'g' For Thursday NO 'Calendar'!
By laurence_glavin - 10/30/08 - 5:14 pm
'g" in today's (10/30) Boston Globe is a COLLOSSAL-COMET-SHOEMAKER-LEVY-SMASHING-INTO-JUPITER CALAMITY! It's NO replacement for the 'Calendar' section that has adorned the Thursday edition of the paper for years. I sometimes spent an hour poring over nearly every listing in nearly every category to make sure I didn't miss out on something interesting going on somewhere in Greater Boston...no more. Now, there's nothing but short blurbs about usually already-over-hyped events involving establishmment cultural groups; if this keeps up, lesser-known performing-arts organizations will have to ante-up PAID ads, or disapear. Then Boston will become Plentywood, Montana with sleazier politicians.
Comments
Killing the calendar
A remarkably stupid stunt by the Globe.
I agree
and I've told the Globe this through their online focus group. Absorbing Calendar listings into Thursday Sidekick was OK; this isn't.
Events calendars really need
Events calendars really need to be online primarily.
The problem is that I've found their online events calendar unusable every time I've gone to it to see what was happening.
They can use their print and distribution capacity to try to sell printed calendars, and those should be targeted more finely than "everyone in Boston." Say, a printed events calendar for technology-averse middle-aged and/or elderly.
Maybe find a creative way to compete with the Phoenix and Weekly Dig for the next 5 years on free print events calendars that people can pick up when they're out on the town, away from the computer, and looking where to go next. (Though people of the age to be out on the town, and who have money to spend, will have their GPhones and iPhones doing a better job of context-aware events calendars within 5 years, I am guessing.)
I agree that small arts and other groups
will find it next to impossible to draw audiences without expenditures of money (they don't have). I remember organizing an event for the Jamaica Plain Historical Society. We are a group that operates on a shoestring. We put a listing in the Calendar section and attracted about 70 people to our event. I think the death of the Calendar is one of the saddest things to happen to the Boston community.
Don't fret. The Globe is
Don't fret. The Globe is doing this because online media is eating its lunch. The good news for arts organizations is that this online media can be leveraged for free. It's up to the Globe whether they promote to their aging audience, but all the young people are online.
Also, besides free online media, there are creative ways to simultaneously promote and fund-raise. When I was a photographer, I was working on one such project. You have to tailor it to the organization, and you need to develop some savvy about it. It might be risky, so it helps to have someone donate any upfront money required for the attempt (say, if you need something printed, or a space rented).
Good luck.