{"id":1319,"date":"2016-03-17T21:40:02","date_gmt":"2016-03-18T04:40:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ideajones.com\/?p=1319"},"modified":"2016-03-17T21:40:02","modified_gmt":"2016-03-18T04:40:02","slug":"arts-life-dispatch-from-the-trenches-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ideajones.com\/?p=1319","title":{"rendered":"Arts Life — Dispatch From The Trenches #2"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"As<\/a>

As we gather information from those who know about promoting artists and arts groups, we’re sharing them. May your art thrive!<\/p><\/div>\n

Let’s call this one Why Should Anyone Give A Rat’s?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A conversation I had with someone at a gallery today brought back conversations I’ve had in the past with “gatekeepers,” the people who decide whether or not to cover something. These are editors, producers, reporters, critics — people who look at your press release, press kit, what-have-you and decide if there’s a story there. If they don’t see what will interest a reader, listener or viewer, your event won’t be mentioned.<\/p>\n

I’ve been given some pointers on how to make a project, or event, more appealing to a gatekeeper. I’m sharing what I’ve been told in hopes some of it will prove useful (and so I remember it myself). The idea of this lesson breaks into a few parts, so we’ll start with:
\n
\n How are you saying it?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

An idea can be more or less interesting depending on how you put it. I don’t mean “spin,” that manipulation that seeks to gild cowflops and call them gold nuggets. I mean looking at your event for what is new, unusual, or interesting about it. For example: I recently spoke with a man who organizes concerts and musical performances for a nonprofit. He was frustrated by their low success rate at getting noticed in the larger arts scene in the region. <\/p>\n

So we talked about a recent event he’d worked on, a concert by an elderly guitarist. Sounds ripping, right? Well, I asked a few more questions and using the techniques I’d been taught, the concert with the elderly guitarist became a “rare performance by an influential musician, an expert in classical and flamenco guitar…” All of which was true. The man rarely performs any more, and was a teacher who influenced other up-and-coming musicians, including one who opened for him. <\/p>\n

Not spin — what you say must be true and defensible. You should be able to make a strong case for what you’re saying if you need to. Look at your subject. What’s unusual about it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let’s call this one Why Should Anyone Give A Rat’s? A conversation I had with someone at a gallery today brought back conversations I’ve had in the past with “gatekeepers,” the people who decide whether or not to cover something. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[27,72,61,71,46,47,45,35,70,34,8,62,63,65,24],"class_list":["post-1319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ideajones","tag-art","tag-art-life","tag-art-marketing","tag-artist","tag-author","tag-authors","tag-book","tag-idea","tag-idea-jones","tag-ideajones","tag-joey-jones","tag-marketing","tag-promotion","tag-publicity","tag-radio"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideajones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideajones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideajones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideajones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideajones.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1319"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ideajones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1320,"href":"https:\/\/ideajones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1319\/revisions\/1320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideajones.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideajones.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideajones.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}