What's in your students' AEMM portfolios?

What? They don't have one? Well, they've missed the March 15th workshop, but you can still recommend that they take advantage of the great services offered by the Portfolio Center. Check out a description of their AEMM Portfolio services HERE

Favorite Author Not on Tour? See the Movie

From today's NYT: Can video save the literary star?

Ask the tastemakers at Powell’s Books, the venerable independent bookstore in Portland, Ore., who are planning a new series of short films featuring authors, to be shown at bookstores, movie-premiere style.

The British author Ian McEwan is the star of the first film, which is planned to run 23 minutes and will feature snippets from an on-camera interview with Mr. McEwan, as well as commentary from peers, fans and critics.

Such films could eventually take the place of in-store book readings, which attract fewer attendees all the time, many booksellers say. “Some authors go to events and are really captivating personalities,” said Dave Weich, the marketing manager at Powell’s Books. “That does not describe most of them.”

Read the whole article HERE

Blockbuster Chief Agrees to Exit Deal

From today's NYT: John F. Antioco, the chief executive of Blockbuster who has been locked in a dispute with company directors over the size of his bonus, has agreed to leave his job at the end of the year. Mr. Antioco will exit with far less than he initially wanted and two years before his contract expires.

Blockbuster said yesterday that Mr. Antioco would receive about $3.1 million for his 2006 bonus — less than half the amount he said he was entitled to, but $772,500 more than the board offered him in January.

He will also receive a severance payout of just under $5 million, Blockbuster said.

The agreement effectively ends a two-year battle of egos and management styles that began when the financier Carl C. Icahn, a Blockbuster director and one of its largest shareholders, objected to Mr. Antioco’s $51.6 million compensation package. At the time, the company was facing a crippling financial crisis...

Read the whole article HERE

Columbia's Central Box Office Opens

In case you hadn't already heard: The college's new central box office, developed to handle ticket sales for performing arts events campus-wide, opened March 1...The college's ticket system, called Tessitura, was chosen based on research conducted through the department of Arts, Entertainment, and Media Management. At the request of Mark Lloyd, the college's chief marketing officer, AEMM faculty member Philippe Ravanas engaged ten graduate students in his fall 2005 Box Office Management class to conduct a comprehensive survey of every system commercially available, with the goal of selecting a box office software for Columbia's presenting activities. After a comprehensive needs assessment for all departments involved and a thorough evaluation of all the products considered, they concluded that Tessitura software-developed by the Metropolitan Opera and used by other Chicago venues such as the Steppenwolf, Harris, and Goodman theaters-was by far the best system of its kind.

Read all about it in the March 9th ColumbiaOnline newsletter HERE

Tilting Hollywood's Balance of Power to Talent Agency Clients

From today's NYT: LOS ANGELES, March 18 — Almost six years ago, big thinkers at Hollywood’s Endeavor talent agency, best known as the players behind the industry satire “Entourage” on HBO, drilled into a bothersome question: Why should a star or director work for low pay on a labor of love only to see a film studio or foreign sales company strike it rich if the movie thrives in worldwide theatrical and video markets?

Far better, they reckoned, would be to put those dollars in the pockets of clients and, not incidentally, of the agents who represent them.

By late 2003, a young agent, Mordecai Wiczyk, under the wing of the Endeavor partners Ariel Emanuel and Patrick Whitesell, joined with a Harvard Business School classmate, Asif Satchu, to do just that by creating Media Rights Capital.

Read the whole article HERE

Managing tickets and fan sites on the web

From today's Tennessean.com: Ticketmaster is announcing a deal today to purchase Echomusic, a Nashville-based entertainment marketing company that powers fan Web sites for more than 300 clients, including Kelly Clarkson, Rascal Flatts and Keith Urban..."At Ticketmaster, we've been very interested in expanding the offerings we provide to our clients," said Sean Moriarty, president and CEO of West Hollywood, Calif.-based Ticketmaster, part of Barry Diller's InterActiveCorp, which also owns online services such as Match.com and Citysearch.

Read the whole article HERE

Friday, March 9th: Marketing the Peformer & Career Expo

Check out the Performarket followed by a Career Expo. Both events are sponsored by the Advising Center, the Portfolio Center and Alumni Relations. Here's info from their website (and check out the web site to see the full list of guests attending the Expo including REAL TALENT, Inc. and Aware Records / A-Squared Management):

Marketing the Performer

@ 10am "Marketing the Performer" in the Hokin Annex, 623 S Wabash

It takes more than a good looks and talent. Industry bigwigs will discuss the best ways for emerging performers to market their work and themselves.

Bigwigs: Andrea Shipp, Musical Theater/Dance Talent Agent with Lily's Talent; Wade Childress, Talent Agent with Stewart Talent; Jazz Singer Erin McDougald; music label impresario Seven from Chocolate Industries.

Career Salon & Expo

@ 11am The Career Salon & Expo at the HotHouse, 31 E Balbo

Guests from agencies, theaters, dance companies, music venues, associations, and guilds will be giving out information about their organizations, announcing casting calls, taking resumes, interviewing for internships, soliciting portfolios, and more. There will also be drop-in, performing arts-specific, career advice supplied by some of Chicago's finest actors, musicians, dancers and artist reps. Pull up a chair and have an informal chat with an industry professional about where you are, where you want to be, and how to get there.

Two business obituaries: A Gallo brother and a Pottery Barn founder

From today's NYT:

Ernest Gallo, a founding brother of the wine powerhouse E & J Gallo Winery died yesterday. Read the full obituary HERE.

Paul Secon, a founding brother of Pottery Barn, died last week. Read the full obituary HERE.

Interested in reading more about the Gallo wine empire? Check out the library's copy of Blood & Wine: the unauthorized story of the Gallo wine empire

No one can spend that much...can they?

From yesterday's NYT: For voyeurs of billionaires, a brief period from mid-February to mid-March serves up two of the juiciest glimpses they will get all year. In February, the Slate 60 list of the year's biggest philanthropic gifts comes out, followed in March by the Forbes magazine list of the world's richest people. This time, one name -- Warren E. Buffett -- will appear conspicuously on both. His fortune will probably rank second in the world behind only Bill Gates's, as it has for some years. In philanthropy, however, Mr. Buffett is No. 1 by a wide margin. Last year, he shook the world of billionaires by pledging more than $42 billion for charity -- by far the largest philanthropic donation in history and close to the total of all the Slate 60 donations for the last six years combined. You could almost see the editors at Forbes airbrushing the perplexed and stricken looks off the faces of their other billionaires. He's giving away $42 billion? Is he crazy? Certainly that is not what most of them had in mind for their fortunes.

But the move by Mr. Buffett raises the question of exactly what the other billionaires do have in mind for their money...Read the whole article HERE