Arts Alliance
Arts Alliance is a UK-based group backing, building, and scaling technology and media companies in the international arena. Founded in 1997 by Thomas Hoegh, Arts Alliance exists at the intersection of art, business, and technology.
History
Arts Alliance was conceived in the spring of 1996, but formalised in 1997. Its first investments included Firefly, an online community that used collaborative filtering to recommend music and other media, which sold to Microsoft in 1998, and PlanetAll, among the first social networking sites on the internet and sold to Amazon in 1998.[1] [2]
Since then, Arts Alliance has been involved in more than 60 start-ups including Shazam, Picturehouse Cinemas, Opera Software, Firefly, PlanetAll, Ocado, LoveFilm, lastminute.com, Arts Alliance Media, Kiala, graze, Branient, blinkbox, Spoonshot AI, made.com, CreativeLive, Spinner, Kenshoo, Park Circus, Met Film/Met Film School, Kebony, and Garden Studios.[3]
Some of Arts Alliance's notable "firsts" in the history of film and media include:
Arts Alliance and Thomas Hoegh founded Arts Alliance Media in 2003, a digital cinema company that in 2005 was responsible for the conversion of over 250 UK cinema screens from analog to digital as part of the UK Film Council’s Digital Screen Network. Arts Alliance Media also rolled out the first-ever Virtual Print Fee (VPF) in Europe with French cinema chain CGR in 2008. Art Alliance Media spun off separate companies in content mastering and live event cinema before being sold to Chinese cinema tech company Luxin-Rio in 2017.[4] [5]
Arts Alliance bought DVDs On Tap and relaunched it as LoveFilm in 2003. The re-imagined proposition became an early leader in online film rentals and streaming and was considered the “Netflix of Europe.” LoveFilm sold the first-ever digital film online in 2006, before being acquired by Amazon in 2011.
Arts Alliance took a majority interest in Picturehouse Cinemas in 2002 and almost tripled its size to the 25 cinemas it operates today. Picturehouse was the first major cinema chain to convert 100% of its screens to digital projection and was acquired by Cineworld in 2012.[6] [7] [8]
Arts Alliance includes separate branches Arts Alliance Ventures (investment capital and private equity division) and Arts Alliance Productions (film and media production and distribution company).
Arts Alliance has also produced and distributed numerous feature films, documentaries and live cinema events such as Disney’s Newsies: The Broadway Musical! (2017), One Direction: Where We Are - The Concert Film (2014), Revolution: New Art for a New World (2016), Springsteen & I (2013), Royal Opera House Live. Most recently, Arts Alliance’s Misha and the Wolves (2021) premiered at Sundance Film Festival.
Arts Alliance now operates Park Circus, an international classic film sales and distribution company; MetFilm, a leading film school as well as attached production and distribution companies; and Garden Studios, a 15,000m2 creative hub and virtual production studio in London.
References
- ↑ "Does Firefly Deal Swat Netscape E-Commerce?" – via www.wired.com.
- ↑ "Viking ventures". Forbes.
- ↑ "Arts Alliance Ventures". www.artsalliance.co.uk.
- ↑ "UK Film Council Selects Arts Alliance Digital Cinema to Manage World's First Large Scale Digital Screen Network". www.dcinematoday.com.
- ↑ https://rm.coe.int/the-european-digital-cinema-december-2011/168078b728
- ↑ https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5329dddf40f0b60a730001b7/130801_summary_of_hearing_with_arts_alliance.pdf
- ↑ "Subscribe to a slice of the FT | Financial Times". www.ft.com.
- ↑ "Cineworld buys Picturehouse". the Guardian. December 6, 2012.
External links
Page Submission: Arts Alliance
This article "Arts Alliance" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Arts Alliance. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.
