Beyond the Back Row: The Breakthrough Potential of Digital Live Entertainment and Arts

by Jim McCarthy

Overview

Are you and your organization ready for the future of live entertainment? The pandemic hit live entertainment harder than any other industry—but also revealed tantalizing new possibilities. Online, streaming, and hybrid events opened the door to bigger audiences, better finances, and more innovative content for live producers. And now is the perfect time to start. Beyond the Back Row breaks down the why, how, and what of online, streaming, and hybrid live events. It helps you understand the opportunities, avoid the pitfalls, and learn what you need to master. Wherever you are in your live entertainment career, even if you're just getting started, start here. There's even advice for powerful incumbent organizations on how to prevent yourself from being "Napstered." In a few years, digital capabilities for live producers will be a given. Until then, Beyond the Back Row will give you a major head start.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781544531083
Publisher:	Houndstooth Press
Publication date:	07/19/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	156
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Jim McCarthy has been a live entertainment pioneer and innovator for two decades. As the Co-Founder and CEO of Goldstar, he led a team that generated a billion dollars in ticket sales for live venues and producers and helped tens of millions of ticket buyers find and purchase tickets to shows. During the pandemic, he co-founded Stellar to help make the new medium of digital live entertainment a reality. Jim is the co-organizer and lead curator of TEDxBroadway and an adjunct professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Southern California. He lives in Pasadena, California, and serves as a trustee of the Pasadena Playhouse.

Editorial Reviews

2022-08-12
Lessons from Covid-19 reveal new possibilities—and a future—for streamed events.

McCarthy, a former CEO of Goldstar and current CEO of the hybrid live-event platform Stellar, dramatically frames live entertainment as operating under a “Business Model of the Damned” that is hamstrung by the limitations of capacity and stuck with “high fixed costs and low variable costs.” When Covid-19 hit in 2020, livestreaming was how plays, operas, musicals, etc., reached housebound audiences, and this new approach to the stage seems not only poised to stay, but to become the future of live entertainment. Livestreaming offers: a solution to the problems of limited space and seating, new ways to stage events, cost-cutting tools, show-development opportunities, and a chance to expand audiences. McCarthy describes the technology behind livestreaming and explains how hybrid events (which have both an in-person audience and an online component) work for various types of productions. Quick to dispel the notion of streaming events as merely “Zoom events,” the author shows how, with the proper planning, a good internet connection, and an eye toward production values specifically for the screen, one can offer hybrid or livestream events for any venue. McCarthy was on the ground in the industry as Covid hit, and he brings enthusiasm and experience to his book (“With online events, you’re looking for a customer that’s more enthusiastic about the content itself. A good cocktail and a summer night don’t sell tickets to online shows. That’s how you draw casual fans to in-person events, but it doesn’t work for online events”). The guide lays out its most important points in clear, bulleted lists, and the outlines, budgets, and examples scale to events of all sizes.

An approachable, informed introduction to improving online events.

Kirkus Reviews