Money

Douglas McLennan: The Ticket Buyer Or The Donor?

May 3, 2009newsArts Organization, Dollar Donation, Douglas Mclennan, Money, Ticket Buyer, Ticket Revenue

Give an arts organization $1000 and they’ll put your name in the program. Buy $1000 worth of tickets and they’ll tell you that the cost of your ticket only covered 55 percent (or 40 percent or 30 percent) of the cost of you being there. Then a few months later, long after the performance, they try to hit you up for more money. Gee thanks.

Maybe this is backwards. Who’s the more valuable member of your community? The person who gives you money but otherwise doesn’t have much to do with you, or the person who buys tickets and shows up for every performance? A thousand dollar donation is the same as $1000 of ticket revenue in the bank. Except it isn’t.

via More Valuable – The Ticket Buyer Or The Donor? – diacritical .

How to Save the World: Environmental Health Clinic

March 29, 2009newsArtistic Efforts, Artworks, Bikes, Bikes Parts, Car Condoms, Car Parts, Comic Relief, Condom, Emergency Shelters, Environmental Health Clinic, Fears, Graffiti, Guidance, How To Save The World, Impending Doom, Intersection, Ish, Money, Netherlands, Reassurance, Utopia

Thereâ€™s a fun exhibit that just closed in the Netherlands called How to Save the World in 10 Days. Rather than instantly transforming our planet to a heavenly glowing utopia, the festival instead presented an overview of worldwide cultural and artistic efforts to defend the planet from impending doom.

The artworks ranged from bikes made of car parts to emergency shelters, from reverse graffiti to car condoms. That last one involved actually sliding a condom over a car tailpipe, then watching it balloon up and sputter away. Worked practically for a minute, then served mostly as comic relief.

A performance that seemed to encapsulate the essence of the ish was the performance â€œEnvironmental Health Clinic.â€ The artist set up a booth in the center of a busy intersection and encouraged visitors to sit and unload their environmental concerns. She then would offer guidance, reassurance, and action tips. Environmentalism as a primary means for assuaging fears. How to Save the World was up at Vooiruit in Gent. Thanks to we make money not art.

Go to the Green Museum

A tale of two bankers

March 5, 2009news, RSA Arts & Ecology1000s, Ashden Awards, Assumptions, Bangladesh, Banks, Beggars, Deliverer, Ecology, Economic Realities, Fred Goodwin, Grameen Bank, Mohammad, Mohammed Yunus, Money, Robert Butler, Sir Fred, Tens, Thursday Night

At the Ashden Directory blog Robert Butler writes about Mohammed Yunus, founder of Bangladeshâ€™s Gameen Bank, and deliverer of Thursday nightâ€™s Ashden Awards lecture:

Impossible not to compare two bankers – Sir Fred Goodwin and Mohammad Yunus – two world views: one that works, one that doesnâ€™t.

Thereâ€™s something almost Wildean about Yunusâ€™s stories. He overturns the assumptions by which a society operates. The Grameen Bank has loaned money to tens of 1000s of beggars and his bank still flourishes. Other banks that only lend to the rich (because of â€˜economic realitiesâ€™) have crashed.

Go to RSA Arts & Ecology Blog