Andrew Girvan

Exploring London Theatre Advertising at Christmas

By: agirvan

17-11-2009

My trips up and down the escalators to the Tube every morning changed slightly over the weekend with all the standard theatre posters being replaced with Christmas themed versions.

It’s the first time I’ve been in London for an extended period this close to Christmas but it does make perfect sense that West End producers are bumping up their advertising campaigns and planting the idea of a West End show Christmas treat in the minds of consumers. The number of high budget, highly advertised shows around London has also spiked in the run up to the festive period with Peter Pan transfering it’s tent from Kensington Gardens to the O2 arena. Panto is of course the other market factor to contend with as regional theatres just outside London, local to the train season ticket toting, high earning commuters who arrive in the city centre every morning.

BBC Executive Pay and Expenses: Why All The Fuss?

By: agirvan

12-11-2009

Old Media, Politics

The issue of executive pay and expenses at the BBC has become a political football again today and I have read articles in both the Evening Standard and The Grauniad. I assume this middle class outrage is the most reasonable of the no doubt loud public outcry with the Mail and Express probably calling for mass deportations or lynchings over the issue.

I personally feel that the British do rather well out of their state funded broadcaster. Looking to other large scale democracies it is dissapointing to see the level of debate, particularly political, that comes from an entirely free market press. If you have any issues with this statement please see Fox News. In the same way that perhaps only NPR can be held up in The States, the BBC is a bastion of good journalism and public service content.

Arts Funding: Ideas Tap Innovation and Edinburgh Fund

By: agirvan

12-11-2009

Arts Funding, Fringe

I spent most of this morning slowly thumbing throught the executive summaries of applications for the Ideas Tap Innovation and Edinburgh funds. I say slowly thumbing not because there is a lot of reading to do, the summaries are limited to 100 words, but because the wesite really is a mess. The entire thing seems to be crippled by JavaScript. You can’t open summaries, or “responses” as they are called in some parts of the site, in different browser tabs because they are all tied back to original query meaning that trying to get any grasp of what the applications contain, there are 180 for the Edinburgh fund alone, is near impossible.

I did spend enough time on the site to see that there are some very interesting applications. I admit that I spent more time on the Edinburgh fund’s pitch page as the Innovators Fund offers applications from just about everything under the sun and seemed to include a lot of applications from the film and TV development side of the industry.

London Theatre Review: The Trial at Southwark Playhouse

By: agirvan

12-11-2009

London Theatre, Theatre Review

Familiar to those I have worked with at C venues over the past couple of years, Belt Up are an an experimental theatre company hailing from York who have recently been making quite the impression at the Fringe. Their adaptation of Kafka’s Trial was one of two sell out shows that were staged at the Fringe this year, moving the group from their previous Red Room venue at C central into a found space in the fire wrecked C soco.

The back arch at Southwark Playhouse plays host to the piece for the next three weeks and again gives the piece a fantastic backdrop of urban decay. Just a few metres away from the trains rumbling over head the lighting design can only be described as spectacular, moving the audience from one end of the space to another, constantly creating new environments and revealing what sometimes feels like an endlessly large space. It really is a fantastic environment to showcase the work, adapted by and starring Dominic Allen.

Youtube and the PRS – New Media With Gloves Off

By: agirvan

14-03-2009

New Media

Readers probably do not need reminded that YouTube is not a trivial website. Figures published by independent firm comScore within the past couple of weeks estimate YouTube has been serving over 100 million videos per month since January 2009. Using black magic and some interesting data collecting techniques Beer Planet reckoned that in August of last year YouTube was hosting somewhere in the region of 144 million videos of which 19.8% are music videos (Media Tech Cultures).

So the short and long of it seems to be that YouTube has a pretty hefty selection of official and unofficial music videos, effectively turning the site into the world’s biggest jukebox with a selection of dance videos, live performances and lip sync renditions by every kid with a webcam. The problem with all this music floating about on the internet is that the artists want paid, well, technically at the moment its the publishing companies through their collecting society, who are wanting paid. If you look back at my previous blog entry you will find me exploring the ins and out of the music copyright system and hopefully get an idea of the issues involved and which industry rocks the money is to be found under.

New Media vs The Music Industry

By: agirvan

03-03-2009

So this evening’s blog post seeks to answer one very important question, a question which to date no one has actually asked me but which I feel I should answer: why doesn’t Re:place Radio play Britney Spears? I know, now that I pose the question you are intrigued.

Well there are the overarching reasons such as I wouldn’t play Britney Spears on my podcast if you paid me and I think Re:place Radio’s tame A&R Man Mark McNeill would have something to say about it as well.

To really get to the bottom of why we as a podcast network can’t go and play any music we want I am first going to go through a brief explanation of the copyright surrounding recorded music, referencing Wikipedia where necessary so that you can go and draw your own conclusions about how the giants in the music industry at large have chosen to interact with the new media landscape.

Arts Funding: RBS Draw the Purse Strings. What about the Arts?

By: agirvan

25-02-2009

Arts Funding, Fringe, Olympics

The BBC are reporting this evening that the troubled Royal Bank of Scotland, getting ready to sell a fifth of their business, are also going to be drawing their purse strings when it comes to sports and corporate sponsorship.

The original article is linked here

Some of the numbers are pretty staggering, and although they are not listed in the BBC article this evening’s 6 o’clock news gave viewers an idea of some of the figures involved.

The BBC’s Sports Ambassadors, including stars such as Andy Murray, cost the business around £200m.

The RBS 6 Nations receives funding in the region of £20m although this relationship has only recently been resigned and is expected to run until 2013.

The F1 William’s team is the big focus of the article this evening with funding in the region of £20m expected to be dramatically cut.

But where does this leave the performing arts in its relationships with big business? The boom years have seen many organisations adjust to fund their artistic activities through sticking a few corporate banners around the place.

In another article in this weekend’s Observer, linked here, Venessa Thorpe covers news from Arts and Business that a third of business who give more than £1m last year are expected to slash budgets this year.

Capital of Culture to The Land That Cultural Forgot?

By: agirvan

10-02-2009

Liverpool, Re:place Radio, Youth Engagement

So the Arts Council England has unleashed its plan to save theatre for the under 26′s! Its called A Night Less Ordinary and is the the scheme, as proposed in the McMaster report, to give under 26’s free tickets to the theatre. You can find out information at www.anightlessordinary.org.uk

The first thing which strikes me, and I have to say I went to it pretty quickly once I found out that the site was launched, was that there are no Liverpool theatres included in the scheme!

I am in a city which statistically is far too well served with theatres but where none of them have signed up, or have been selected by the Arts Council to be included in the scheme. I have to say I was thinking of launching a theatre podcast. I’m not sure what I was going to talk about it in but I was probably going to be doing it on a Thursday on the back of The Stage being launched as it would probably give me something to talk about. This is exactly the kind of thing that I would include in it! I might do some digging to find out from Liverpool theatres why they aren’t in the scheme. You will be the first to know.