be my minimum recommendation, with my preference being somewhere between 4 and 6 months.
That money would be used so that:

• Our goals don’t suffer. For example, what if you can’t make our RSP contribution for 6 months because you need to eat instead – this can have an enormous impact on long-term goals.
• You always have a positive cash-flow situation.  If that contract doesn’t pay on time, you’re not needing to borrow from friends to pay rent (‘cause we’ve ALL been there).
• We can plan for the “what ifs”.   For example: “what if” I can’t work because I’ve injured myself and WCB/my Disability Insurance has a 120 day waiting period?

TAoTB: Where’s a good place to keep your bounce?

S: You have a few options. Obviously, a savings account–I like one that is not connected directly to my bank account so that it’s not really easy to access. ING Direct or many Credit Unions have good free- or low-fee options. There are also non-registered accounts available – you can put your monies into these accounts and have access to it within 2-3 days.  Money Market and No-Load funds would be the most sensible.  The goal is to have your money in a place where you can gain some interest on it, and have it be accessible, but not too accessible.

Another option will be available starting in January. The Government of Canada has announced an amazing new vehicle for non-registered savings called the Tax Free Savings Account (TFSA).  Persons over the age of 18 can contribute up to $5,000 per year into this account and withdraw it at any time, without tax penalties.

What’s cool about this account is that it doesn’t have to be in a traditional Savings account.  You can invest in Stocks, Bonds, Mutual Funds, GICs – nearly ANY vehicle that would be eligible for RRSPs. This makes the potential for you making money off of your emergency fund while you are not using it much, much higher.

Let me give you an example. Let’s say you invest $5,000 on January 2nd , and, with some crafty investing, and in a best-case scenario, these monies grow by an unbelievable amount – let’s say $25,000 by May 1. On May 1, you can withdraw $25,000 without any penalty, maintain your contribution room and NOT incur any taxes.

TAoTB: Thanks!

Next in the series: insurance!

: : : : : : : : : : :