Senior Contributor

Joe Patti

Focus Areas

Marketing, Legal Issues, Operations (backstage and front of house), Arts Presenting and Producing, Business Models, Outdoor Festivals Presenting Contemporary Indigenous Artists, Arts and Technology, Leadership in the Arts, Collaboration (between organizations, communities, artists-all permutations), Professional Development and Training, Organizational Culture, Volunteers, University Arts Environments

About

I have been writing Butts in the Seats (BitS) on topics of arts and cultural administration since 2004 (yikes!). Given the ever evolving concerns facing the sector, I have yet to exhaust the available subject matter. In addition to BitS, I am a founding contributor to the ArtsHacker (artshacker.com) website where I focus on topics related to boards, law, governance, policy and practice. I am also an evangelist for the effort to Build Public Will For Arts and Culture being helmed by Arts Midwest and the Metropolitan Group. (http://www.creatingconnection.org/about/) My most recent role was as Executive Director of the Grand Opera House in Macon, GA. Among the things I am most proud include leveraging the architecture of The Grand to provide safe programming during Covid, producing a devised work to explore ways to address blight that didn’t involve bulldozing, producing an opera in the Hawaiian language and a dance drama about Hawaii’s snow goddess Poli’ahu.

I have been trying to think of subjects to address on ArtsHacker, but my goal is to create entries that are relatively evergreen and with Covid, I feel like so much is being rewritten in terms of process and expectation. I think the addition of Eric Rubio is awesome. He is preaching to the choir when he talks about keeping your books up to date as you rather than scrambling at the end of the year or during an audit.

Connect

Should Your Work Be Protected By An LLC?

Recently Observer posted on a topic well worth considering – artists forming limited liability corporations (LLC) to shield their personal … Read more

Don’t Be Too Quick To Paint That Mural

One of the ways communities are using arts and creativity to revitalize buildings and downtown districts are murals on buildings. … Read more

War Cemeteries Are The Most Entertaining Places In The World, Just Not In The Way You Define It

Did you know according to surveys conducted a few months ago, the most entertaining performance based organization in the world … Read more

No One Knows You’re A Non-Profit (Sometimes Even After You Tell Them)

While it has sort of been generally known that visitors to arts and cultural organizations aren’t fully aware of whether … Read more

Conducting A Search For A Leader The Times Require

Leadership transitions are important for arts and culture organizations. We have featured a number of articles on the topic, covering … Read more

You Probably Need To Be Spending More On Overhead

For decades now there has been a belief that the lower the ratio of non-profit’s overhead expenses to program expense, … Read more

Maintaining A Consistent Brand Requires Change

When things have been going poorly for an organization and they seek a fresh start, (perhaps upon emerging from a … Read more

Time To Include #ShowTheSalary In The Hiring Process

There has been a growing campaign internationally in the non-profit/charity sectors over recent years for employers to include a salary … Read more

Show Me What You Love About The Arts Without Using Pictures Of The Arts

Advisory Board for the Arts sponsored a webinar discussing how Utah Symphony shifted its marketing focus to emphasize emotional factors … Read more

Many Lens of Board Recruitment

The upheaval of the past year in terms of public health, politics, social equity and other areas of concern have … Read more

Plan For An Inclusive Post-Covid Cultural Experience

In mid-December 2020, LaPlaca Cohen and Slover Linett Audience Research released an analysis of the data they collected in the … Read more

Work On Those Re-Opening Venue Images

Even pre-Covid the general guidance for promotional images and text was to focus on the audience experience. Regardless of whether … Read more

Yes, Data Driven Decision Making. But What Data Is Important?

There is a big push, correctly, for arts organizations to employ data driven decision-making processes. However, not all data is … Read more

You Can’t Just Let People Tear Your Clothes Off Anymore

Recently, International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), the union which has members working in performing arts venues, convention centers, … Read more

A Question Of Face Masks And Liability

In an earlier entry, I had written about meeting the legal duty of care and planning to re-open your venue … Read more

Meeting Your Legal Duty Of Care In Post-Covid Reopening

In another post, we had shared some general guidance provided by the Downtown Professionals Network for re-opening arts and cultural … Read more

Legal Considerations For Live Streaming Performances

As live-streaming performances moves from being quickly assembled, impromptu performances organizations were using to keep connected with audiences during Covid-19 … Read more

Guidance On Covid-19 Re-Openings, Even If Only Virtually

If you are looking for advice on best practices for arts and cultural entities once they are allowed to re-open, … Read more

Online Meetings & Open Meeting Laws

Do Your By-laws Allow For Online Meetings? If you live in the United States, you may remember there was much … Read more

Handling Contractual Elements of Event Cancellations Due To Epidemics & Other Crises

As event cancellations have started to mount due to the growing number of Covid-19 cases around the country, there has … Read more
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