Artist Graduates: Are they ready to do Business?

Businesses must expose their products and services to customers so as to make sales and be heard.  The world of the artist[1] is no different, and, in the words of the late Luciano Pavarotti, the artist must ‘be heard and be seen’.  The aim of this paper is to examine if there is a need to ensure that our artistic graduates are ‘market ready’.  The paper specifically examines this concept in the context of an Irish Institute of Technology (IT).  Artists generally do not view the world in terms of business & commerce, only as a creative space.  This research study investigates if there is a need for a special purpose award that would allow already qualified or working artists who have missed out on business education to take business modules at any stage in their careers.  The findings in this study are rich and the attitudes to the business world by participating artists are interesting.  Having established that artists need some business education, this paper then proceeds to outline what may be needed now, and in the future. Keywords: Artist, Musicians, Business Education, Business World. [1] For the purpose of this paper, the term ‘artist’ is deemed to refer to both performing and visual artists.