A movie studio is being built on the 60-acre site of the former Wingate Road municipal incinerator dump in Fort Lauderdale.
Infinite Reality will be the primary tenant, and the site will include movie, television, and streaming production studios, multiple soundstages, offices, film sets, and a film school. Construction is expected to cost over $163 million and the project is expected to create 1,000 jobs.
Miami Music Project has received a $50,000 grant from the NEA. The award will be used to support its training program for young musicians.
The Naples Ballet office manager Nicole Christine Saunders has been charged with embezzling over $150,000 from the Ballet. She created a fictitious company to process credit card payments for the Ballet and siphoned cash to her Paypal account. She is now in the Collier County jail.
The Justice Department and several states are suing to break up Live Nation. They allege that Live Nation uses its ticketing monopoly to suppress competition. Live Nation and Ticketmaster merged in 2010 and Ticketmaster now controls 80 percent of the market for the largest venues. Live Nation itself owns or operates 370 of those venues.
Broadway has released its end of the year statistics, with numbers similar to last season. Gross revenue was $1.54 billion and attendance was 12.3 million, or about 90 percent of available seats. There were 71 productions on Broadway last season, including 39 new shows.
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New Jersey has approved a partnership that will bring a $1 billion film and television studio complex to Bergen Point. The complex will be comprised of 1.5 million square feet of facilities on a 55-acre lot, and it will include 23 sound stages. Netflix and Lionsgate have also announced plans to build facilities in New Jersey.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced a $500 million campaign tied to the anniversary of the 100th Oscars ceremony in 2028. The funding will endow programs to recognize excellence, preserve film history, and train and educate the next generation of filmmakers.
SAG-AFTRA has announced a partnership with Nielsen to measure streaming content. As part of recent contract negotiations with the industry, SAG-AFTRA contracts now include streaming bonuses for shows that are hits. SAG-AFTRA will use Nielsen as a third-party cross-check on streaming metrics.
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After a year delay, the San Diego Symphony will return to the newly renovated Jacobs Music Center. The $125 million renovation included improved acoustics and state-of-the-art audio, visual, and lighting systems. The Music Center is named after Joan and Irwin Jacobs, who have given more than $130 million to the Symphony over the past 20 years.