While I am at the Arts Presenters conference this week, there is sure to be many discussions about how to attract and retain audiences for arts programming.

Back in 2007 I took umbrage with the famous “Pearls Before Breakfast experiment” where Joshua Bell played violin in a Washington DC Metro station and only earned $32.

My objection was that the whole situation was artificially manufactured to make the general public look like uncultured philistines. The fact that busking is prohibited in the Metro and the reporter had to essentially cajole the transit folks into breaking the rules was only the most obvious sign of this in my mind.

However, there was something I wondered and continue to be curious about:

Sure there have been performances in malls and outdoor areas before, but has anyone thought to study before what it is that gets people to stop? It is easy enough to perform with no specific expectation of how many will stop and another to measure the who, what, when, why and how of getting people to sincerely do so. The answers may comprise the basis for the next method of presenting performances.

In some of the discussion forums I link to in my post, there is a musician who confessed they would have been one of those who walked on by because the setting wouldn’t allow him to enjoy the experience.

So the question remains, what factors are important in getting people to stop and take the time to watch awhile? What would it take to get you to stop and watch a music/dance/spoken performance?