Tuesday, 02 July 2019
The price tag for moving the institution to Farringdon, originally £250m, has grown to £332m after studies found "desperate" need for repairs to the 19th century buildings it will occupy. The City of London Corporation has increased its funding commitment to meet the new cost of the relocation, which is now the UK's most expensive cultural project.
Price tag for new Museum of London jumps by a third to £332m (Financial Times)
Tuesday, 02 July 2019
Co-Opera, a British opera and training company, is ending after 10 years in operation "due to one thing or another", founder Paul Need has announced. The company was established to fill a gap left by the closures of Kent Opera and New D'Oyly Carte and offer opportunities to young singers.
Just In: Britain Loses An Opera Company (Slipped Disc)
Tuesday, 02 July 2019
Two organisers of Vestiville are being detained in a jail in Lommel, Belgium on suspicion of fraud after the event's last minute cancellation. Lommel Mayor Bob Nijs refused to let the the festival go ahead for safety reasons and headline act ASAP Rocky said he pulled out of the event "due to security and infrastructure concerns".
Vestiville organisers arrested after Belgian fest chaos (IQ Magazine)
Monday, 01 July 2019
Shakespeare North Playhouse, which is now under construction, is already attracting new businesses and development to Prescot, Knowsley Council Leader Graham Morgan said. A new £4m commitment from the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority brings the council's total investment in the theatre to £10.5m.
Extra funding for theatre project (Insider Media)
Monday, 01 July 2019
The company has agreed to pay C$4m (£2.4m) after an investigation by the Canadian Competition Bureau found its advertised prices were being inflated with mandatory fees. The 'drip pricing' strategy often increased ticket prices by 20%, with some prices inflated by over 65%, the bureau said.
Ticketmaster pays $4m to settle Canada lawsuit (IQ Magazine)
Monday, 01 July 2019
The 2019/20 season of the London classical concert series Borough New Music has been cancelled. Trustees said the current model needed to be rethought to make the programme sustainable, but since the organisation lacked the capacity to make the necessary changes, they "have been forced to adjourn".
A New-Music Festival Dies (Slipped Disc)
Friday, 28 June 2019
Paul Whittaker will become the first person to sign Beethoven's Missa Solemnis in concert at London's Royal Festival Hall on Friday. The Halifax man said the performance is challenging but that it "brings together my musical knowledge and experience, my deafness, my use of sign language, and enables access for other deaf people".
Deaf Halifax musician to sign major concert at Royal Festival Hall (Halifax Courier)
Friday, 28 June 2019
The planned 20,000-seat entertainment venue would have a "devastating impact" on local business and could place 2,200 jobs at risk, an independent report has concluded. Manchester City Council supports the proposed Eastlands development as a viable way to grow tourism in the area.
Manchester Council hits back at proposed arena criticism (Stadium Business)
Thursday, 27 June 2019
State theatre companies in Germany are reluctantly fulfilling a request from the right wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party to disclose the nationalities of their artists. The party's Deputy Leader Ranier Balzer said the question aimed to create "a realistic inventory of the status quo and an assessment of the quality of their own young artists in international comparison".
AfD wants to screen cultural enterprises for migrants (Stuttgarter Nachrichten)
Thursday, 27 June 2019
Damian Hinds has said that "the creative arts are happening at a large scale in our schools" in response to Labour MP Thelma Walker's claim that a "culture of targets and testing" is squeezing creative arts out of schools. Walker referred to research published in January in which two-thirds of primary school teachers said arts education had declined since 2010.
Wednesday, 26 June 2019
More than 400,000 people in China watched an online tour of the Ruddington Village Museum in Nottinghamshire, streamed by a student at Nottingham University. The museum, which has received 75,000 visits since opening in 1968, described its popularity as “something of a surprise”.
Wednesday, 26 June 2019
The Royal Opera House and English National Opera are among 60 organisations including venues, orchestras, concert halls and labels who have signed up to the Keychange pledge to achieve gender parity by 2022. 190 festivals joined the project last year, but the scheme’s founder Vanessa Reid said “the gender gap is an industry wide problem, it is not just about festivals”.
Tuesday, 25 June 2019
The plan to tackle a lack of diversity in London theatres will see 50 backstage roles advertised in job centres. Entertainment trade union BECTU said the industry is "waking up to the creative possibilities of a diverse talent pool" in sustaining its future.
Tuesday, 25 June 2019
Plans for the venue in Dorset have now satisfied critics, who had questioned its effect on parking, local visitor numbers and nearby historic Sherborne House. Permission for an arts centre on the town centre site was initially granted in 2011 but expired when funding could not be raised.
Tuesday, 25 June 2019
Artists who allegedly lost master recordings and other materials in a 2008 warehouse fire will be able to join a class action filed by the estates of Tom Petty, Steve Earle and Tupac Shakur, among others. Legal papers claim Universal was negligent in housing the music in a "known fire trap".