Thursday, September 19, 2013

How to Crowdfund a Million Dollar Arts Project | Idea Lab | PBS

How to Crowdfund a Million Dollar Arts Project | Idea Lab | PBS: I was sad to note on Monday that, with 14 days to go, the New York City Opera had raised less than 10 percent of its ambitious $1 million target on Kickstarter.

The “People’s Opera” has struggled in recent years. It closed its doors in 2008 for a refurbishment that coincided with the Financial Crisis, and has struggled to make ends meet since then. Organizers describe the crowdfunding campaign as “urgent,” but it is only a slice of a larger call for $7 million by the end of September. If the overall campaign fails, the 70-year-old Opera will suspend its program after the first opera of the season, Anna Nicole. As of 6pm on Monday, the outlook for the crowdfunding portion of that goal is not good — Kicktraq’s trend algorithm is currently projecting an endpoint of around $250,000. I’m no authority whatsoever on the Opera’s history and its viability, so my comments here relate specifically to the crowdfunding campaign.

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