Saturday Matinee

In two days, I’m heading to Walnut Creek for the 40th annual conference for the Association of California Symphony Orchestras! I’ll be on a panel alongside SF Chronicle classical music critic Joshua Kosman, Lyla Foggia of Foggia PR (representing the Festival Opera of Walnut Creek), and possibly a Contra Costa Times person – the panel as it stood as of two weeks ago, at least. I’ll be speaking as a card-carrying member of the plebs blogerati in a panel titled “Charting New Territories: The Changing Media Landscape” moderated by Gary Ginstling, director of communications at the San Francisco Symphony on Friday afternoon. It’ll be interesting to see what issues that people are really interested in, and where discussion will go.

The description for our discussion:

“Given the shifting balance between print and online media, how do arts organizations get the word out? Where should we focus our human and financial resources in this world of bloggers, wikis and social networkers? A panel of media, marketing and PR professionals help us explore these vexing issues that face all arts organizations, large and small.”

I’ll post a summary of this discussion afterwards; it’s an issue that’s near and dear to my heart – promoting theater by talking about it and demystifying a subject that’s inaccessible and exclusive to a lot of people. On the flip side, it’s fascinating for me to approach it from the arts organization’s point of view and to see what purposes blogs serve to them.

And then immediately afterwards, I will be jetting off to SoCal for some coffee and Cuban sandwiches and good company in Silver Lake, in addition to some ABT and Hollywood Bowl goodness. My summer vacation is only two days off of work, but I’m really looking forward to it!! It’s going to be a fun weekend.