Immersive Art Experiences Require Expansion Of Capacity And Vision

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ArtNews had a piece last month examining the world of Immersive Art shows.  You may have seen ads for these events which animate the works of Van Gogh or Monet and project them on the walls of a large space. To my surprise, those shows represent a small and decreasing share of the market compared to shows that animate the works of living artists or long term installation such experiences like those offered by companies such as Meow Wolf.

Immersive shows for Van Gogh and Monet are somewhat controversial based on the manipulation of artists’ work and the perception that the shows are lightweight and sort of dumb down the art viewing experience.

Museums that are interested in providing these sort of programs run up against capacity issues, both in terms of personnel and physical space:

Adapting or acquiring, and then equipping large amounts of space is one clear constraint. Size matters here. Small spaces simply do not have the same experiential impact. To compete with the big players, a museum will need to build out or otherwise secure several thousand square meters of floor space. Quality projection-based art often requires a 10-meter or even higher ceiling. These are halls that many existing institutions don’t have or can’t justify surrendering for extended periods.

Up next, new skills are needed. Creating an immersive art experience is akin to developing a branded consumer product. It relies on a multidisciplinary team to develop a single large-scale work…

On the other hand, Felix Barber, who authored the ArtNews piece suggests that the immersive art show can be taken out of the museum space to reach new audiences where they live. He cites collaborations in France where ” Grand Palais Immersif, in turn, joined forces with the Opera National de Paris to create an immersive space inside the Opera Bastille.” But also points out that other spaces like warehouses, empty spaces in shopping malls, and churches can provide the requisite physical space for these shows:

To find the space, a museum may not have to build at its existing high-cost, city-center location. Instead, it can look for a more affordable solution, while potentially engaging a new audience where they live. Many immersive studios work with real estate partners that are seeking to invigorate shopping centers and struggling urban areas. Others take over disused industrial premises. Culturespaces in Baux de Provence operates in an old quarry. Eonarium uses churches.

Ultimately those Barber interviews suggest that while museums in the current form will likely always be attractive, more options are becoming available to consumers who may prefer an experiential interaction versus standing in front of a work and reading a plaque.

In the end, it all comes back to the quality of the art. What will unlock museums’ interest in immersive experience is work that embodies beauty and meaning, presented at scale with a powerful sensory flourish.

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Even so, and no matter what, art museums now face new competitors. Sitting back and watching them capture audiences is not a promising option. Museums have to respond. One size will not fit all.

Other Considerations For No Phone Policies At A Performance

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The Conversation recently had an article by Will Shüler examining the strict enforcement of a no cameras policy at a theater production he attended. When he arrived, ushers put a sticker over the camera on his phone. The presence of the sticker was checked multiple times before he was seated and ushers patrolled the aisles to make sure no one removed the sticker and used their cameras during the performance.

This may sound particularly extreme until you learn the measures were taken due to the nudity of actor Kit Harrington in the London production of Jeremy O. Harris’ Slave Play.

Shuler suggests that if these measures were deemed necessary, perhaps the nudity should have been cut.

If policing the audience is necessary, perhaps the casting or the nudity needs reconsidering, otherwise both read as gimmicks. Additionally, the efforts made to protect the penis in the performance arguably point to an increasingly prudish attitude of nudity and sensuality in theatre.

It is understandable that a celebrity would want control over any images of their naked body, and in an age of social media sharing, theatre companies may feel compelled to overprotect actors appearing nude on stage. These leaked images are in contrast to the production of Ink at Sadler’s Wells, which printed images of (non-celebrity) performer Šuka Horn’s male nudity in the programme.

Shuler makes some points worth considering in arguing about nudity’s place in performances.

What occurred to me was that in the context of the increased use of intimacy coordinators in theater, film, and television, there is a need/desire for trust between the performers and audiences.  Nude performances have been around for decades now, but information about the experience was generally shared verbally and mentioning the context in which the nudity occurred. Whether you thought it was appropriate or not was discussed in relation to the performance. Actors may be willing to perform nude as long as that understanding of where and why the nudity exists is shared between themselves and the audience.

However, the use of phones to record that aspect of a performance allows video and still images to be distributed without any sort of reference to the context in which it appeared. It becomes a picture of someone naked for sake of displaying a naked image of them. There is already an issue of AI generated images of celebrities, colleagues, and classmates creating distress for the subjects of those images.

While there are probably some who will be bold and self-confident enough to say, “Might as well give them some accurate content to work off of,” I wonder how many who might otherwise be willing to appear in some state of undress are reluctant to do so due to the opportunity cell phones provide.

Providing Assurances Can Do 80% Of The Heavy Lift In Marketing

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Yesterday I saw a post on LinkedIn where Ruth Hartt was reinforcing the idea that people purchase the outcomes they desire rather than things.

In response, commenter Jay Gerhart wrote:

Reminds me of our first JTBD work with Bob Moesta when we simply showed a digital ad for virtual care with a person enjoying an event with their friends. We didn’t have to show them obtaining health care – we showed the result of it. 40% increase!

It happens that the night before, I started re-reading Peter Drucker’s Managing The Non-Profit Organization

On the second page of the first chapter, Drucker essentially says that nonprofit mission statements need to be focused on outcomes. He relates the story of helping an emergency room of a hospital create a mission statement for itself. He says it took them a long time to arrive at a mission statement and when they did, people felt it was ridiculously obvious – “to give assurance to the afflicted.”

And, much to the surprise of the physicians and nurses, it turned out that in a good emergency room, the function is to tell eight out of ten people there is nothing wrong that a good night’s sleep won’t take care of. You’ve been shaken up. Or the baby has the flu. All right, it’s got convulsions, but there is nothing seriously wrong with the child.’ The doctors and nurses give assurances.

…Yet translating that mission statement into action meant that everybody who comes in is now seen…in less than a minute….Some people are immediately rushed to intensive care, others get a lot of tests, and yet others are told ‘Go back home, go to sleep, take an aspirin, and don’t worry…But the first objective is to see everybody almost immediately–because that is the only way to give assurance.”

Framing an audience’s desired goals for an experience in terms of medical outcomes helped further develop my understanding of the concept Hartt has been espousing.  Given the choice, very few people would prefer to undergo a medical procedure vs. just going about daily life. While knowing you will enjoy competent care is important, what people really want to know as Jay Gerhart suggests, is that they will come out the other side with as minimal an impact on their daily enjoyment as possible.

Obviously the stakes aren’t as high when attending an arts and cultural experience (one hopes), but there can still be a related anxiety regarding whether the experience will be an enjoyable one. Focusing on how the experience will solve a problem like providing an escape from stress of the work week or providing an opportunity to spend time with family and friends.

I often cite this Lexus commercial as a good example. The parents continue to drive until the kids say they no longer have a cell signal and then the parents stop driving. The voice over says “…and feel what it is like to truly connect.” You aren’t buying a luxury vehicle, you are buying a method to reconnect with your family.

But it isn’t just enough to communicate that message. As Drucker says, it has to be operationalized in some way. But translating it into action isn’t necessarily complicated just as providing assurance in Drucker’s example meant a commitment to making an assessment in a short period of time.

 

Audiences Generally Cut Back On Drinks Before Admission Tickets

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As always, Colleen Dilenschneider and the folks at IMPACTS provided some attention worthy data in July regarding perceptions of the value of paying for museum and performing arts tickets. Basically, are the tickets worth it?

One of the things they found is that people expect to pay less for exhibit based and performing arts experiences in 2024 than they did in 2019, There is a lot nuance to this result according the Dilenschneider on her colleagues. First of all, this response is based on what people remember paying for their experience in pre-pandemic 2019. As you might imagine, they note that memory is imprecise and so comparing what they expect to pay this year compared to what they remember paying five years ago isn’t going to provide the most accurate results. In fact, data about what was spent in the first two quarters of 2024 tends to be higher than what they said they planned to spend.

The other thing to know is that people aren’t planning to cut back on admission tickets, but rather the other activities surrounding the central event. What IMPACTS terms off-site spending:

As of Q2 2024, the top area where folks recall spending money in relation to their visit is admission. Still, we do not see that admission costs are a top barrier to attendance to cultural organizations. So, to continue our work as data detectives, we’ll want to observe where other changes have taken place.

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Folks are spending more on parking, admission, and onsite retail, and they are spending less on the other aspects surrounding the cultural experience.

Nowadays, despite rising food costs and restaurant prices, cultural participants plan to spend less (and actually do) on food and beverage. In 2019, performing arts patrons were more likely to grab a dinner before the show and perhaps drinks afterwards. Now, however, the data suggest that patrons may be more likely to only do pre-theater drinks, or perhaps skip the fancy bottle of wine for a single glass or choose a more affordable fast casual option than a Michelin-starred meal. These choices reflect consumers’ decisions to “trade off” or “trade down” when it comes to making their cultural-related spending choices. Fortunately for many cultural organizations, these “trades” thus far seem to primarily affect offsite spending (and indicate less sensitivity to onsite consumer behaviors).

Of course, these results are associated with people who actually made the choice to participate in an experience. A fair part of the article is devoted to a conversation about the general pessimism people in the US especially feel about the economy. Ticket prices are fairly low on the list of cost related barriers to visitation compared to concerns about the economy, prices, inflation, investment, personal finances, etc.