If you are like me, the changes in the economy and people’s expectations about their interactions with the arts probably has you avidly watching for the new theories, techniques and technologies that may be relevant to your operations. Faced with uncertainty and rapid change, it is easy to forget that there are simple little gestures which we repeat over and over whose performance our audiences value. The explicit, big gestures using the newest techniques may pique interest and get them in the door, but it is going to be the small, mundane things that help keep them.
Some of these are passive things that are part of the organizational culture which we barely recognize we do. They don’t require a lot of time and energy but result in constructive activity. It can be something as easy as just leaving the door open as an invitation for something to happen.
I met today with one of the architects working on our facility renovation. I am anticipate we will be having a lot of these sort of meetings which cover small changes that will have a significant impact on the way audiences experience our facility.
One thing I talked to him about was putting more outlets in our scene shop. This isn’t to accommodate more power tools, but rather to accommodate the gathering of students and others. At the moment, the table area we typically use for meetings, lunch and effecting repairs has started to turn into a learning commons. Students are plugging in so many computers and other devices that they have extension cords crossing in front of the staircase to my office which I subsequently trip over.
I realized this afternoon that this gathering is actually the result of a decision I made three years ago to make the area more welcoming. Prior to that, on days we didn’t have classes or activities in the shop, I would leave the shop door locked and the lights off. All the better to show how ecologically responsible we were by keeping our energy usage to a minimum. Students were theoretically supposed to enter through another door to attend classes but often passed through the shop if the door was open.
As enrollment grew over the last few years and I saw exterior gathering areas becoming more crowded, I started to leave the lights on and the door open on a regular basis. Over that time, the number of people seeking a place to study or chat grew (granted, a little strange given that scene shops are noisy places, but there you are.)
Now we have faculty from visual arts and music who don’t normally teach in our building coming in to eat their lunch. The area has become something of a learning commons and collaborative space for students and faculty. I have students designing a poster and postcard for the show next month running up to my office with their thumb drives to get feedback on their work. Before the hammering started this afternoon, one of the music teachers was pounding on the meeting tables to teach a percussion sequence to a student.
I don’t know how long this may last. I can definitely attribute some of this activity to the dynamics between specific students and that may disappear when they graduate.
I can’t directly link any increase in attendance to this gathering of students so leaving the door open hasn’t helped my revenue situation much in a time when that is increasingly becoming a concern. However, since no one on staff has to design a poster or postcard for the next show, we are able to spend that time in other pursuits. When it comes time to distribute the materials, I bet the students will be interested in helping given their ownership of the piece. This afternoon, the students helped populate areas of the theatre during a photo shoot we were doing in support of a space naming campaign we hope to launch fairly soon. Potentially, their presence might yield income if those images are used in the campaign.
I know this sounds a little vague and hard to quantify. What I am advocating for is basically not forgetting about the assets you have to offer to your community and making them available for use by your constituencies. Some activities may take a little more effort than just leaving doors unlocked and lights on. For example, even though you want to go home, you leave the concession stand open, the lobby lights on and the restrooms open while people stand around chatting and chatting and chatting because the welcoming environment creates an intangible, but valuable positive impression of the organization even though it isn’t as effortless as it may appear.
In some cases you may be able turn a weakness and inaction into a strength. Don’t have money for landscaping? Plant wild flowers that attract butterflies. The front area won’t seem as much a rambling mess with butterflies flitting around.
What you do may not even be connected with your physical plant. Maybe the diner everyone on staff eats at all the time can turn into the site of an impromptu consultation session on how to create haunted houses and wire up holiday displays. That sort of thing reminds everyone that 1) Your organization contributes to the economy by patronizing area business; 2) Enhances the value of the diner in the community; 3) Makes people aware of the knowledge and expertise represented by your organization. I am sure there are fourth, fifth and beyond reasons, but note none of these have anything to do with specifically trying to attract people to your shows. Yet they engage your community at the cost of making a little extra effort at a place you were going to anyway.
It is key that you treat these sort of activities like giving someone a gift– you can’t have an expectation of something in return. If there are positive results, it may take years for it to manifest in a manner you can attribute to your efforts but it may not do so in the way you anticipated. Just as in personal relationships, what you value and want from your friendship with someone may not be the same as what your friend perceives as the valuable aspects of their relationship with you.