An interesting perspective in the Performing Arts industry

Here's the podcast episode for this post

Performing arts like plays, musicals, operas, etc. were mostly performances played in an auditorium full of people. Usually, these performances can only be seen in person for many reasons with one being that it might hinder box office sales. With the coronavirus pandemic stopping people from attending these live performances, the performing arts industry has to start going digital.

I was reading this one article on the Washington Post about a company named Marquee, a company that specializes in the streaming of performing arts. With many production companies looking to have their performances on digital, Marquee looks to be the company that is already ready to capitalize on the opportunity since it had a head start.

While many artists don't receive direct compensation from Marquee, they do receive a lot of exposure from around the world, and that's what artists care more about. For the artists that have shown their work on Marquee, many of them have said that having their performances on digital didn't hinder box office sales because many of the audience members wanted to experience watching their performances in-person once they saw it on their screens. Marquee does fund most of the productions in order to gain the rights to stream them.

There is something you need to note about many of the performances that Marquee has on its platform. They should be treated as an art and not like an ordinary Netflix series. Producing them takes a lot of sophisticated talent. The performance had to be taken from multiple angles to make the audience focus on what the artist wants to see. What Marquee wants to do with their content is to make them as a stand-alone art piece. They're basically becoming an incubator for high-quality art.

The coronavirus pandemic has shown the performing arts industry on how far behind they are when it comes to technology. Most of the industry hasn't gone digital and in the US, the performing arts industry is far more behind in technology usage than overseas. With many production companies getting desperate when it comes to getting revenue, Marquee seems to be the player that is ready to help.

What is Marquee's selling point exactly? Well, not only does it allow artists to gain more exposure from the rest of the world but it gives viewers a risk-free way of sampling an artist before buying tickets to see their live performance.

Marquee's vision of the performing arts industry is that digital collaborations will be the future.