Industry Issues
CX Training Venture Fails – Again!
After a year CX has pulled the plug on a short course partnership with Chatswood venue The Concourse. Offering short and sharp live sound and lighting courses, each with a two day duration and selling under $300, the demand was disappointing. Previously Juliusmedia Group were associated with accredited courses run at Julius Events College in…
Read MoreTRADESHOWS TAKE (ALL) THE MONEY
(Picture: trade shows headed for life support? Actual exhibit at INTEGRATE 2013!) Our guest editorial in CX this month by Jason Allen makes the startling yet believable claim that total visitor time spent attending all three trade shows held in Sydney this year was worth $14,404,000. Jason says assuming your time is worth $800 a…
Read MoreWe are not LAME, says EEAA boss
Not long after CXtra went to air on CX-TV (HERE) with our editorializing about the forthcoming shift of all Sydney tradeshows to Glebe Island next year, we had a rocket call from Joyce DiMascio, CEO of the Exhibition & Event Association of Australasia (EEAA). (The item in contention is at 14.00 in the June edition…
Read MoreIndustry Training in terminal decline
Vocational Education and Training (VET) courses for the live production industry are winding up, with declining government support and almost no protest from the performing arts community. Led by the Victorian Government, TAFE courses for ‘creative’ industries are rapidly becoming up to 400% more expensive as subsidies are scaled back. This has fueled the cancellation…
Read MoreEmployee or Contractor: Are YOU Sham Contracting?
This from Phill, who runs a crew agency: Over the past couple of years, the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) has increasingly been investigating instances of sham contracting under the Fair Work Act 2009. In a nut shell, sham contracting is where a worker is engaged as a contractor but is doing the same work, or…
Read MoreFreelance: How much $hould I charge?
How long is a piece of string? The key is how many hours a week and a year you can work. This is a great tool to help you decide: It lives at http://freelanceswitch.com/rates/ and it is currency agnostic. You just enter the unit of currency you want. I did a little example based on…
Read MoreThe Problem for Women in the Industry
By Jason Allen On International Women’s Day (March 8), I read an article by musician, producer and blogger Madeleine Bloom about her experiences working tech support at DAW company Ableton. Noticing only a very small percentage of people contacting her were women, she dug into the numbers for confirmation – only 7% of Ableton’s registered…
Read MoreVenue TOD charges: legal avenue is open
Venues that collude with ‘in house’ audio visual providers to lock out external audio visual suppliers face legal action, according to Joe De Abreu, Managing Director of Austage. “I have spoken to lawyers and after two meetings I feel that they would cost us more than the venues charge. I have also spoken at length…
Read MoreGig Rash. And other health issues….
22 March 2013 On CXtra March, our cx-tv.com talkshow (segment here), Sophie fielded a question on no-notice about How To Deal With Gig Rash. Intended to simply destabilize her, she soldiered on valiantly as Fancesco Calvi delivered far too much info. But he correctly identified this malady, which affects anyone who does hard physical work…
Read MoreTech Training: Just 9% of grads get a job!
OCT 26 2012: Most training places are taken by school leavers, many who have already done a VET (vocational education training) qualification as part of their senior schooling. The other cohort who enrol are people looking for a career change. So which courses at which colleges have the best job outcomes? There’s three kinds of…
Read MoreUnfair dismissal – the fix is in
20 August 2012 Grace Collier is an industrial relations consultant who spends a fair slab of time in unfair dismissal conciliation. This is where someone sacked takes the matter to Fair Work Australia. She wrote in the Australian Financial Review that in the first three months of this year, 3,574 sacked staff took action and…
Read MoreStaging Connections defend TOD fees
This is from Tony Chamberlain, Managing Director at Staging Connections Group Limited in response to the Technician On Duty debate that has been running in CX Magazine (August) and here at cxmagblog. Staging Connections provides a Technician On Duty style service (Venue Technical Representative – VTR) to a venue when requested to do so by…
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