First Weekly Rant of 2009

Last night two Swedish fellow campers gave me the perfect metaphor for American Beer—it's like making love in a canoe; fucking close to water.

Signs seen outside a church:

Open Sundays

Visitors Welcome

Members Expected

The news of late out of the Canadian Arts scene has been full of the near bankruptcy of Ballet BC. If the arts are to survive in North America in the first place governments have to wake up to their importance in our educations system and their role in supporting them. However my own experience also raises the issue of arts organizations and their lack of business acumen. A few years ago I was in Calgary where the Symphony Orchestra was experiencing financial problems. I walked up to their actual main box-office and was informed by the agent at the window that she couldn't sell me tickets because they had no ticket stock on which to print the tickets. She proceeded to send me on a half-mile walk to another agency that was able to accommodate my needs.

At present I'm in Austin half a mile from the Long Centre where Austin Symphony Orchestra Concerts take place. Imagine my annoyance when I walked up to their box office and learned that not only does the Long Centre not sell tickets to the events that take place in their venue, but also they don't stock information on them. To do that one has to go to the local box office of each constituent organization up to miles distant. So today I went to the Austin Symphony Orchestra's Website to attempt the process there. Three times I failed because the system will hold a reservation only 8 minutes and the purchase process took longer to complete. It wasn't until I switched to Firefox, a faster browser that I finally succeeded in buying the ticket I was offered in the first place 3 hours previous. Tickets to be picked up at the box office at the Long Centre 1 hour previous to the performance. The pre-concert talk starts at 7:10 giving me 10 minutes to pick up my tickets. Just watch the box office be late opening. This is called customer service?