This article analyzes Ireland’s emerging position as a global cultural policy case study, focusing on the Basic Income for the Arts (BIA) program and its place within the national framework Culture 2025. While Ireland’s consensus-driven political system, strong arts advocacy networks, and history of support for artist income have enabled an ambitious, research-oriented basic income pilot, the article highlights deeper tensions within cultural policymaking. Drawing on Stephen Hadley’s concept of “cultural policy realism,” it argues that Ireland’s policies—despite their novelty—remain rooted in traditional, instrumentalist views of culture as an economic engine and national branding tool. By contrasting democratization of culture with cultural democracy, the piece situates Ireland’s model between innovation and reversion, emphasizing the need for sustained experimentation, critical evaluation, and more genuinely democratic approaches to cultural support.
This study advances Part II by translating Scopely’s strategy into an execution plan across three tracks - NPC innovation, intelligent monetization, and ethical LiveOps - supported by new evidence from a 1,159-response consumer survey, nine expert interviews (developers, influencers, and experiential professionals), and secondary industry research. Part I established the market context for AI’s disruptive potential and identified three priorities: live operations evolution, commerce optimization, and advanced player analytics. The goal of this phase is to pinpoint the highest-leverage AI applications that deepen gameplay engagement, convert payment resistance through demonstrated value, and safeguard community trust. Accordingly, Part II outlines actionable playbooks (context-aware NPCs and adaptive narratives), platform tactics (purchase-aligned mobile personalization and cross-play integration), and operational models (behavior-based matchmaking and transparency protocols) designed to drive scalable, technology-led growth while preserving the integrity of shared human play.
This study provides a comprehensive analysis for Scopely to enhance its position as a leader in interactive and mobile gaming, focusing on AI integration in live operations, in-game commerce, and player analytics. The research reveals the urgent need for gaming companies to navigate accelerated AI adoption and evolving player expectations for personalized experiences. The goal is to identify the most impactful AI applications over the next three years and strategies that maximize engagement and monetization while maintaining player trust. Significant to this goal is balancing innovation with ethical considerations, including data privacy and transparency, while recognizing AI's potential to enhance storytelling and create immersive experiences. Employing a mixed-methods approach with industry interviews, a survey of over 1,000 U.S. gamers, and secondary research, Part I establishes the foundation for understanding AI's transformative impact - setting the stage for Part II's empirical findings and strategic recommendations.
A daylight robbery at the Musée du Louvre in mid-October resulted in the theft of eight priceless pieces from the French Crown Jewels housed in the Galerie d’Apollon. The incident now serves as an in-depth analysis for arts leaders globally to confront not only external threats, like highly organized professional thieves, but also the complex, internal risk of compromised staff and the urgent need to re-evaluate their security posture, technological investment, and institutional accountability.
As immersive technologies redefine the live concert experience, artists and virtual idols alike are transforming how audiences engage with music. From Hatsune Miku’s “holographic” performances powered by projection and LED technologies to VR concerts by creators like BlackGryph0n and Gorillaz, extended reality (XR) is blurring the lines between physical and digital performance. This article explores the evolution of Vocaloid software, the artistry behind digital concerts, and the growing influence of augmented and virtual reality in live music. As AR and VR become more accessible, musicians and fans alike are discovering new ways to connect—reshaping what it means to perform, attend, and experience music in the digital age.
First launched in 1996, HSX is a free web-based multiplayer gaming simulator of American film industry. The rules are simple: players use virtual currency to buy, sell, short and cover “shares” of films, directors, actors and other related virtual securities. Although the exchange is entirely fictional, it reacts to actual industry-related news, making itself a community and information hub for both professionals and enthusiasts in the film industry.
In part 1 of Opening Doors, I reflected on sensory-friendly programming through my personal experience at Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre. These performances create an incredible opportunity for arts organizations to include individuals and families from around their communities. Yet effective implementation requires time and in-depth planning with staff and community partners. This second post continues the discussion looking at best practices related to sensory-friendly program design.
Digital badges are an alternative method of credentialing that can identify specific skills that a learner has mastered through the course of their own self-directed learning. Over the course of this research, I will be sharing more about the digital badge acquisition process, taxonomies of digital badges, initiatives being undertaken to standardize and create accreditation, and what employers should know for using digital badges in both hiring and continuing education of employees.
Curiator encourages users to discover, collect and share art. Launched in early 2014, the app is an extension of the Curiator online platform, a social media website with an emphasis on visual art which claims to be the world’s largest online collaborative art museum.
This season at Dallas Theatre Center (DTC), a great love story unfolded; however, it was not presented on the stage. During a recent TRG Executive Summit, Managing Director Heather Kitchen shared a tale of romance which both inspired and invoked a bit of envy from the other participants. It was the story of her data manager and the two departments that loved her.
This post, originally published on Analysis from TRG Arts, is the first in a series by TRG’s VP of Data Services Steve Loyd addressing data management and how it can help organizations.
Interested in improving project collaboration and communication among a decentralized team? Kristen Sorek West speaks with Shift Collaborative, a marketing, fundraising, and communications agency, on how Basecamp, a cloud-based project management tool, can improve team member efficiency and project momentum. For the full article click here.
In a recent article for the New York Times, Benjamin Millepied, Director of Dance at the Opéra National de Paris, and Stéphane Lissner, General Manager, announced the launch of an online platform named 3e scène. This fall, 3e scène—or third stage as it translates to English—will be added to the organization’s impressive pair of performance venues, the Palais Garnier and Opéra Bastille, as a third space for patrons to enjoy new Opera and Ballet works.
For many families and individuals, the experience of attending a performing arts program is hindered by physical or developmental challenges. And with 1 in 68 American children on the autism spectrum, by neglecting this significant population, our institutions are failing to serve a large part of their community. Sensory-friendly programming creates a performance environment where the traditional theater rules are relaxed to better accommodate a variety of audience members. This introduction is the first in a series of posts on sensory-friendly programming.
Already your responses are providing valuable insight. AMT Lab has extended the 2015 National Ticketing Software Satisfaction Survey period through March 7, 2015. Collecting information on the attitudes and behaviors of arts organizations currently using ticketing software, the 2015 National Ticketing Survey will help illustrate the met and unmet ticketing needs of art organizations, and capture how ticketing software uses and needs vary by an organization's discipline, budget, staff size, and geographic location. Clear here for the full announcement.
Patreon is a relatively young, up-and-coming crowdfunding platform geared specifically toward funding creative works. Its unique patronage model sets it apart from competitors, and has driven its rapid rise in popularity over the past two years. Compared to the popular creative crowdfunding sites IndieGoGo and Kickstarter, Patreon offers some unique characteristics that help it meet organization’s funding needs. Click here to read the full article.
Love them or hate them, more and more arts organizations are experimenting with tweet seats. For the uninitiated, tweet seats are a designated section of the audience where traditional etiquette rules are bent. Use of devices in this special section is not only allowed, it is encouraged. This roundup features several AMT Lab articles on tweet seats, exploring how organization have managed both their challenges and opportunities.
We are conducting the 3rd National Ticketing Software Survey during the month of February. If you are interested in sharing your experience and your opinions about your software, please let us know. All those participating in the survey will receive a full copy of the report which will provide a national view as well as cluster analyses by discipline, budget size, and geographic region. The data will be useful for both organizations and vendors. Organizations will gain a better understanding of their own practices as compared to their peers and, more importantly, be able to use the findings as evidence for future technology funding campaigns. Vendors will have explicit evidence as to the needs and wants for future software design.
Since December 19, 2014 the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History has featured an exhibit of works relating to the ocean, with painting and sculptures by established artists alongside works by local residents. The exhibit includes a wide variety of art, ranging from professional artists’ works to two year-olds’ drawings. Everybody’s Ocean is a partially crowd-sourced and partially curated exhibition presenting everyone’s personal relationship with the sea.
As we bid many of our contributors farewell and welcome a new group of writers with the beginning of the semester, we decided to ask our writers, What's on Your Phone?
Read the full article here.
Contributors Aoni Wang and Giorgia Gandolfini recently attended Idealware’s webinar, Infographics for Outreach, Advocacy, and Marketing: From Data to Design . This talk delved deeply into strategies for successful design of infographics.
Per Idealware, an infographic is an image that presents data, transferring numbers into a comprehensive visual narrative. Infographics have become very popular among organizations, as they are generally easier to understand and more effective at communicating data to the population at-large than traditional spreadsheets and reports. Infographics attract attention and provide new ways for visitors to engage with data.
We’ve had a fantastic semester of contributor research on diverse topics ranging from Google for Nonprofits, to Museums’ efforts and challenges exhibiting New Media art. AMT Lab will be on hiatus until January 5th to celebrate the holiday season, but we have a lot of exciting plans for the new year that we wanted to quickly share with you:
According to statistics from Digitalbuzz, there are over 288 million monthly active users on Twitter, 60% of which access the social network from mobile.
Contributor Aoni Wang investigates some best practices for this growing platform by continuing her examination of the Met, Warhol, and Tate's social media strategies. Click here to read the full article.
In 2000 the Washington DC based Smithsonian American Museum of Art announced the creation of the New Media/New Century Award. The New Media/New Century Award became one of first projects to support new art created for the Web. The museum accepted proposals for original Web-based projects that explored the subject of American landscape, and how the new medium of Web art affected the American landscape as a subject.
Though the project is over 10 years old, it demonstrates the early and exceptional sensibility of the Smithsonian’s curators. They understood the growing relevance new media art and especially Web-art, and its impact not only on people’s everyday perceptions, but also on the art scene as a whole.
Per Moz.com Facebook had reached unprecedented levels of popularity, with “1.19 billion monthly active users”, and over 750 million monthly mobile users. These figures underscore why Facebook is such an important communication channel for arts organizations. However, different organizations will have different objectives when managing their Facebook pages. I covered some general best practices in my first research update, but channel specific best practices also exist. To demonstrate how tactics might differ between organizations, I will us three museums: The Met, the Warhol, and Tate to provide specific examples.
