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Middle school participants in the USA attending an on-campus university informal science program indicate an increase in interest toward careers and disciplines in STEM or STEAM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics and the arts). Parents or guardians confirm the change. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

Participants attended “inquiry-based” lectures by scientists and “hands-on” activities conducted by volunteers on campus at a public university over four months, four Saturdays. Participants completed surveys before each lecture and guardians completed surveys afterwards.

Interest increased significantly according to paired samples t-tests for each STEM discipline for students who reported low interest on the initial pre-lecture survey. There was a significant linear improvement in interests in engineering using a repeated measures general linear model. Guardians or parents reported that they observed a higher interest in STEM disciplines resulting in more technical-related interaction among peers and within the family.

Findings support STEM with arts “out-of-school” programs sponsored by museums, corporations, government, higher education and others. Inclusion of the “hands-on” activities, some with arts content, to the science and technical learning appears to spark enthusiasm.

The value is multidisciplinary. The theory of reasoned action from social psychology, sociology, along with related research in science education and the arts are synthesized. Informal extracurricular experiences sustained and improved interests in the disciplines and careers on which the formal educational career pipeline can build.

The purpose of this paper is threefold. First, it reviews the background to, and development of the special issue call for papers on the topic of “Visual arts marketing in East Asia”; second, it introduces the four papers and commentary in the issue; and third, it considers some of the key areas with a rich potential for future directions of research.

The papers in this special issue comprise of both qualitative (e.g. interviews, observation, case studies) and quantitative (surveys) as well as conceptual issues for policy and artists. Moreover, the articles are interdisciplinary, drawing from art history, cultural studies, philosophy and international relations as well as marketing.

Findings and insights relate to topics such as the structure of the visual arts markets of East Asia, political influences on these arts markets, alternative spaces such as art festivals, ambiance and audience experience in museums and new media initiatives.

The authors believe that all of the papers have implications for future thinking, research, scholarship and practice in the area of arts marketing, particularly for scholars, cultural institutions and artists working in Asia.

As far as the editors are aware, this is the first ever journal special issue on arts marketing in East Asia. In particular, the authors offer some new ideas in thinking about visual arts marketing in Asia as part of this editorial essay, particularly in considering the difficulties for both artists, arts organisations and academics in creating from the “periphery”.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how consumers perceive, experience and engage with the art of filmmaking and the industrial film production process that the film studios present to them during their guided film studio tours.

Drawing on the author’s own film tourist experiences, observations and participatory interactions with fellow visitors at a major Hollywood film studio, this paper takes an autoethnographic “I’m-the-camera”-perspective and a hermeneutic data analysis approach.

The findings reveal that visitors experience the “authentic” representation of the working studio’s industrial film production process as an opportunity and “invitation to join” a broader filmmaker community and to share their own amateur filmmaking experiences with fellow visitors and professionals – just to discover eventually that the perceived community is actually the real “simulacrum”.

Although using an autoethnographic approach means that the breadth of collected data is limited, the gain in depth of insights allows for a deeper understanding of the actual visitor experience.

The findings encourage film studio executives, managers and talent agents to reconsider current practices and motivations in delivering film studio tours and to explore avenues for harnessing their strategic potential.

Contrary to previous studies that have conceptualised film studio tours as simulacra that deny consumers a genuine access to the backstage, the findings of this study suggest that the real simulacrum is actually the film tourists’ “experienced feeling” of having joined and being part of a filmmaker community, which raises question regarding the study of virtual communities.