the effect of the economic crash

[bluemonika]

well it is a fact, we see it all over the news and all over the world, the economic crisis gets worse.

my question is: how are you artists affected by this? are you forced to lower your prices? are there less customers?

i also had a question especially to european professional artists. now that the dollar is so low compared to the euro, have things been more difficult for you? i sometimes had people complaining to me that they rather took an american artists because they ask less because the dollar is so cheap now. do you people have any tips for me? how do you cope in these bad finnancial times?

[Zaxser]

I remember Jason Manley saying that there was no way they'd have a workshop in Europe until the dollar normalized against the Euro. Otherwise, most artist don't know that much about economics. That's part of the reason artist reason artist representatives, like Jason, and outsourcing companies, like Massive Black, exist.

[bluemonika]

i see. i know that for most artists, the financial aspect of art is not really their area of expertize, but surely there must be more people, especially in europe, who can notice some kind of effects of the current state of the economy? if not then that means things are better than it looks but....

[Ilaekae]

Traditionally, times of recession have been good for artists in the advertising industry. When consumer confidence falls through the floor, industry's first reaction when they regroup is to increase budgets for promotion and PR. I would assume that the same would hold for the entertainment-oriented industries as more people would cut high-end "entertainment" like vacations, luxury items and such. This, of course, assumes that we have any industry left to promote... :P

[Black Spot]

During the Great Depression Hollywood became big. The movies were a cheap way to escape for a couple of hours for ordinary folk. People also won’t be moving as much and will have to make do with their home as is and redecorating is a fairly cheap way to upgrade. A couple of nice pictures won’t break the bank. (pun intended)

Desperate manufactures trying to sell you stuff you never knew you wanted will increase. Television will become popular again if people can’t even afford to go to the cinema. More people watching advertisements, more spent on advertisements. Remember it is bread and circuses that stop the people revolting and the circus bit is where art comes in.

[MiniGoth]

Indeed.

Can't say I'm worried - half the places I work for are schools, and as people can't afford vacations, movies, advertising, and television production increase.

The mid list fine artist is probably going to feel the crunch first.

[jvgig]

The mid list fine artist is probably going to feel the crunch first.

That is my view. The lower priced artist will still sell stuff to people trying to redecorate and the high priced artist's clients will still be able to shell out the money for art, but the mid guy will be too expensive for your everyday decorations and not worth the wall space to the art collector.

[bluemonika]

hmmm thanks everyone for your comments. i hope my other question will also get awnsered soon. namely: how do artists from europe deal with the low dollar? or does it have no effect whatso ever?

so if i read the comments above me right, does this mean that despite these bad financial times, artistst do not have a thing to worry about?

[tomwaits4noman]

the only difference I notice is I now have to go look for work as oppose word of mouth.

[Porg]

how do artists from europe deal with the low dollar? or does it have no effect whatso ever?

I don't think they'd been much of problem really as the US client should realise, or at least be able to work out, how much they're going to end up spending.

I know that a lot of people over here are buying loads of vinyl from the US now it's so cheap. Apart from that I don't really know.

To open the wound up a bit more I did watch the new Zeitgeist movie, it seems that this whole borrowing, debt, interest thing will soon come to a climatic end .... or will it?