I got this email. I am not making this up.
Now, why they would mistake me for an MBA Venture Capitalist is beyond me.
(If they sent it to their whole database, that's even more baffling.)
Again - imagine getting this only days after my Chelsea on the Rocks post - this speaks to trends in the arts, population, and economy in San Francisco.
Remember opera in the park?
Remember Lotfi's making "opera for everyone?"
Remember commissioning opera based on popular Hollywood films?
Well, hey, is that really going to work in today's economy? Let's just market opera as a networking opportunity for MBAs and Venture Capitalists!
The message I am feeling from SF Opera is, We know the economy's bad! We know the lower income folks are leaving! So we'll return to marketing opera as an elitist art form! And we'll send it to everyone, whether they can afford a subscription or not, because if they live here, well, they're just as likely as not to be hob-nobbing with people who have so much money they can throw it at any crazy tech idea that comes their way!
Look, I know you need butts in seats. And yeah, I haven't bought as many tickets as I could afford in previous years. But I think there's something about sending me this email that smells of poor taste. If you're going to reach out to MBAs and Venture Capitalists, don't you think you could buy a mailing list from Stanford or some appropriate source and do it more discreetly?
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I got the same email and laughed, as I watched the global and personal economy going into bottomless pits and thought, "what the f--- are they thinking?"
Actually, I felt the same way when they started "Gay and Lesbian Nights at the Opera." Isn't every night at the opera Gay and Lesbian and Venture Capital Night? I thought that was sort of taken for granted.
What we're seeing is too many people with marketing and development jobs trying to justify their continued existence, which in this economy is perilous to say the least.
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