1. TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL KICKS OFF WITH CELEBRATION OF THE APOLLO THEATER: The 18th annual Tribeca Film Festival officially kicked off on Thursday night, with the premiere of the documentary The Apollo. Festival founder Robert De Niro introduced the film, which screened at the famed Apollo Theater on 125th Street in Harlem, a first for the event. Deadline: “Typically, Tribeca kicks off the festival at the Upper West Side Beacon Theatre which seats 2,894. With The Apollo, natch, premiering at The Apollo, attendance was smaller this year given the venue’s three-tiered 1,506 seating capacity. The doc, a six year journey in the making, covers plenty of ground, largely beginning with the theater’s swing era (The Apollo was built in 1913-14) of Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie, moving to Ella Fitzgerald forgetting her lines in a song and finding her scatting voice, to a 13-year-old Lauryn Hill getting rejected by the crowd (only to return years as an adult and knock their socks off), to James Brown being a beacon during the black-power revolution with his anthem ‘Say It Loud—I’m Black and I’m Proud’ and to President Barack Obama becoming the first U.S. President to step onto the legendary stage of African American art and culture which has triumphed over racism and oppression through history.” 2. IS THE AGE OF INSTAGRAM MUSEUMS OVER?: A couple years ago, Instagram museums with bright, colorful photo backdrops, ball pits, swing sets, and infinity rooms were a hit with influencers. But now, the trend seems to be dying, as many young Instagram users veer toward a simpler, less curated and unfiltered aesthetic. This doesn’t bode well for traveling pop-ups like the Happy Place, Museum of Ice Cream, and more. The Atlantic: “According to Taylor Cohen, a digital strategist at the advertising agency DDB, the Instagram aesthetic’s saturation point came sometime in mid-2018. ‘It’s not the same as it was even a year ago,’ she says. Consider, for example, the Happy Place, an Instagram museum that opened to great fanfare in Los Angeles in 2017 and bills itself as the ‘most Instagrammable pop-up in America.’ When it opened, people were thrilled to fork over the nearly $30 admission price ($199 for a VIP pass). But when it arrived in Boston this month, it landed with a thud. Instagram museums and walls were built to allow normal people to take influencer-quality photographs—but they worked so well, those types of photos became common enough that they don’t resonate like they used to. In the beginning, ‘you had everyone posting these normal photos, and so that rainbow-food photo stood out,’ Klein says. ‘But because so many people adopted that aesthetic, that has become passé. We’re living in influencer overload.’” 3. WHITE HOUSE ORDERS ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS TO SKIP W.H.C.A. DINNER: Trump administration officials won’t attend the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, after the president ordered them to boycott Saturday’s annual event. The president, who is skipping the event for a third consecutive year, will hold a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, the same night. CNN: “The order was issued Tuesday morning by White House Cabinet Secretary Bill McGinley, who announced that all Trump administration officials are being ordered to boycott the dinner, scheduled for Saturday night. An administration official adds that the order came from Trump personally, though staffers have been trying to talk him out of it. … Olivier Knox, president of the White House Correspondents' Association, responded to the boycott saying: ‘We're looking forward to an enjoyable evening of celebrating the First Amendment and great journalists past, present, and future.’ In previous administrations, both the president and vice president traditionally attended the gala event which promotes the First Amendment. The last president to skip the dinner was Ronald Reagan in 1981, who declined because he was recovering from an assassination attempt.” 4. COURT RULES LIVE NATION NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR DRUNK FESTIVAL ATTENDEE INJURIES: A Michigan appeals court has ruled that drunk festivalgoers are responsible if they get injured while attending a Live Nation event. The ruling came after a woman named Brandi Roe sued Live Nation and Michigan International Speedway for breaking her ankle after leaving Faster Horses Festival in 2016. Billboard: “For Roe's initial suit, the judges granted summary judgment disposition in favor of MIS and Live Nation and topped it off with a fairly scathing response: ‘We conclude that an average person of ordinary intelligence would have, upon casual inspection, been able to discover and appreciate the danger and risk associated with venturing off a well-lit pathway intended for pedestrian ingress and egress in order to enter a dark, wooded area with possible varied terrain at night.’ Roe appealed her case on the grounds that there were extenuating circumstances that created a higher risk of harm than usual; namely, that she was obligated to help her friend, and couldn't have avoided falling into the ravine on her way to assist him. The judges responded that the ‘plaintiff was not required or compelled to follow her companion into the dark wooded area. In fact, plaintiff and her companion could have stood in line to use the portable restrooms instead of venturing off the path.’” 5. MAJOR LEAGUE SOCCER WILL EXPAND TO 30 TEAMS: Major League Soccer will expand to 30 teams, with teams 28 and 29 needing a $200 million expansion fee, commissioner Don Garber announced last Thursday following a board of governors meeting. St. Louis and Sacramento are making formal bids to be teams 28 and 29. ESPN: “M.L.S. currently has 24 teams and has already confirmed expansion teams in Austin, Miami, and Nashville to join the league in the coming years. Garber said the ownership groups from both cities will make formal presentations to the league's expansion committee in the coming weeks. Part of the process will involve getting to know the respective ownership groups, both of which have investors who are relatively new to the process. Garber hopes a final decision on both cities would be made before the All-Star Game in Orlando in late July.” | 