Here in the U.S., July 4th is a time for celebration, and we’re getting in on it, too. Register by 11:59 p.m. (CDT) Friday for 2014 VenueConnect and be entered in a drawing for a $300 American Express gift card. If you already registered, you’re already entered!

The winner will be notified on Monday, July 7th.

There was a lot of news this past week. Here are some stories that caught our eyes.

Advertisement-Shy Wimbledon Is World’s Most-Lucrative Tennis Tournament
—Newsweek
“Every summer, a private club with fewer than 500 members holds a tennis tournament in a London suburb that produces a clear, off-the-top profit in excess of $60 million in just two weeks.”

Australia’s Live Industry Worth $2.5 Billion
—Encore
“According to the new study, the bulk of the revenue generated by the industry during the reporting period was spent on people (54%), including performers and non-performing support staff such as technical and venue crew.”

Schools Aiming to Improve Fan Amenities
—ESPN
“Coming soon to a college football stadium near you: interactive phone apps, live pregame locker room footage, concession stands filled with food from local eateries.”

Is Smaller Better? The Trend toward Smaller and Shorter Meetings
—eVenues Blog
“To fully take advantage of the long-term changes in the meetings industry, venues that can offer small-meetings services need to effectively promote themselves to their potential customers.”

Music Changes the Way You Think
—Scientific American
“Tiny, almost immeasurable features in a piece of music have the power to elicit deeply personal and specific patterns of thought and emotion in human listeners.”

(photo credit: Rob McGlynn/Creative Commons)

San Francisco’s AT&T Park features a 4,320-square-foot garden that will grow edible food all year to be used in the public concessions stands and for private catering. The garden will also be used as an educational space, hosting classes on healthy eating, sustainability, and urban farming.

Please check out the Blue Marble blog on Mother Jones for the full story, or you watch the above video about the garden.

A recent study that looked at the effect of live cinema screenings of England’s National Theatre (NT) performances found that they have no negative impact on live attendance at theaters near the NT Live shows. In fact, in London there was a 6.4 percent increase in local theater attendance the following year in areas nearest an NT Live screening.

“Far from cannibalizing theater audiences, our findings suggest that NT Live has on average grown audiences for local theater in London and has had a neutral impact regionally,” said Hasan Bakhshi, director of creative economy at research firm Nesta. “Cinema-goers at NT Live productions are a captive audience for theaters—regional venues should consider how they can convert these into greater ticket sales.”

The study analysed more than 28 million theater tickets sold by 54 performing arts centers in England between 2009 and 2013. The NT  provided date and location information for the 12,000 cinema screenings of their performances at 482 cinemas during the same period. The findings are based on comparing theater ticket sales to residents in different areas over a period of time, with the proximity of those locations to NT Live screening venues.

“Alongside a huge expansion in live touring—this year and next, NT productions are making 80 visits to U.K. cities—NT Live has further enabled hundreds of thousands of people around the country to experience our work and that of our partner theaters,” said David Sabel, director of broadcast and digital at the NT. “We believe that the more great drama people are able to see, the more they are likely to want to go to the theater; so it’s great to see that Nesta’s latest research confirms that live broadcasts are a valuable complement to the live theater experience.”

(photo credit: lushdimple via photopin cc)

Public speaking can be an intimidating and difficult task for even the most seasoned manager, and what better way to get valuable tips on how to improve and make a positive impact than from one of our favorite Aussies, Lindsay Adams. He will delight and inspire you at this year’s VenueConnect in Portland during his “Get to the Point and Get Your Point Across” on Monday, July 28.

“As managers, as leaders in our organizations and our venues, we have to be able to get our message across and we have to have it understood,” Adams said. “The best outcome is people do something, they take action.”

Greg Wolfe, IAVM’s professional development manager, recently spoke with Adams about generational differences, presentations, and social media. Please give it a listen below.

(Image: Lindsay Adams’ Facebook page)