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How Long Have Communities Been Yearning For An Outcomes Focused Experience?

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Ruth Hartt made a post yesterday that is getting a fair number of responses from folks in the arts community, including somewhat gratifyingly, board members who need to be invested in the goals for which she advocates.

She discusses the need for cultural organizations to align their programming, practices, and operations toward meeting outcomes desired by audiences/participants/community members. She provides some practical examples of organizations around the world who have achieved this by doing everything from publishing a children’s book, sending postcards to children, offering wellness classes, and centering activities around a decommissioned fire truck.

These support her proposal on how to shift organizational business models:

Shift the value proposition from showcasing artistic product to delivering audience outcomes (e.g., wellness, belonging, inspiration, emotional restoration).

[…]

Expand resource allocation to include different talent, tools, and partnerships—especially those outside the arts sector (e.g., wellness practitioners, educators, social service orgs).

[…]

Reframe success metrics to measure what matters to your audiences, not just what matters to insiders or funders (e.g., social connection, personal growth, first-time participation).

Rebuild your value network by cultivating funders, partners, and press outlets that validate outcomes instead of just prestige, tradition, or aesthetics.

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Something she wrote at the beginning of her piece coalesced a lot of disparate concepts for me:

Historically, the arts have been one of the few avenues for accessing beauty, intellect, and high-status cultural capital. The product itself was scarce, revered, and gatekept.

But since the early 2000s, the digital revolution has shifted power to the consumer—creating a world where people expect personalized, on-demand experiences that deliver clear value and meaningful outcomes. Shaped by pre-digital norms, the arts sector has struggled to respond.

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It occurred to me that it may not be entirely true that the shift started in the early 2000s. I have always attributed my feeling that I have had permission to access cultural experiences to the fact my parents would take us to performances, museums, and historical sites when I was younger.

But my lifetime has seen increased access to experiences. I have gone from three channel over the air television to cable to VCR to video rental stores to dial-up internet to high speed internet to video on demand (including YouTube) to streaming content.

The practice of gatekeeping experiences has always seemed silly to me. Now I wonder if it was shaped in part by the increasingly accessible world (even though neighbors had color tv, cable, and HBO years before I did.)

I suspect that even if others did not have the same perspective and experiences with cultural opportunities that I did, their expectations of accessibility were being shaped in a similar way.

In other words, I think it is perhaps a mistake to believe this shift of expectations began with generations whose first experiences with technology began in the 2000s. There has probably been a subconscious awareness of unmet need and expectations far longer than that.

Therefore it would be a mistake to think what Ruth proposes is targeted to engage and increase the participation of younger generations.

Progress In Community Lives Can’t Be Standardized

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Kyle Bowen piqued my attention today in the Museums as Progress newsletter where he discussed Goodhart’s Law.

“When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.

Long time readers know that subscribe to the idea that just because you can measure something, it doesn’t mean the result is meaningful. Bowen illustrates this by pointing out that having goals to increase participation among people who meet certain demographic characteristics doesn’t advance your understanding of why they are there, how you can make them feel welcome, and make it easy to decide to return.

For a lot of organizations the answers to those questions are central to their mission and vision.

Goodhart’s Law reminds us that mirroring demographic ratios in museum content is not an end in itself because ratios have little relationship to a museum’s ability to fulfill a role in a city or region.

What counts isn’t who people are on paper, but what progress they’re trying to make in their lives. Demographics might tell you something about who is in your space, but they reveal nothing about why they came or what they hoped to achieve.

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Bowen admits that it is possible for progress in their lives can fall victim to becoming a meaningless target, it is is more difficult to do. What everyone needs to achieve their goal is differs from person to person even if they have the same goal. Thus it is tough to focus on providing a standard solution to everyone. And because what everyone feels they need is specific to them, organizations have to engage in more direct and active listening to provide the outcomes community members seek. (emphasis original)

Supporting a community goal like “helping parents cultivate their child’s curiosity” requires understanding the diverse approaches people take in pursuing that goal and the alternatives people in a particular place might turn to as they seek to achieve their goal. You can’t reduce it to a single number. Second, progress metrics require ongoing listening rather than predetermined solutions. When you focus on supporting goals, you have to constantly validate whether your approaches are working, creating a natural correction mechanism.

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Arts Midwest’s Helpful DEI Legality Webinar

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Last week I had an ArtsHacker post covering a sessions sponsored by ArtsMidwest regarding compliance with Trump Administration Executive Orders on DEI programs.

The content of this session is highly useful. Unlike most webinars where they suggest consulting a lawyer, lawyers could earn credit by attending this webinar. As a result, the content may be a little more technical than you are accustomed. In the ArtsHacker post I suggest readers may want to have their lawyers watch it with them since the legal landscape may have changed since it was conducted on March 19.

This being said, it should be noted that other than some certification requirements on National Endowment for the Arts grant applications which are on hold pending litigation nothing has really changed legally regarding what constitutes a legal DEI program. All the laws and court rulings they discuss pre-date the recent election.

In other words, nothing that was legal before has become illegal. i have been in conversations with people since the issue came up and they mostly discovered they were already largely in compliance with the law and just had to tweak a few things here and there. However, they did change the wording of some programs and policies that might cause them to become the subject of scrutiny.

I included some time markers in the ArtsHacker post as a rough index of some of the topics covered. There were concerns about celebrations of historical and cultural observations (i.e. Black History Month, annual Greek Festival), as well as what these orders mean for organizations focused on serving very specific communities identified by race, nationality, gender, etc.

Elements Of Legal And Illegal DEI Programs

You Put It On, You Can’t Write It Off

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Short, interesting piece on the INC magazine site on Tax Day about tax mistakes content creators and influencers make that has a bit of overlap for all creative and arts workers.

The first about realizing you are probably considered self-employed and need to be saving to pay taxes is pretty common and a tip I have heard given at conferences for decades. Early career artists have been overlooking that requirement for quite awhile.

Something I hadn’t known was that the IRS hold expenses related to personal appearance to a higher standard when it comes to writing them off as business expenses.

If creators ever wear clothes they bought for content on their own time, for example, they can’t write the expense off. Moore says creating separation is key here—which is why he advises a makeup artist client to store her personal and professional makeup in two different containers. That way, there’s no risk of personal and business uses overlapping.

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I know many actors and other performers who may have inadvertently been in violation of this. Especially since actors will often be asked to provide many of their costume pieces. You’ll want to write off the expense to at least get a little bit of financial relief…but you also don’t want to let perfectly good clothing go to waste by not wearing them after the show is over.

Similarly, if you were allowed to take clothing home after a show, corporate gig, movie filming, etc., you may need to report that as income in addition to whatever you may or may not have been paid.

Here’s something most content creators probably don’t know: Sometimes, you need to report brand trips and gifts to the IRS. Moore and Gallegos say it depends on whether you received a “true gift” as defined by the IRS. If you did something for the brand—like post a TikTok video—in exchange for the product or trip, it’s not a true gift. It’s taxable income instead.

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Notable Changes In Museum Social Media Use

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The Art Newspaper conducts an annual survey of the social media usage of 100 most visited museums in the world. They have typically taken a look at how museums have been using Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, Twitter/X over the last six years.

This year they found that a number of museums have lost followers on Twitter/X which they chalk up to people deleting their accounts on the platform rather than ceasing to follow the museums. One museum deleted their Twitter/X accounts while many other stopped posting on the platform.

At the same time it doesn’t appear many museums increased their presence on other platforms. While people with Instagram accounts automatically received a Threads account when Meta created the platform in 2023. However, museums which post content on Instagram either didn’t start posting on Threads or stopped posting there. Few of the top 100 museums started posting on Bluesky which was viewed as the prime alternative to Twitter/X by many who left that site.

The Art Newspaper staff didn’t make any observations about increases or decreases in usage of Facebook.

The social media platform with the biggest increase in the past year has been Tiktok. The article suggests the increase might have been more if the platform wasn’t continually under a ban threat in the United States.

After an initially slow adoption of TikTok as a platform for museums (only 21 of the top 100 most visited museums had TikTok accounts according to our 2023 data) it is becoming increasingly popular, with 56 of the 100 museums now owning accounts. Russian museums in particular are finding an audience on the Chinese-owned app, no doubt in part because the US platforms Facebook, Instagram and X are banned in the country.

[…]

…Meanwhile, the Met’s incredible year on TikTok—gaining around 900,000 followers—will have been in vain if the US government goes ahead with its planned ban of the app, over concerns about national security, on 5 April.

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Why Are Kids Licking Nintendo Cartridges?

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Alright so today’s post is totally for amusement and entertainment purposes. Except for a pretty narrow use case, I don’t really see a connection with arts and cultural organizations.

I saw an article on Fast Company that reported Nintendo’s coating of Switch cartridges to prevent people from licking them is a great design choice.

Now as someone who grew up having to blow into video game cartridges to get them to work correctly my first thought was that maybe people were licking them to improve the conductivity of the contact points in order to make them work better or improve performance.

The real answer is that they are spraying a bitter tasting substance on to dissuade kids from putting the small cartridges which they may choke on into their mouths. They use a non-toxic but really bitter substance called denatonium benzoate. One milligram of the stuff in a liter of water can apparently make it inedible.

As I mentioned, the only use case I could see in the arts realm is if you run a theater or museum focused on young children and don’t want them mouthing fixtures, displays, toys and props. Honestly, there probably is a good case to be made to use the substance to maintain basic sanitary conditions in those situations.

Though while the author wishes they could buy it in Walmart, I have a suspicion that Nintendo uses a process that keeps the substance from transferring to your hands from the cartridges. Spraying it on at home or in a museum may have undesired side effects.

Ubiquity And Connection Can Be Better Promotion Than Scarcity

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Seth Godin had a recent post on the “knock, knock” promotional business model. The way he describes it put me in mind of the Field of Dreams “if you build it, they will come,” approach to advertising. Godin says this model works in cases where a movie or book is announced featuring a famous actor (or by a famous author).

The level of high anticipation creates a tension you can use to sell the product. You don’t have to share much of the content because people have already sold themselves on the idea.

However, he says there are offerings like those from cultural organizations that succeed better with a different approach.

Mass media was the way creators could spread the tension and announce their work. You’re waiting for “who’s there!”

It’s worth distinguishing these knock knock offerings from cultural organizations, communities, and tools. In these cases, you can tell the whole story, give away the entire idea, and the IP is worth more, not less.

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He goes on to cite movies like The Rocky Horror Picture Show or songs that become anthems which only gain in influence as more people become familiar with them. He discusses the value of focusing on abundance and connection rather than scarcity. He admits it is a difficult process and perhaps not as well supported by research and evidence as people may like.

Many of the creators I’ve worked with over the years feel this tension and then fall into a gap. They have a fine knock knock on offer, but promotion is grating, endless and feels demeaning. Hustle isn’t the solution, not any longer. The best way for this sort of work to become popular is for people who have engaged with it to tell their friends (see the Blair Witch Project for an example). But “getting the word out” has never been more frustrating or difficult than it is now. The web is not TV.

We need this sort of thoughtful, long-form scholarship, but the business model for it is shaky indeed. The breakthroughs happen via peer-to-peer promotion, not hustle.

At the same time, it’s never been more productive to build tools and communities. And it helps to do it with intent.

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Lower Rates For Loyal Customers? How Novel!

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A couple days ago, Sam Reich, CEO of Dropout TV announced an $1/month increase in the subscription rate for the service. However, he made it very clear that this increase was for new and returning subscribers.

“Charging more for existing subscribers? Who do you think we are? Netflix, Apple, Disney, Amazon, Peacock?”

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He basically goes right to the heart of a big pet peeve of mine. Even though he cites current streaming sites, the practice of offering lower introductory rates to new subscribers goes back decades. All through my youth I would hear pitches from long distance phone services, cell phone carries, cable companies, cable channels like HBO, Showtime, etc., which would offer discounted rates to new users while maintaining higher rates for loyal long term users. The message was clearly that your loyalty wasn’t valued.

In the two minute video, Reich spends over half emphatically reinforcing the fact that they haven’t raised the price in three years and that this increased price only applies to new and returning subscribers. Since the new rates don’t go into effect until May, interested folks have a month to become classified as an existing subscriber. Meanwhile, he reminds viewers that the cost of their Netflix subscription has jumped twice in the time it took to watch the video.

The rest of the video he discusses that Dropout has increased their spending sixfold in the last three years to create more product, that the increase will help pay the staff a fair wage, and that as the CEO he does not own a boat.

While I first assumed he was implying he did not receive an exorbitant salary I later realized he might want to buy a boat. (Given that Dropout is comedy content the intended message may be both.)

So in this spirit, I will close by suggesting folks might want to consider using the analytics function of their ticketing system to identify people who have regularly attended over the last 3-5 years and send them a coupon code for a discount or some other benefit to thank them for their loyalty.

To Thine Own Tactics Be True

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Seth Godin recently made a post warning people against adopting the tactics of those you view as successful as your own.

The problem is simple. You don’t have a tactics problem. You have a strategy problem.

Borrowing tactics from someone with a useful strategy isn’t going to help because it’s their strategy that’s better, not their tactics.

And using tactics from someone who got lucky isn’t going to help either. Someone needs to get lucky, and it was them. It’s not their tactics that made it happen. Going to the same bank as Charlize Theron isn’t going to make you a movie star.

When in doubt, focus on your strategy. The tactics will follow.

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This reminded me of a quote from Joseph Campbell about the Knights of the Round Table embarking on the Grail quest

“‘They thought it would be a disgrace to go forth in a group. Each entered the forest at the point that he himself had chosen, where it was darkest, and there was no way or path.’

“No way or path! Because where there is a way or path, it is someone else’s path.”

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Apparently this quote has stuck with me for awhile. In searching for the 2007 post I originally used this quote in I found at least two more instances I used this quote, including in conjunction with another of Godin’s posts.

Perhaps I have used it so much because this is sentiment comes up often in relation to things like copying bylaws from other non-profits or using the same marketing and advertising techniques.

Every organization and community is different with different relationship dynamics. At one point in our lives I am sure we all realized that we couldn’t have the same close relationship with a friend that they seemed to have with another person in their social circle. On paper there may be no difference between you and that third person, but for some intangible reason your friend and they seem to share a significant affinity for one another.

The same is true to a greater or lesser degree on a community scale except some individuals may feel a stronger affinity than others. As Godin says, in relation toa collective you are targeting your tactics need to emerge and be informed by your strategy rather than borrowed. Otherwise the disconnect between the two will feel inorganic and inhibit the relationships you seek to develop.

Oregon Arts Commission Making Grants Easy For All

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A professional grant writer had a piece on the Oregon ArtsWatch website where she expressed her disbelief at the Oregon Arts Commission’s (OAC) new grant guidelines.

But it was all in a good way. Claire Willett writes that not only did they make the process simpler, they also made the use of the money flexible and unrestricted. For years now there have been calls for funders to support operational and administrative expenses rather than excluding them as permitted areas. Oregon Arts Commission is allowing funds to be used for that or pretty much anything else.

OAC also simplified the process significantly. Willett said she would typically write 7-10 pages of narrative for her clients. This year OAC’s goal is to make the application process simple and accessible for organizations who don’t have the capacity to hire a grant writer.

Apparently they made great progress in this direction:

….the week the new system went online, a friend texted me, “Um, I just logged in to look at the new OAC streamlined process and instead I just filled it out and submitted it in less than ten minutes???” 

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They also eliminated grant review panels. The grant staff at OAC Willett spoke to said that they instructed panelists to focus on the quality of work being done rather than the quality of writing, but they were concerned an unconscious bias toward those who could afford a professional grant writer might exist.

They also eliminated the long narrative sections from the application. (Personally, I was excited to learn they had allowed 5000 characters given most applications ask for a comprehensive review and allow 500 characters. But on the other hand, not having to write a comprehensive review in the first place is awesome.)

Three narrative blocks of five thousand characters each is an intimidating hurdle for applicants facing barriers of education, language, literacy, or simply lack of experience in this specific form of writing, which could mean that really exciting artistic work wasn’t getting taken seriously. The shift, then, was twofold: simplifying the form itself to something anybody can do without professional assistance, and moving the decision-making process in-house to focus on strengthening relationships between the OAC and the organizations they fund. 

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The OAC sees many of the changes they have made as moving toward the goal of developing and strengthening trust with groups throughout the state. They have even removed the requirement to operate two years as a non-profit from the eligibility criteria for a smaller grant program in recognition of how lengthy the IRS non-profit application process can be.

Patience For Ticket Purchase Experience Is Wearing Thin

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Yesterday I received an email letting me know that Colleen Dilenschneider and her colleagues at IMPACTS Experience had released a new post titled Ticket Purchasing Frustrations Are On the Rise. (subscription required) I knew this would be a topic I wanted to write on.

An hour later, I get an email from someone who knows I have a subscription asking if I had read the piece. In turn, people had emailed him knowing of his interest in the topic asking if he read it.

Clearly I needed to address this post sooner than later, but I had a lot of meetings and wasn’t able to digest the piece. I don’t usually post on Thursdays, so here is a bonus post for you all.

The second paragraph of the piece reads:

Think twice before assuming that this article merely points out areas for independent ticketing systems to improve! These hassles may in fact be the fault of cultural organizations themselves.

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That is pretty much what the research has found. Some of the issues are due to the design of the ticketing system, but a lot of the problems originate with organizational policies and procedures.

As usual, the data is broken down between exhibit based and performance based arts and cultural organizations. While the frustration is rising for both groups, the negative attitudes have increased most for exhibit based organizations – especially those with timed entry tickets.

According to the data Dilenschneider and IMPACTS present, reported barriers related to the ticket purchasing experience between 2015 and 2018 were pretty low and stable. Once the pandemic hit, ticket purchasing moved toward the forefront as an issue.

The barrier value of “Hard to purchase/transact” skyrocketed…That’s an increase of 146%! In this span of years, we experienced many more potential visitors saying that it was just too hard, complicated, confusing, or inconvenient to purchase a ticket to make it worth the effort.

[…]

But you’ll notice another alarming jump in “difficult to purchase or transact” as a driving barrier just last year! Today, this barrier is approaching the 100 index value threshold wherein the sector risks losing attendance and people are choosing to do something else because of ticketing-related issues…

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Timed entry is an additional frustrating factor for visitors to exhibit based entities. Attendees would rather enter when they are ready rather than during a specific window. There is also a concern about committing and then having kids get sick, scheduling conflicts pop up, being delayed by other factors.

Obviously, these are concerns people have when attending performing arts events too, but it seems that since the requirement to show up at a specific date and time has long been part of the process, it isn’t as big a barrier. Though it does still present a barrier as people are increasingly able to have the experience they want on their schedule.

While being difficult to purchase or transact certainly remains a modest barrier to attendance, it’s not a prohibitive barrier for many performing arts organizations. At the end of the day, performing arts programs have long been date and time specific. As a result, guests are habituated to selecting a timed and dated ticket.

Also, as performing arts leaders know well, some programs and performances secure more patrons than others. Attendance to performing arts organizations is especially dependent on how interested folks are in the specific programming. Therefore, it may come as no surprise that far greater barriers to attendance for performing arts institutions are simply preferring an alternative leisure activity.

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One thing that plagues both exhibit based and performing arts entities roughly equally is the data entry burden. People don’t like to have to enter all their information in a number of boxes. If they have to hit next to go to a new page rather than fill everyone out on one screen that adds to the frustration.

If they have to fill out a marketing questionnaire as part of the process that can present a deterrent. (my emphasis)

As explained above for exhibit-based organizations, it’s not uncommon for some institutions to “throw in another question to collect data, while we’re at it!” From additional questions ranging from how someone heard about the organization, to their length of stay in the city, to asking if they’d like at attend or qualify for an additional event, to any number of additional queries requiring a response or even a “next” click, organizations benefit by contemplating the potential negative impact of holding up the transaction. It may seem quick and easy to add on an additional question or two (with internal benefit, no doubt) from the view of a staff member, but these are a rapidly growing annoyance for potential patrons.

The takeaway isn’t to avoid collecting helpful information from patrons, but to consider how doing so may impact the transaction experience.

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They point out that many consumers are used to doing a one click purchase on Amazon which allows them to skip entering information into different fields…and leaves the customer feedback survey until after the transaction is complete.

As I always write in connection with these posts based on data IMPACTS has crunched I am only summarizing part of the whole. They also cover factors like pricing confusion that can be associated with packages, discount eligibility, and dynamic pricing; availability of payment types; digital ticketing; and purchasing interface on desktop vs mobile.

Causes of Churn Common Across All Business Types

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There was an article on Fast Company this week that discusses customer churn. For the most part the piece is written from the perspective of being a company that has sold another business a product/service that they choose not to renew. Some of that part of the article can be view in parallel with subscription renewal, but there is a fair portion of their advice which applies to single ticket sales as well.

The article notes that the decision not to renew is often made six months prior vs. in the last 30 days or so before the renewal discussions are scheduled.One of the issue identified in the article is the onboarding not matching the promise of the sale pitch. Clearly that can be an issue for customers of arts and cultural organizations when they find their experience isn’t what they expected based on the promotional messaging.

Satisfaction surveys are problematic in that they only measure satisfaction at a specific point in time rather then over an entire span and they don’t record the subtle signs that a decision to disengage has been made. The author of the Fast Company piece, Ron Carlson, suggests being proactive and interactive with the process of collecting feedback from customers, both current and past.

Instead of relying on static surveys, consider having real conversations with both current and past customers to uncover what’s actually happening. What you’re likely to hear in these conversations will shock you.

  • Customers Don’t Feel Heard: “We raised concerns, but nothing changed.”
  • The Real Pain Points Were Missed: “We didn’t leave because of price—we left because we weren’t seeing value.”
  • Your Biggest Risks Are Invisible: “We made the renewal decision months ago.”

Instead of simply sitting around waiting for a renewal conversation, take active steps to retain your clients:

Listen To Lost Customers: Post-churn interviews reveal patterns you won’t see in dashboards.

Map The Customer Journey: Identify weak points before they become churn risks.

Have Regular Check-ins: Not just to “touch base,” but to understand evolving needs.

Ask Why Customers Stay: Understanding what’s working helps reinforce those behaviors.

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Issues like not feeling heard and decision to leave being based on value rather than price are factors I have discussed across a number of posts in the past. Likewise, identifying weak points which might include external issues like parking, dining and safety as well as the ticket purchase and staff/volunteer interactions are also topics I have raised.

I think it is also important to pay attention to that last point -analyzing what is working is just as important as identifying problems. It is easy to view anything people aren’t complaining about neutrally. But it is just as important to catalogue what people say they value as assets and invest in reinforcing what is great about those aspects of the experience.

Strippers Organizing, But Not Unionizing In Minneapolis

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Earlier this month I saw a news piece about strippers in Minneapolis organizing to form a guild in that city. Stories about people organizing to take collective action and engage in bargaining in industry segments you might expect often catch my eye. I have written about the unionization efforts at a strip club in Los Angeles that saw people join the Actors Equity union.

What is interesting in this case is that while the dancers in LA were fighting against being improperly categorized as independent contractors, the members of the Minneapolis Stripper Guild, which has more than 200 members and counting, values the independent contractor status. In their view, it is the dancers customers are loyal to and not the clubs. They value being able to choose where and when they work.

Among the Stripper Guild’s top issues:

-Increasing advocacy among dancers, who are all independent contractors working largely for national strip club chains.
-Educating dancers about their rights under Minneapolis’ Adult Entertainment Ordinance, passed in 2019.
-Exploring ways to collectively purchase health insurance.

[…]

The guild deviates from the traditional union structure because strippers value their independent contractor status and don’t want to become employees of clubs, Snow said. The freedom that comes with being a contractor allows dancers — many of whom are managing various disabilities — choose their workload.

“We think it’s super important for stripping to stay accessible, because it’s one of the safest forms of sex work,” said Snow. “Anyone who is excluded from being able to work at the clubs, that means they’re just working in more marginalized, less safe spaces.”

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Securing collective health insurance is a big issue for the members. Because they are operating as independent contractors they can’t get employer provided coverage. Wearing high heels all night and performing athletic movements physically stresses their bodies leading many to seek massage and chiropractic care which they need to pay out of pocket.

Seeing Opportunities To Diversify Revenue

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I was recently drawn to the story of Rock School for Dance Education in Philadelphia opening a retail dancewear store out of their location. They spent $150,000 renovating a space that used to contain two offices into a street level store space. The director of the school noted most dancewear stores stock up to $150,000 in pointe shoes alone and they haven’t reached that level of stock quite yet.

Business Insider had an interesting video in December about the London based pointe shoe maker that supplies the NYC Ballet and the staff at the ballet that maintains the stock.

Rock School made the decision to open the store based on success they have had selling to their own internal constituencies and the fact that a number of longstanding dancewear stores had closed. Those stores had not only supplied the dance community, but also the intricately costumed participants of Philadelphia’s Mummers Parade.

They saw an opportunity to diversify their revenue stream in what they anticipate to be increasingly challenging financial times.

“There’s this perfect storm of already having a successful boutique, seeing the need in Philadelphia, and the potential for a new revenue stream to enable us to do our good work,” he said.

[…]

As a nonprofit, the goal is not to make money, but to cover expenses including maintenance of the buildings. It can be a struggle, says Stark.

“We are anticipating that struggle could get more challenging with what we’re seeing in some of the proposed changes on a federal level,” he said. “We want to be ahead of that, and we don’t want to wait until there’s a problem. We want to proactively step forward and have a solution so that we can keep doing our good work.”

[…]

“Really we’re trying to monetize our asset to support our mission and to support the scholarship and the outreach programming that we do,” he said.

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Go Get My Guitar

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There is a lot of conversation among arts organizations these days about the need to create connection and show the value of arts organizations to the community. I worked with an artist this weekend who really exemplified this aesthetic.

We presented the Masters of Hawaiian Music which is typically George Kahumoku and a rotating roster of 2-3 other notable musicians from Hawaii. In this case it was Herb Ohta, Jr. and Sonny Lim. Kahumoku has been hosting the Maui Slack Key show for over 20 years and has been a musician for far longer than that. He was trained as a visual artist, but is also a farmer, cook, writer in addition to being a sculptor and printmaker. Definitely a renaissance man.

When I initially contracted the show, the local museum was planning having a quilt exhibition around the same time that was going to have 2 out of 20-30 quilts from Hawaii. Over the course of the year that evolved to 100% Hawaiian quilts. I arranged for Uncle George Kahumoku to speak about quilt making the night before the performance and then join the members of a local organization for a potluck and mini-cultural exchange.

The local organization said there would be 15-20 from their group at the talk and potluck and the museum didn’t know how many would attend from their mailing list.

We got to the museum and there were already 40-50 people gathered in the gallery. Uncle George turned around and told me to go back to his hotel room to get his guitar. He really enjoyed the experience because he had never seen so many Hawaiian quilts in one place. He would watch his grandmother and her friends make quilts for every newborn, but he had never seen one placed on a bed and used because they were treated as heirlooms.

He joked when he inherited his father’s quilt, his dad let him look at it and then closed the chest up a few minutes later and told him to never open it again. He didn’t mention if he gave his son the same instructions when he passed it on.

Later at the potluck, upon learning some students of hula came an hour to hear the museum talk, he made everyone move the tables and told them to dance while he played familiar songs on his guitar.

The next night, before the show he was out in the lobby greeting audience members and handing out slips to fill out to “win stuff.” The slips were obviously a way for him to collect address so he could contact people in different parts of the country to attend his shows when he was in the area. But he was also very much making himself available to the audience to chat with him rather than delegating this job to subordinates. (Okay, so he pressed me into helping him so maybe there was a little subordination going on.)

He was back out in the lobby at intermission with Ohta and Lim chatting with the audience. (I had to nudge them back on stage.) Then they were back immediately after the show until everyone left.

It is difficult to communicate the vibe and dynamic via text. His agent may have explained it best when she mentioned his instinct leans toward creating connections and socialization. She mentioned he was likely in his happy place at the museum talk and potluck more than even at the concert.

As much as he was trying to gather people’s contact information, his goal wasn’t to optimize that process. He started drawing names to give things away as soon as I introduced him rather than waiting until the end of the show and taking the opportunity to gather more names at intermission.

Also at some point he managed to collect the names of every staff member and volunteer in the building and acknowledged them all before the performance started. The morning after the public show, I got a long text from Uncle George telling me how much being able to see the quilts meant to him and how he would write about the experience in his memoirs. Again he praised our staff.

I knew by then that he was an exemplar of the level of sincerity and investment that arts organizations need to manifest in their interactions with their community.

Still Trusted, But Some Perceptual Barriers to Overcome

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In my post yesterday I briefly referenced research Colleen Dilenschneider and the folks at IMPACTS Experience have released showing that arts and cultural organizations have gained an increased perception of trust since the relaxing of pandemic restrictions.

Last month they released some updated data collected around the end of 2024 about the perceptions working with and against 11 different types of arts and cultural organizations.(subscription required)

They used the criteria of perception of being entertaining (recall audience definition is not your definition), educational, primarily for adults, welcoming to people like me, likelihood to recommend, being an asset to the community.

Generally, exhibit based organizations (zoos, botanical gardens, museums) are regarded as being entertaining. That isn’t as true for performance based organizations. (my emphasis)

Other than live theater, performing arts organizations are on the whole perceived to be less entertaining than exhibit-based organizations.

But before you panic, symphonies/orchestras and other performing arts organizations, remember that these data represent market research, which includes perceptions from people who both do and do not attend these types of organizations. Those who visit with regularity tend to rate the entertainment value more highly … This finding may represent one of those perceptual mismatches between “insiders” and the broader market, where regular attendees who are more familiar with the type of experience offered will likely find it more engaging than those who do not know what to expect…Seeking out opportunities to increase relevance and help potential attendees engage with experiences may offer a potential pathway forward for creative performing arts leaders.

Source

There is a similar result in terms of perceptions of being welcoming to people like me and likelihood to recommend. Live theater is perceived as being more welcoming and have a higher tendency to be recommended than orchestras and other performing arts organizations.

Interestingly, when it comes to perceptions of being assets to the community, live theater and orchestras are about on par with each other with other performing arts organizations trailing slightly. They attribute this to a mix of high level of trust performing arts and exhibit based organizations enjoy, perception of being educational, and existence as a venerable community institution (for longer established orgs, naturally.)

I am skipping over an immense amount of content they provide. I have almost completely omitted data for exhibit based organizations and probably could have written an entry three times as long based on the performing arts data alone. Additionally, after they provide a macro level view of these trends they drill down on each of the 11 organization types with a short description and infographic summarizing the perceptions that act as headwinds and tailwinds for each.

Communicating What You Are Good For Rather Than Good At More Important Than Ever

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Last month, Forbes website hosted an article “6 Things That Arts Leaders Should Do Right Now” It is written in the context of all the funding cuts and policy changes being promulgated on the federal level.

Except for the suggestion to emphasize the economic impact of your work in the community to garner the support of local businesses and community leaders, the advice is generally to move away from transactional relationships with the community and focus on your core cause and role in society.

Identify the role that your organization has in society.

Magladry, who advises a number of museums, recounted how many museum directors are reviewing the various role that museums can play in communities (e.g., truthteller, protagonist, convener) and how their institutions can act in these roles. This strategizing might require more collaboration between managers and board members as well as artists and community members.

[…]

Many of these recommendations are echoed in Alex Sarian’s book, The Audacity of Relevance, … Sarian argues that arts leaders must ask themselves: What are we good for? rather than What are we good at? In order to answer those questions, arts organizations should have a viable value proposition that tells people why they might engage with the organization and choose its goods and services over other institutions in a clear expression of its plans to address their wants and needs.

Karen Brooks Hopkins, formerly president of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, suggests that arts organizations need to move away from thinking in terms of only philanthropy to thinking in terms of investment. “When communities that have a density of arts organizations are successful – economically, socially, and of course, artistically – then there is a reason for cities and municipalities of all kinds to make an ongoing financial commitment to them,”

Source

This recalls the research by Collen Dilenschneider and IMPACTS Experience that trust in cultural organizations has been growing since the Covid pandemic and underscores the value of positioning your organization as a community resource.

The also article emphasizes the importance of changing the internal culture and structure of the organization to be less siloed so that everyone is working collaboratively to achieve these goals.

Break down siloed work environments.

Adapting to new challenges will require more internal collaboration between departments and more partnerships with other organizations in finding ways to serve audiences and communities. Reaching out and being open to new ideas and approaches may result in finding new funding sources and new audiences for your work.

Source

Being In Charge When There Is No Benefit

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Seth Godin recently made a post that resonated with me. He wrote about how in large organizations and bureaucracies things often fall through the cracks partially because no one is specifically in charge of something and people have learned not to exert themselves to take charge.

Sooner or later, we say, “I’d love to fix this, but I’m not in charge of that.”

Perhaps, though, we’ve been conditioned to say this even when it’s not true. Because being in charge means being responsible, and we may have learned that being on the hook is uncomfortable.

And so, sooner or later, no one is in charge.

Source

But he says this sort of organizational inertia doesn’t just exist for large groups:

But it’s not just giant organizations. It’s the little pocket park down the street from you that no one takes the time to clean, or the missing stop sign that no one agitated to have replaced…

The good news is that we have the option to be responsible for far more than we imagine.

Source

It was the bit about the packet park and stop sign that caught my attention. There is a crosswalk signal near work that was always a little askew. I assumed it was that way so that the sun wouldn’t completely wash out the visibility of the signal. However, after a recent wind storm one signal was pointed diagonally across the intersection and the other was best viewed from a coffee shop and bank about 30 feet before the intersection.

Last week I took pictures on the way back from lunch and sent an email to a city engineer and the whole thing was fixed before I left for work that evening.

Obviously, this is partially an illustration of it being important who you know. In this case I had been in numerous meetings with this particular city engineer discussing the impact of a major road construction project which is going to close our street and sidewalk and displace public art for a number of months.

At the time I also credited her being so friendly and accessible with contributing to the ability to increase the safety of that intersection. As much as I have met with her over the last year, if I hadn’t felt comfortable approaching her about the problem, it would still continue to be an issue today making that intersection more hazardous to cross, including for myself. I had no idea what city department handled crosswalk signals, but I knew she would know. In fact, since the signal is at the intersection of a state and city street, even she didn’t know which entity was responsible and had to ask.

As Godin writes, I contributed to the fix by taking responsibility myself. For years I have been inclined to pick up merchant’s A-frame signs that have fallen down on the sidewalk, flipped floor mats back into place so people wouldn’t slip or trip on them, and reconnected down spouts so that water wouldn’t run across the sidewalk creating a slip hazard.

For me it is a matter of a rising tide raises all boats. If the neighborhood I operate in thrives and is perceived as tidy and safe, that is to my benefit.

But as I note, even for someone inclined to do that lack of knowledge and a feeling that the solution is inaccessible will inhibit my action. So I think it isn’t just a matter of having the option to be responsible that Godin mentions, but also creating an environment organizationally and personally in which people feel comfortable approaching you looking for solutions to problems.

Some Thoughts On Why Customers Complain

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To expand a little on yesterday’s post about the customer always being right, Seth Godin recently made a post about why people complain.

One of the reasons he cites is, of course, to effect some sort of change. But he also identifies the following reasons:

    Here are some others:

    -to bond with others through shared experiences of dissatisfaction

    -to let off steam

    -to signal group affiliation

    -to create hope that things might get better

    -to increase one’s status by selfishly demanding more

    -to gain affiliation by complaining on behalf of someone else

    -to gain status by demanding more for others who can’t speak up

    -to validate our feelings by seeking acknowledgment from others that their grievance is legitimate

    -to preemptively lower expectations or manage blame

    -to conceal our fear or embarrassment

    -to avoid responsibility by pointing to someone else

    -to establish dominance or control in a situation

    Source

      It can be worth considering that we often don’t know the motivations behind complaints. Often people legitimately want to bring about some sort of change or resolution. Other times the endgame might be an increase in status or affiliation in the estimation of others or perhaps even for oneself.

      In one of my early posts which I can’t find with the blog search function I noted that while people may be used to the idea of a money back guarantee, it isn’t a refund they really want when they register a complaint at a performing arts event. That is just sort of a default concept that has circulated.

      If you have spent time getting dressed, going to dinner, finding parking, perhaps arranging for a babysitter, a refund probably isn’t going to provide actual satisfaction unless you are motivated by a desire to establish dominance, lower expectations, or perhaps manage blame for problems you have created. Even then getting the money back isn’t as important as having gotten compliance.

      In that original post I had advised finding other solutions to resolve a person’s complaints than sending them home with their cash back. Despite not being able to find the post, I know that is what I advised because I have been operating under that philosophy for decades. To a certain extent Godin’s list somewhat solidifies that approach for me because he lists even more reasons for complaints than I had conceived of which may be more important for the complainer to achieve than getting the money back.

      But the range of solutions you need to offer may need to be broader than just offering vouchers to other performances or drink tickets. If someone is complaining to advocate for things like greater accessibility for themselves or others, the changes they seek may be more significant.

      The Customer Is Always Right…

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      I have been seeing a number of claims that the full quote ends with “…in matters of taste.” As much as I would love that to be true given that retailers have been bludgeoned with the phrase over the years, it apparently is not. While Harry Selfridge is credited with creating The Customer is always right, there is no record of him completing it with a sentiment about taste.

      Reinforces the idea that you always need to research such things before taking them at face value. Which is apt because according to wikipedia, the saying was used to create a sense of confidence in people at a time when caveat emptor, let the buyer beware, was the maxim of the day because malpresentation was so rampant.

      While the phrase is attributed to various people, the intent was to assure customers in the early 1900s that the merchant would work to guarantee their satisfaction.

      About 10-15 years later, various people were already observing that customers were taking advantage of the saying to bully merchants and engaging in a little misrepresentation of their own. So it has continued for over a century as witnessed by the fact that people are trying to append a few more words to the saying to create a counternarrative.

      Certainly, more than a century later there is also plenty of misrepresentation coming at us through various media to warrant the use of caveat emptor as well.

      Perhaps it is time for a new saying that both tempers customer demands and urges a degree of discernment before purchasing.

      Varying How You Make Donation Appeals

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      Short, interesting piece in the Chronicle of Philanthropy discussed research that found when non-profits varied their messaging on Facebook, they received more donations.

      They are careful to say that these results may only hold true for Facebook as a social media platform and that they didn’t factor in other fundraising activities like direct mail.

      They looked at 752 organizations which participated in a one day Omaha Gives fundraising events in 2015 and 2020.

      The types of messaging the researchers categorized were:

      Beneficiaries: Explaining how the group helps people.

      Goals: Encouraging donors to help reach a fundraising goal.

      Gratitude: Thanking donors for their gifts.

      Mission: Focusing on how the organization helps people.

      Social media engagement: Asking donors to share the post or change their profile picture to boost the campaign.

      Solicitation: Asking for donations.

      […]

      In addition to determining that using different types of messaging works best, we found that when nonprofits frequently share messages of gratitude or that highlight progress toward their goals, they tend to raise more money than if they just ask for donations.

      Source

      Obviously your mileage may vary as they say. Similar efforts on Facebook may not yield the same results in 2025. Five years is an eternity in social media years. Also the fundraising dynamics in Omaha may not be the same in other regions of the country.

      One of the theories the researchers had was that varying the messaging helped reduce donor fatigue by not always using the same appeal language in every post.

      Understanding Barriers To Entry By Visiting Stores That Cause You Discomfort

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      Nina Simon posted that she had been interviewed on Kyle Thiermann’s podcast (also on YouTube if you want view a video of them talking.)

      They talk for awhile about Nina’s transition from running Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History (MAH) to writing murder mysteries while taking care of her mother as she dealt with an advanced cancer diagnosis.

      Around the 40 minute mark, Nina starts to talk about how she came to be the executive director at MAH. I have written a fair number of entries over the years about Nina’s thoughts on creating an accessible environment for communities at arts and cultural organizations. One of the things she has talked about is creating figurative (though sometimes literal) new doors for people to enter to engage with the organization.

      In this podcast episode she touches a little on the empathy that an organization’s staff needs to have to understand the barriers to participation people experience. She says she has gone to conferences and challenged people to go downtown and enter stores that make them feel uncomfortable and pay attention to what it is that causes that. Is it the decor? The way people dress? Rituals and practices you are unfamiliar with?

      This resonated with me because I have had that experience and had the same thought about understanding how new audiences can feel ill at ease entering arts and cultural spaces. I have had the experience going to speak to social groups who have traditional practices they enact, but also going into an unfamiliar restaurant and not knowing where and how to order.

      As I think about it, I have probably felt more comfortable navigating a new to me performing arts venue than some restaurants.

      Nina mentions that you can put out all the messaging you want about people being welcome and how they should feel comfortable wearing what they want, but if the behavior of the other people they encounter sends a contradictory message your efforts may come to naught.

      She says even if all elements align to reinforce the welcoming message you hope to convey, people aren’t going to trust your organization as much as they trust their friend’s rock band or knitting circle. Forging alliances and relationships with affinity groups in the community can help cultivate that trust.

      Nina also mentioned that it was pretty humbling to realize no matter how much effort they put into creating welcoming environment and programming, it would never increase the engagement with the museum as much as the presence of a good coffee shop and bar in the food hall that was developed next to the MAH.

      Take a listen for these and other insights. Also, check out her book on engaging audiences, The Art of Relevance. I just bought my fifth copy — I gave two as gifts, but two other copies I lent out never came back to me.

      No Print At Home & Added Will Call Charge Increasing New Barriers To Entry

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      Over the weekend I received a comment on a post I made in October 2019. The post dealt with the theory that the response that an arts and cultural experience was “not for me” might be based in technological barriers people might experience. I had titled the post “How Long Before You Can Only Participate If You Bring A Phone?”

      In her comment, Lady Jane said she couldn’t attend a performance because she didn’t own a smartphone. While she didn’t mind picking up tickets at will call, you apparently couldn’t enter the venue to get to the box office without some feature on a smart phone.

      I had run into a similar situation twice in the last two months. A day after buying tickets for my niece and nephew as a Christmas present, I was informed there was no print at home option for the show so neither I or my sister could receive the tickets in that manner. The only option was to download a proprietary app to a phone and receive them that way. If we wanted to pick up tickets at will call, there was an extra charge.

      Last month, when I was going to another performance, again there was no option to print at home and an extra charge to pick them up at will call. Because I have a pretty good familiarity with ticketing systems I was able to finagle a way to print at home rather than having to download an wallet app to receive my tickets. (This is a totally different venue than the one I purchased tickets for my sister’s family.) Had my gambit to circumvent the lack of print at home options not worked, I was going to grumble at the executive director with whom I have a relationship.

      In the end there was no problem but most people don’t have the tech savvy to do as I did, nor the confidence of having a professional relationship to lean on.

      My original post was made about 6 months before Covid concerns accelerated the need to have touchless interactions, (though there are just as many germs, if not more, on a phone passing a scanner than on a piece of paper undergoing the same motion), so it may have taken longer to reach this point had the pandemic not occurred.

      I am not sure what is driving the move to no print at home option. The only thing I can think of is an effort to cut down on ticket resellers who transfer print at home tickets by email on the secondary market. It definitely appears to be creating a new barrier to participation for people. Especially if there is an additional charge to pick up tickets at will call.

      Working Out Those Work From Home Arrangements

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      If you have staff working from home or are considering moving in that direction, I recently made a post on ArtsHacker regarding some tips for creating a successful asynchronous work environment.

      The post largely draws from some tips assembled by ArtsMidwest about different tools and approaches an organization can use.

      As I write in the ArtsHacker post, you may find the tips

      …overly structured for the informal work environment of arts and cultural organizations, but there are likely some situations in which a strong framework is useful. It is easier to discard what isn’t useful than to try to fabricate guidelines whole cloth.  

      On the other hand, if it feels like things are being accomplished, but in a very much seat of your pants manner, implementing a structure can be helpful. It may feel like you have artificially imposed constraints on the work environment, but once people are able to internalize the process and begin to employ an effective shared shorthand the boundaries may dissolve into the background.

      Source
      Organizing For Work At Home Staffing

      Pittsburgh Arts Council Employing AI Tools

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      In the last few weeks I came across a blog post by the CEO of the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council, Patrick Fisher, laying out the ways in which the Arts Council would be using new technology tools and AI to serve their constituencies.

      He wrote about how they would be using AI to create event calendar listings from publicly available sources as well as an AI Concierge service to answer questions artists, organizations, and community members might have about available resources. They are also working to create an online map of resources available in the Greater Pittsburgh area as well as an assessment tool to assess the health of the arts and cultural environment.

      This tool will provide critical insights into the financial stability, operational capacity, and overall well-being of arts organizations, enabling stakeholders to make data-driven decisions that enhance the sector’s long-term viability.

      Source

      Fisher also spends a fair amount of time discussing the ethical considerations about using AI for some of these purposes. I am glad he does, not only because there are definitely ethical issues like bias, representation in the data used to train the AI model, and whether those providing the data/content gave permission for it to be used, but also due to the over arching need to make sure the information being provided is valid.

      I had bookmarked the article about two weeks ago to return to write a post on the topic. However, this past weekend we had to contend with a ticket buyer who had gotten a notification that a performance had been postponed to a date in May. The best we could figure out is that the AI sending an alert to her phone had conflated the fact the performer Saturday night had been postponed from an early date with the date of another performer in May to decide Saturday’s performance was now in May.

      This moved Fisher’s post to the top of my list of things to blog about. Fisher lists seven ethical considerations for using AI powered tools, lists entry points for use of AI which arts organizations might use to start integrating the tools into regular activities, and then makes the case for why arts organizations should start embracing these technologies.

      He encourages a relatively balanced and deliberate approach to their use, writing:

      “…let’s embrace this moment with curiosity, courage, and due diligence.”

      Source

      New Compliance Requirements For NEA Grants

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      There appear to be some significant changes in the grant procedures for the National Endowment for the Arts. In addition to the end of the Challenge America grant program American Theatre Magazine reported changes in the compliance rules that have been recently added.

      After listing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Americans With Disabilities Act, the Age Discrimination Act, and Title IX, the page includes the following new requirements:

      The applicant understands that federal funds shall not be used to promote gender ideology, pursuant to Executive Order No. 14168, Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.

      The applicant will comply with all applicable Executive Orders while the award is being administered. Executive orders are posted at whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions.

      The applicant’s compliance in all respects with all applicable Federal anti-discrimination laws is material to the U.S. Government’s payment decisions for purposes of section 3729(b)(4) of title 31, United States Code, pursuant to Executive Order No. 14173, Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity, dated January 21, 2025.

      The applicant will not operate any programs promoting “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) that violate any applicable Federal anti-discrimination laws, in accordance with Executive Order No. 14173.

      Source

      The National Endowment for the Arts will be holding a seminar to discuss these changes and answer questions from 2 pm- 3 pm EST on Tuesday, February 18, 2025. The link to the Microsoft Teams Meeting may be found on the webinar page. If you miss the meeting, a link to the recording will be available on that page as well.

      While it is for a different program, news sources are reporting a list of words that will trigger a manual review of papers and other documents submitted to the National Science Foundation and Centers of Disease Control.

      Many of the words are ones that arts and cultural organizations have been using regularly for years like advocacy, barrier, biases, community diversity, cultural differences, cultural heritage, disabilities, diverse communities, equity, female, gender, inclusivity, historically, marginalize, sense of belonging, underserved, women.. That’s about 1/10 of the words on the list.

      What To Say About Your DEI Efforts

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      Yesterday someone posted a Harvard Business Review article on LinkedIn dealing with the topic of corporate DEI programs. The authors, Kenji Yoshino, David Glasgow, and Christina Joseph, state that such training programs hold a low legal risk provided they aren’t targeted at a specific group in a manner that creates a hostile work environment.

      Public relations-wise it can be a different story depending on the community and customers you serve.

      HOWEVER, statements about diversity, equity, and inclusion can carry legal risk if the say too much.

      DEI communications create legal risk when a statement suggests that the organization engages in what we call the “three Ps” by conferring a preference on a protected group with respect to a palpable benefit.

      Source

      They caution against statements like: ““DEI uplifts historically disadvantaged groups to ensure equal outcomes,” because it suggests that some protected groups might be getting preferential treatment.

      As alternatives, they suggest:

      “DEI removes unfair barriers that prevent disadvantaged groups from competing on a level playing field.”

      “Talent is everywhere but opportunity is not. DEI closes the gap.”

      “DEI enables people of all identities and backgrounds to feel welcome and do their best work.”

      Source

      In respect to hiring and promotion, they write:

      Another risky statement is “We use diversity hiring to recruit people from underrepresented racial and ethnic backgrounds.” This one could suggest the organization considers race or ethnicity in employment decisions …Alternatives include:

      • “We conduct outreach at diverse colleges to strive for a diverse applicant pool.”
      • “While we strive for a diverse mix of candidates, all employment decisions are made without regard to race, sex, or other protected characteristics.”
      • “We look for candidates of any background who will advance our culture of diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
      Source

      They also advise staying away from any language that identifies concrete hiring targets and instead use aspirational language referencing terms like aspire, strive, aim, and hope.

      Much more specific detail on these and other topics in the article, including how to engage your communications team, if any of this is of concern.

      More Room For Customer Focused Info On Book Covers?

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      In a case of insiders recognizing that stuff they think is important isn’t really viewed as valuable to consumers, the publisher of Simon and Schuster books announced their writers will no longer be required to solicit blurbs from other writers.

      If you are wondering what blurbs are, you aren’t alone. In a totally non-scientific survey at a book seller the NY Times article writer conducted, 18 out of 20 people responded they didn’t know what it was. Once they were told, they said blurbs didn’t impact their buying choices as much as the summary of the story on the book jacket/cover. Those that buy books online said they place more importance on what other buyers have written about the book.

      And in fact, there is no data that the blurbs help to sell books at all. Like their customers, shop owners interviewed for the story said that other than some really recognizable names, they hadn’t seen customers pay attention to blurbs.

      Blurbs are basically words of praise that other authors have given to a book. Most authors don’t like soliciting those blurbs because it is time consuming and potentially humiliating if someone you admire refuses you. Not to mention the whole process cultivates a bit of an incestuous quid pro quo environment.

      In his statement, Sean Manning, the publisher of Simon & Schuster said:

      Trying to get blurbs is not a good use of anyone’s time,” Manning wrote. He commended “the collegiality of authors,” but pointed out that “favor trading creates an incestuous and unmeritocratic literary ecosystem that often rewards connections over talent.”

      Source

      A number of authors are issuing sighs of relief while others are hoping this practice becomes more widespread.

      This story resonated with me because about six hours before I saw it I had picked up a book related to arts management and after scanning the nearly two dozen blurbs, muttered that none of those giving blurbs really had any relevance for me. If I was thinking that as an arts insider, it was a lesson to me to consider how little things I did think were important might mean to audience members.

      Why You Should Be Expanding Your Audience, By The Numbers

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      Colleen Dilenschneider and the folks at IMPACTS Experience laid out some interesting data about audience sustainability for different types of cultural organizations. (subscription required) They look at negative substitution trends as well as the engagement cycle for different types of cultural entitites.

      If you are asking, “Okay, so what is negative substitution,” IMPACTS explains it like this:

      Negative substitution is a phenomenon wherein the number of people who profile as active visitors leaving the market (i.e., by way of death, relocation, or migration) outpaces the number of people who profile as active visitors entering the market (i.e., by way of birth, relocation, or immigration). Essentially, people who fit the profile of a cultural visitor are leaving the market faster than cultural entities have been able to replace them by expanding their audiences. The result is a shrinking visitor base.

      Source

      Engagement cycle is how the average time between when a person first visits an organization and when they return. For exhibit based organizations, this is an average of 24.7 months. However broken down by different disciplines it varies. For aquariums it is 23.8 months; art museums it is 24.1; Children’s museums it is 29.7 months.

      Similarly, for performing arts organizations the engagement cycle is 28.5 months, but for symphonies it is 28.7 months and for theaters it is 25.8 months.

      They break down these rates for 11 different organization types in the article. These examples are just a sample.

      Negative substitution rates vary for each of the 11 types as well. For aquariums the substitution rate is .991; art museums is .955, children’s museums is .92; symphonies is .907 and theater is .946.

      As an example of how these two numbers come together in a relevant way, here is an example using the general exhibit based substitution rate of .982 and engagement cycle of 24.7 months:

      An organization welcoming 1,000,000 visitors per year may be engaging their current audiences effectively (via marketing, exhibits, etc.) and yet they could reasonably expect to engage only 982,000 visitors 24.7 months after that, and 964,300 visitors 24.7 months after that. Every visitation cycle leads to progressively fewer visitors, even though our hypothetical organization is doing everything right by their current audiences!

      Because this organization is not actively working to expand its audience profile, it is losing attendance over time simply due to shifts in the population.

      Source

      They provide a similar breakdown for each of the 11 organizations if you want to see the trends for your particular corner of the cultural landscape. Some of the numbers become a little sobering. For example, an orchestra serving 1 million people in 2025 might expect to be serving 822,600 people at the end of the second cycle in 66.2 months.

      Getting People To Reveal The Boxes They Want Checked

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      Seth Godin recently made a post that set off all sorts of thoughts in my brain.

      I was going to say it checked a lot of boxes for me, but that is the title of his post and it felt a little repetitive.

      The simplest way forward is to see which boxes your target market has and then check all of them.

      Unfortunately #1: The audience doesn’t publish their actual list of boxes, they conceal many of them.

      Unfortunately #2: They don’t all have the same boxes.

      Unfortunately #3: If it were that straightforward, your competition would have done it all already.

      Great work finds emotions, stories and possibility. Great work invents new boxes.

      Source

      His first point about audiences not making it easy to learn what boxes they need checked reminded me of an Arts Hacker post I made which mentioned the “5 Whys” technique often required to drill down to discover root causes and motivations. This is because the first answer you often receive often just reflects a surface understanding.

      The first why might elicit a response that someone values the symphony for live performance. Asking why live performance is important might get an answer of extraordinary experience. Why does that matter? Makes me a better person. Why is it important to be a better person? Creates a sense of inner harmony.

      Freeman says if you only asked Why once or twice, you will end up focused on product features and benefits and not really learn about what people see is a value of the experience to them as a person.

      Source

      Godin’s point about everyone not having the same boxes and that great work finds emotions, stories and possibilities dovetails with a lot of what Ruth Hartt espouses for marketing the arts in a way that responds to audience needs. Many of the marketing message examples she uses resonate with a desire to de-stress, have a sense of harmony, spend time with family and friends, and other things people may want out of an experience.

      Among the most effective ways to communicate that you offer those sort of benefits is through messaging and images that tell stories and evoke emotions. To some extent using this type of messaging may help audiences create new boxes to check–or rather validate that their root needs from an experience are worth verbalizing more frequently rather than concealing.

      Reducing The Crowd Doesn’t Increase Satisfaction By Itself

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      Last week The Guardian had an article about people being so dissatisfied with their attendance experience at The Louvre, they were determined never to visit again.

      It isn’t just the crowds, but also poor signage, flow of attendees and long waits despite holding timed admission tickets which upset people.

      On Monday, a 74-year-old clinical psychologist from Paris, who said she had been a regular visitor to the Louvre for 40 years, exited the popular temporary exhibition, Figures of the Fool, feeling battered.

      “I’m leaving in a state of extreme fatigue and I’ve vowed never to visit again,” she said, declining to give her name. “The noise is so unbearable under the glass pyramid; it’s like a public swimming pool. Even with a timed ticket, there’s an hour to wait outside. I can’t do it anymore. Museums are supposed to be fun, but it’s no fun anymore. There’s no pleasure in coming here anymore.

      Source

      A day earlier I had seen a piece on the NBC News site where French President Emmanuel Macron announced a major renovation to the aging museum facility which would include moving the Mona Lisa to a space “accessible independently of the rest of the museum.”

      I am not sure if that means it would be permanently located in a separate space or if it is only temporary for the term of the renovation. Given that many people only visit The Louvre with the express intent of viewing the Mona Lisa and leaving, it may be wise to maintain that arrangement.

      As I was reading these stories, I recalled that I had written a post about organizations discovering during the pandemic that visitor satisfaction increased when capacity restrictions were in place. I had remembered that Disney had decided to limit park attendance rather than go back to pre-pandemic levels in an attempt to preserve that level of customer satisfaction.

      I had forgotten that the article I cited also mentioned the Louvre was scaling back admissions from 45,000/day to 30,000/day for the same reason. I had wondered if they had reverted to admitting larger numbers again, but upon re-reading the NBC News piece, apparently they had maintained the lower capacity numbers.

      In 2021, des Cars became the first woman to head the Louvre, a symbol of French culture around the world. Since then, she has introduced several measures to make the museum more accessible, including a cap on visitors in 2023 to reduce overcrowding, extending opening hours, and pushing for the creation of a second main entrance.

      Source

      If they are admitting fewer people, have an additional entrance, and longer operating hours, I wonder if the dissatisfaction is more a matter of their timed ticketing being out of synch with the flow of people into and through the museum. Perhaps they aren’t spreading admissions out over a long enough period of time. (They may have extended hours, but people are still buying admission tickets during a super concentrated period of time and later hours are fairly easy to get.) Or perhaps as people say, the signage and directions are so poor, people are taking longer to move through the galleries once they are admitted and things get backed up.

      It Takes A Village To Get Everyone To Take Vacation

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      Another interesting research piece that Bill Byrnes included Management and the Arts was related to burn out in non-profit organizations. A brief excerpt recounting the efforts the behavioral design firm ideas42 embarked on in 2018 appeared on Behavioral Scientist website in September 2024.

      What the ideas42 team found was that staffs were engaging in a lot of performative work activity. They would address tasks that were easy to tick off lists or engage in work that made them look busy. The result was that by the end of the day, they were just starting to address the big project they were supposed to be working on.

      There is probably a lot in the article that reads like an argument for allowing work at home. Among the things that were slowing people down were calls, emails, and people just dropping by to chat. It took workers an average of 23 minutes, 15 seconds to reset and refocus on their work after being interrupted. Another issue was getting called into meeting that weren’t necessary.

      Among the factors contributing to performative working was the mistaken impression that co-workers and supervisors were working as much, if not more, than themselves and they needed to keep up. In fact, others may have been taking lengthy breaks from work and were checking in hours later.

       At work, all people see are others working. When they see late-night emails or texts, they often assume that their coworker or boss has been working all day and night without interruption, when in fact they might have been walking the dog or having dinner with their families. That life outside work doesn’t register because they don’t see it. (Often people don’t want to share their lives outside work with coworkers and bosses to preserve the busyness myth that they’re always working.)

      Source

      The folks from ideas42 worked up a number of initiatives to shift the work culture of the organization. One of the things they found was that the interventions that worked least were focused on solving work-life balance issues for an individual whereas the ones that worked best were focused on solving the issues for the whole organization. Essentially, the work-life balance doesn’t get better for the individual if they perceive they are out of synch with the overall behavior of the whole.

      Among the things they implemented were having supervisors model they behavior they wanted for the whole organization: visibly going to lunch, taking vacation time, talking about the time they are spending with family and friends. Eliminate the late night emails and texts. Similarly, the number of meetings and those needed to attend the meetings should be reduced.

      People should be encouraged to schedule more slack time in their weeks to allow for the fact that tasks will take longer than expected. That way you don’t feel like you are behind because there is unscheduled time in which to make progress. Along the same lines, people were encouraged to schedule vacation months in advance when the future calendar is not cluttered with projects and meetings. Those scheduling time off a couple weeks in advance often try to do so around things already populating their calendars and will either take less time off or feel anxious about doing so and work from their vacation.

      Along those lines one of the most interesting intervention ideas mentioned in the article was “vacation roulette.” Everyone that hadn’t taken vacation in a 90 day period would get a note copied to their supervisor listing their vacation balance and encouraging them to take time off.

      They then sent them an invitation to take a random Monday or Friday off and signed the note, “From your vacation fairy godmother.” Often, the managers would encourage workers to take a break. 

      […]

      ….during the “vacation roulette” intervention—where managers were copied on an email encouraging employees with high vacation balances to take a day off—participating organizations saw a boost in days off for over 20 employees, and the highest rate of vacation taking for India-based employees in 5 years. 

      Source

      When Where You Say You Are Is Who You Are For

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      Colorado Public Radio has a weekly Q&A feature they run. A recent question about why some sports teams are named for Denver and others for Colorado even though they are all based out of metro Denver reflects the ways in which technology and connectedness change our perceptions.

      Reporter Ben Marcus noted that older teams like the Denver Nuggets and Broncos are generally named after cities because many cities in the state had teams which would play against each other. In that situation there was value in emphasizing associations with the city.

      As cable television helped distribute games to larger audiences, team owners recognized there was value in creating broader geographic associations. Marcus cites the examples of the Florida Marlins and Colorado Rockies baseball teams.

      Not to mention there was financial benefit in appealing to a broader geographic base. Apparently the residents of Denver rejected a tax increase to support building a stadium for the Rockies. However, voters in the adjacent cities of the Denver metropolitan area approved the tax measure and the stadium got built.

      And the Rockies draw attendees from throughout the state, a situation the executive director of the Colorado Baseball Commission attributes, in part, to the name.

      Success off the field, however, is undeniable. Despite being one of the worst teams in baseball last season, an average of 31,361 fans attended games.

      “A lot of the attendance at Rockies games even now are people coming from other parts of the state,” said Macey. “Grand Junction and Lamar and also from a lot of the surrounding states. So having Colorado as the name is kind of all-encompassing, and helps attract all of those people to games.”

      Source

      I bring up this story to inspire some thought among arts organizations about whether there are elements of their name and branding which creates psychological and perceptional limits about who they geographically serve which is in conflict with the organizational vision of who they serve.

      I know there are a number of arts organizations who effected a name change to encompass a larger geographic area. The first that comes to mind is the Honolulu Symphony becoming the Hawaii Symphony about 10-15 years ago.

      But before anyone makes that change, you may want to consider the bit of insight shared at the end of the Colorado Public Radio piece which suggests streaming technology is increasing the geographic region of people which might form a relationship with an organization:

      Jason Hanson, the historian, said the rise of the internet and streaming services means team owners may one day think globally, well beyond cities and states.

      “You could easily imagine some kind of shake-up in the NFL, where a team moves, and as their new name picks you know the Rocky Mountains or the Pacific coast or something that would be bigger, that would have sort of more meaning in other parts of the world.”

      Source

      Getting An Early Start On The Show

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      League of American Orchestra’s Symphony.org site had an interesting piece on concert start times recently. It wasn’t really surprising to learn that organizations were experimenting with different start times to better suit the needs of their audiences.

      I was, however, surprised to learn that in 2006 and perhaps even more recently, there were classical music recitals starting at 10:30 pm and selling out. (Though perhaps to be expected given they were in the city that never sleeps)

      In 2006, a New York Times critic reported that the Mostly Mozart Festival’s “A Little Night Music” concerts, held at 10:30pm, were “almost always sold out,” and raised a question: “Why should cabaret acts and jazz sets be able to start late, but not classical recitals?”

      Source

      The general theme of the article is that people’s expectations have changed, especially post-pandemic. The Houston Symphony apparently tried an earlier start time about a decade ago only to revert back to their regular time when the change proved unpopular. However, they have recently shifted to 7:30 pm to 8 pm and not only was it well received, surveys are showing a trending preference for a 7 pm start.

      To some degree they credit the increase in people who are working from home who don’t have the commute from office to the theater with perhaps a trip home and dinner in the mix. Though other organizations report complaints that earlier start times don’t provide enough leeway between work and the performance so there isn’t one standard best time for all communities.

      In some places they are finding that matinees are better attended than evening performances. In my own experience I am seeing that trend with renters who specialize in choral and operatic genres as well as recitals by dance schools. This probably isn’t news to many since the core audiences for both types of shows tend to want to be home earlier.

      The article quotes Gwen Pappas, vice president of communications and public relations at the Minnesota Orchestra, referencing the fact that people are used to being able to access their experiences on demand.

      There are many ways in which a communal performing arts experience can’t be individually curated but where we are able to give people options. They really seem to appreciate it.”

      In 2023, the Minnesota Orchestra moved its Saturday night concerts to 7pm and introduced 2pm concerts on select Saturdays. Some subscription programs come with any of four different time options over a week: 11am, 2pm, 7pm and 8 pm.

      Source

      My first thought is that with so many different options for concerts to start, there might be some headaches communicating the different times to inattentive single ticket buyers. The last concert they attended started at 8 pm, now they are late for the 7 pm concert or vice versa. You might be arriving for what you thought was a 2 pm matinee only to find everyone leaving from the 11 am event. I suspect they have found some good ways to address that issue, though there will always be a few people who overlook the reminders, etc.

      Where Would You Like To Sit?

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      Bill Byrnes recently released a resource update to his textbook, Management and the Arts which included a research article about what factors influence what seating locations ticket purchasers prefer in a concert venue. (Note: Bill was the head of my degree program at Florida State University when I earned my MFA in Theater Management.)

      As part of the study, the authors created a hypothetical concert venue which they used as the basis to ask people about their seating preferences when seeing a favored artist performing a favored genre of music including what price they would pay, whether they preferred reserved or general admission. Additionally they wanted to explore how willing people would be to purchase a VIP package based on cost and type of access they might be granted.

      Six levels were chosen for the VIP package attribute, each comprising different combinations of three VIP services: meeting the headlining artist, taking a backstage tour, and accessing the venue early to watch the soundcheck.

      Source

      Noting that people may have different seating preferences based on the venue they were attending, the researchers conducted a pre-study survey to determine the best general characteristics for their hypothetical venue.

      Each area differs in terms of distance from the stage, elevation, and viewing angle. Variations in distance and angle were communicated to participants through the hypothetical venue map, as displayed in Table 1. Additionally, participants were informed that Areas 1 and 2 were located on the ground floor, Areas 3 and 4 on an elevated level, and Areas 5 and 6 on the upper level.

      Source

      Here is an example of how the choices for seating, pricing, and VIP package was presented to survey takers when the artist was Taylor Swift.

      Among the findings of the study are that people value being closer to the stage than further away. Reserved seating is more valuable than general admission seating. However, for people with children and older respondents, reserved seating held significantly more value. The researchers suggest that people without children and younger attendees are generally indifferent to whether seating is general admission or reserved. Whereas those who are older or have children are more willing to pay a premium for reserved seats.

      In terms of the VIP package, people were more interested in meet and greets with the artist than backstage tours and early admission to soundchecks.

      In terms of price, the study found that there isn’t a lot of consistency associated with specific consumer characteristics and as a result, there are limits to what artists can charge based on assumptions about consumer groups.

      …there is little evidence of substantial preference heterogeneity associated with consumer characteristics. This is turn implies that limits exists with regards to musicians’ ability to practice price discrimination by targeting specific ticket types at particular consumer groups.

      Furthermore, the evidence on variation in venue area preferences implies that there are limits to the returns musicians can generate by employing between—and within—venue area price discrimination.

      Source

      While I was reading this study i was comparing their findings to the writings of folks like Sean Kelly at Vatic, a company that specializes in using data to dynamically price venues in order to optimize ticket revenue. My first thought was that because they were having people choose huge sections of seating, they weren’t really drilling down to discover the specific preferences people have about their seating and the price they are willing to pay.

      When they look at those yellow sections in the maps above, they are imagining themselves sitting in a specific seat for which they would be willing to pay the suggested price. Ten seats to the right or left of that (or away from the aisle), they may not be willing to pay as much.

      On the other hand, the researchers say there is much more capacity for musicians to generate revenue through offering VIP packages. People seem to show a greater willingness to pay more for those experiences. Though there is a suggestion that the mix of experience and cost would be specific for each artist to discover.

      However, research shows that offering VIP packages can create dissatisfaction among non-VIP fans so artists who wish to cultivate an environment of fairness may choose not to offer them. Similarly, dynamic pricing may also result in a perception of unfairness. There is apparently an association made between dynamic pricing and non-traditional distribution methods which appear to disadvantage the average ticket buyer.

      Indeed, the use of dynamic pricing may be constrained by consumer concerns associated with perceived fairness, and the disdain consumers typically display for non-traditional allocation methods (Sonnabend, 2019; Roth, 2007).

      Indeed, important parallels exist between the contemporary experience with dynamic pricing and that of ticket auctions, the use of which has declined over time despite evidence that it enabled the market to work more efficiently (Budish & Bhave, 2023). If consumers continue to respond with repugnance to non-traditional pricing strategies in the music industry, understanding how musicians can engage in optimal posted ticket pricing when organizing concerts will remain important.

      Source

      A couple caveats to note. 1 – There were a number of hypothetical elements in this study despite referencing real music artists. 2 – While there are lessons applicable in other areas, this study was conducted with self identified attendees of five specific genres of music – Pop, Rock/Alternative, HipHop/RnB, Dance/Electronic and Classical. It doesn’t include other music genres, theater, musical theater, family theater, dance, etc., so may not be completely reflective of the preferences of those audiences. Nor may it be applicable to smaller venues.

      There Will Always Be A Few Successfully Operating At An Elite Level. As For The Rest?

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      Seth Godin made a post about elite vs. elitism a couple months ago. His argument is that people can operate on an elite level (i.e. Olympic athletes, surgeons, teachers, etc) but that this doesn’t automatically result in elitism.

      Elitism is a barrier, where we use a label to decide who gets to contribute and who is offered dignity. A law firm that only hires from a few law schools is elitist–they have no data to confirm that these recruits are more likely to contribute than others, they’re simply artificially limiting the pool they draw from.

      Opening our filters and seeking a diversity of experience undermines elitist insecurity and creates the possibility for even better solutions and connection.

      […]

      The scientific method isn’t elitist, nor is a stopwatch used to record the 100 meter dash. Seeking coherent arguments, logical approaches and a contribution that leads to better outcomes isn’t elitist, in fact, it’s precisely the opposite.

      Source

      I need to make my usual observation that just because you can measure it, doesn’t mean the number you arrive at has validity to a claim you are making. Sports fans will happily speak for hours on the fact that a high scoring game or high win record doesn’t mean a team is operating at an elite level if they have been facing weak opponents.

      Generally his thoughts align with a general conversation among cultural organizations in terms of removing the filters of tradition and past practice to explore other options. Similarly, there is a lot of conversation around making data driven decisions.

      As Godin says, elitism often results from limiting the pool from which you draw after defining those pools as the source of the best product. That is one of the challenges arts and cultural organizations face today. There is a self-reinforcing definition of what is superior, but not a lot of evidence gathering about whether the product they offer has any perceived value in the community.

      For a time during the pandemic I would see a number of videos of farriers shoeing horses. It was fascinating and somewhat satisfying to watch horses have their hooves cleaned and repaired so they could move about more comfortably. Many of these farriers are among the elite in their trade, but most people don’t keep horses these days so the market for their skills is fairly small. Fortunately, the supply of good farriers probably reflects demand.

      A similar thing is happening with piano tuners. As I wrote in 2023, there is definitely an unmet need for piano tuners among arts organizations and the lack threatens performing arts organizations’ ability to host concerts. At the same time, people can’t give pianos away and many are ending up in the dump.

      Much of this is due to changing lifestyles and expectations. So while it is likely that there will always be some arts and cultural organizations operating in traditional ways which will always find they are in high demand, the number of organizations are likely to dwindle if they are not responding to the changing lifestyles and expectations.

      Not Creating Enough Of A Negative Impact To Be Worthwhile

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      About a year ago, we were contacted by a company proposing we enter a contract to use their reusable cup service. They would deliver the cups, retrieve them from the special collection bins, wash them, and provide us with more. We were told that since each cup could be reused up to 40 times we would be removing a lot of material from the waste stream.

      Last week we were told they were dropping us as a client because we weren’t using enough of their cups. Basically, they expect us to use five times as many cups. We were told “we recognize that we are not achieving the environmental objectives we are targeting with small groups.”

      Our consumption rate wasn’t any mystery to them. Before we contract with them they provided us with an estimate of how many cups we would use in a year. We actually ended up surpassing that estimate in 6-7 months so we are using more of their product than expected.

      The suggestion that they weren’t achieving their environmental objectives with smaller customers does recall the argument that home based recycling isn’t really contributing to saving the environment and that these sort of changes need to be made by larger entities in order to have any impact.

      We started on this service based on the recommendations of other colleagues. I wonder how many of them may be dropped by the company as well.

      The cancellation of the service is disappointing because we have done quite a bit of work to educate our audiences about the use of the cups. There are signs all over the venue encouraging people to return the cups to the special bins. We have the information on lobby slide shows and pre-show informational displays.

      We even tasked a specific group of volunteers to help collect the cups at the end of the evening. Not only because people would tend to throw them out after placing them inside popcorn buckets, but also because they would insist on wanting to take the cups home despite the cup company’s efforts to make them as unattractive as possible.

      Essentially, we were getting to a point where we were finally creating a culture and practice with our customers and volunteers and now it is going to appear we abandoned our commitment. To the volunteers’ credit they haven’t hesitated to diligently hover near the trashcans and help people sort their refuse. They have also been good about encouraging people to return to the cups to their special bins when they are selling food and drinks. There was an immediate investment on their part.

      As the title of the post says, it is strange to be judged as not having enough of a negative impact on the environment to be worth a company’s efforts to help you avoid it.

      Heist, Jailbreak, Ambush, Heartbreak, Revenge All In One Concerto

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      I got to see a performance of The Rose of Sonora this weekend. It is a concerto in five scenes performed by Holly Mulcahy and composed by George S. Clinton.  I had first written about it around 3 years ago. 

      One of the things that piqued my interest was that the piece tells the story of a heist, jail break, ambush, and revenge carried out by a female outlaw in 19th Century Territory of Arizona and had its own narrative and images meant to accompany the performance.

      I was a little disappointed that the images weren’t used as part of the performance. That is likely because the composer was there to read each part live.

      The composer did an interview with Symphony of the Rockies conductor, Devin Patrick Hughes, about his career. Brief explanation of Rose on Tiktok and longer interview here.

      The Rose of Sonora was the last piece performed by the Symphony of the Rockies as part of a whole night of Western themed music. The program included music from The Magnificent Seven and The Good, The Bad, The Ugly; William Tell Overture, and “Hoedown” from Rodeo.

      The whole orchestra was dressed in Western themed clothes. At one point 2/3 of the violin section was wearing their bandanas over their mouths. The conductor made a production of drawing his baton from a holster.

      It should be noted that the concert was occurring in Denver on the night the Great Western Stock Show started. So it was all very much in theme.

      It also bears mentioning that Holly grew up in greater Denver and got paid to perform with the Symphony of the Rockies as a teenager. During the Q&A after the concert a young violinist asked how Holly remained so calm and poised. Holly told her she would let us know in 20 years because not only did she perform before her friends and family, many of her teachers and mentors were in the audience that night so she felt a lot of pressure.

      I overheard a lot of positive comments from people around me during Holly’s performance that weren’t made during the rest of the night so the piece seemed well-received.  During the Q&A I really wished there were a way to have gotten up and ask attendees what their thoughts were on having a bit of narration between movements since that doesn’t generally happen during orchestra performances.

      The conductor had made some comments at the beginning of the evening suggesting Rose of Sonora would provide an opportunity to create a story in our minds. With the one-two sentence prompts provided at the start of each chapter, I wonder how vividly the story unfolded in each person’s mind’s eye as they listened to the music.

      About a year ago Holly performed the Rose of Sonora on the other side of the state in Grand Junction, CO and apparently word of mouth saw a line around the block for the second night of performances.

      As I drove home Saturday, I was wondering if that was a reaction to the quality of the piece or that the imagery/narration and topic made the experience accessible. Basically, was the audience for the second day aficionados or people who really want to try the orchestra experience but were intimidated and heard a great deal of the mystery was removed in this piece?

      Thinking back to the post I made on Monday about storytelling notes next to visual art works helping people focus better on the work before them, would providing similar storytelling prompts with orchestra pieces help people enjoy the music more if they are able to provide their own mental video accompaniment? Many symphonies have started using video in conjunction with performances. But I wonder if people will feel the music is more relatable if they are creating their own narrative in response to an evocative prompt.

      Should You Read The Gallery Labels?

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      As a supplement to yesterday’s post regarding how children interact with museum labels, there was a second short piece on The Conversation website about whether it is important to read the labels next to artworks.

      Noor Gillani, Digital Culture Editor, at The Conversation interviewed five experts at different Australian universities to get their take. Three of the five said it wasn’t important.

      Interestingly, two of the responds cited label content focused on children.

      Kit Messham-Muir, a professor at Curtin University voted No, but said:

      Curators can spend many hours writing the “why”. Some explanations are great, some are not. Those aimed at kids are usually better. Either way, I’d argue you have all the information you need from the who, what and when.

      Source

      Naomi Zouwer, at the University of Canberra, voted Yes and wrote primarily with children in mind. She cited different eye motion studies of how adults and children interact with visual art works than I wrote about yesterday.

      When an artwork does grab a kid’s attention, they’ll usually want to know more about it. And my experience shows they’ll likely want to know what it’s about more than other details such as the medium or when it was created (unless it’s really, really old, in which case there’s a “wow” factor).

      [..]

      However, it’s not one size fits all. My advice is to ask the kid what they want to know and approach it that way. While the label may not answer all their questions, it might help start a different conversation. That’s the great thing about art: it creates opportunities for deeper thinking.

      Source

      Other experts focused on the capacity of people to understand the labels as the basis for their response. How long visitors typically engage with a work and the label before moving on factored into their opinion on the value of labels.

      Chari Larsson at Griffith University, voted Yes and put the responsibility on the museum to provide meaningful content

      Labels should be able to “speak” to a broad range of audiences: from a casual and curious visitor through to a subject-matter expert. Turgid “art jargon” is notoriously difficult to decipher and can negatively impact the visitor’s experience. This is a breach in the museum’s responsibility to their audiences.

      Source

      Cherine Fahd at University of Technology Sydney, voted No for similar reasons. Poorly written labels get in the way of understanding the work in front of the visitor. She encourages people to look at the art before the label.

      Many artists want viewers to bring themselves to the work, to freely interpret and be active participants. The problem is we aren’t taught how to do that with art. We expect meaning to be handed over and the didactic label sets up this expectation.

      Perhaps this is an Australian condition, wherein art is often dismissed as impenetrable, or something to grow out of, or something a “five year old could have made”.

      Source

      Storytelling Approach Bolsters Focus And Engagement

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      Some research how adults and children focus on visual art pieces in different ways provides some insight into how to write and present introductory and educational information to children. Not only for visual art pieces but things to call attention to with performances and other types of experience.

      In an article Francesco Walker, Assistant Professor in Psychology, Leiden University, wrote for The Conversation, he talks about using eye tracking technology to see what children focus on when given different types of descriptions/prompts in advance.

      Walker cites some past research which had found that children tend to focus on bright colors and bold shapes in paintings. While adults viewing the same work will call upon existing knowledge and information and orient on other elements like brush strokes.

      Walker and his colleagues conducted their study tracking eye motions around three works at Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. They watched how children age 10-12 interacted with the paintings after they had been provided with existing adult oriented explanatory labels, playful storytelling labels, or no labels at all.

      What they found was that children who had been provided adult oriented labels interacted with the paintings in the same way as children who had not been provided any labels at all. Whereas children provided with the playful spent more time engaging with the work and were focused on specific areas.

      The children provided with child-focused, narrative-driven labels engaged with the artworks in ways we did not see at all with those who read adult-focused descriptions. They directed their gaze towards key elements of the paintings highlighted by the playful descriptions, and spent more time examining them.

      In contrast, the children who received adult-oriented explanations behaved in the same way as children who received no information at all. Their attention was scattered and unfocused.

      Source

      An example of the adult text:

      The high vantage point of this painting turns it into a sampler of human – and animal – activity during a harsh winter. Hundreds of people are out on the ice, most of them for pleasure, others working out of dire necessity. Avercamp did not shy away from grim details: in the left foreground crows and a dog feast on the carcass of a horse that has frozen to death.

      The child oriented text for the same painting

      He could have painted me anywhere, but where am I? Right in the middle of the picture, with my snout on the ice! The spot where everyone can see me. A man in blue pants almost trips over me. Two girls next to me giggle at my clumsiness. But I won’t give up. I’ll get back on my feet and keep going. Before winter is over, I’ll be skating like a pro!

      The article provides heat maps showing where attention focused based on the three content scenarios.

      Walker suggests the results of their study suggest that art education classes should shift from textbook based classroom lessons toward a more storytelling mode. He notes that art history students find it difficult to connect with the art when the information is transmitted in lectures or via text book.

      And by the way, the two studies I linked to in the previous sentence were studies conducted with undergraduate students, not grade school students so a storytelling approach can positively impact everyone’s experience and engagement

      One City’s Cultural Budget Cut Exceeds Actual Culture Budget Of Multiple US Cities

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      A story I was watching throughout December was the threat of Berlin cutting its funding for arts and culture. Right before Christmas, the city did indeed cut funding by $130 million which represents 12% of funding.

      A lot of arts professionals in the US are probably thinking their city’s arts and culture budget isn’t anywhere near the $130 million being cut. In fact, many would feel blessed if their city had $1.3 million culture budget. So to a certain extent arts and cultural funding in Germany may still be the envy of much of the world.

      This said, a lot of employment contracts aren’t being renewed and exhibition plans are being scrapped in Berlin. The laws associated with funding in Germany don’t allow private support to make up the difference.

      German museums without private funding face particularly steep challenges, with fixed costs around operating collections consuming around 80 percent of budgets in many cases, leaving many exhibitions and auxiliary programs vulnerable to cancellation.

      Some experts have pointed out that public museums in Germany aren’t legally able to rely on private philanthropy the way peer organizations in the U.S. and other parts of Europe do, making their futures, compared to international creative hubs less certain.

      Source

      An article earlier in December on Deutsche Welle looking at the impending cuts in Berlin raised the same question about whether Germany would be home to creative hubs any longer even as the city of Chemnitz, a 2025 European Capital of Culture, face budget cuts.

      The eastern state of Saxony also faces a critical budget situation, with serious consequences for the cultural landscape of museums, theaters and orchestras. Hillmann said the theaters in Zwickau, Freiberg, Annaberg-Buchholz, Görlitz-Zittau and even Chemnitz — which will be a European Capital of Culture in 2025 — fear for their existence.

      Source

      Much as in the US, the chair of the German Stage Association, Lutz Hillmann, cites the work theaters in Germany are doing in the public sphere, moving beyond just presenting performances to become public gathering spaces and provide services to youth. Likewise, the role of culture in promotion democratic discourse in a time of divisive social dynamics was also raised.

      Olaf Zimmermann, managing director of the German Cultural Council, takes the same line. “Right now, cultural venues are urgently needed to debate current issues, to offer places for democratic discourse, to stimulate reflection or simply to create cohesion,” Zimmermann wrote in the most recent issue of the association’s publication.

      Source

      Vibing On Those Dance Steps

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      An interesting intersection of art and technology I saw in an article in The Harvard Gazette where an assistant professor of bioengineering, Shriya Srinivasan, created a phone app which would allow audiences to feel dancers movement through a smartphone’s vibrations.

      The app makes use of the haptic feedback tools built into smartphones. When you type/dial on your phone you may experience a small vibration which reinforces the fact you successfully depressed button. (Haptic is only related to touch. The artificial click you may hear as a confirmation is audible feedback.)

      Because the vibrations on a phone can vary in intensity, Srinivasan’s app is able to convey a range of sensations to the viewer. Her inspiration for creating the app was her own artistic practice in bharata natyam Indian dance. She and her team developed sensors which are attached to the ankles of dancers which transmit a signal to the phone app.

      Srinivasan says the technology has the potential to make dance performances more accessible for the lay viewer, as well as visually- or hearing-impaired people.

      To make the haptic feedback stimuli convey the feel of the footwork, researchers set the vibrations to different intensity levels. Light, flowing movements were represented by vibrations targeting surface-level mechanoreceptors in the skin, while more intense, punchier movements penetrated to deeper skin layers,…

      Source

      They worked with Indian Classical Dance group Anubhava Dance Company to use the devices in a performance called Decoded Rhythms. PBS discussed the technology on their Nova program. I also found the following video the dance company posted which briefly discusses the use of the sensors in performance.

      Springboard Into An Ice Rink?

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      I have been a big fan of Springboard for the Arts and the work they do for a number of years. I look forward to their annual reports which have been depicted as infographics for the last decade or so.

      They recently released the infographic for their 2024 annual report.

      There is a short written annual report that accompanies this graphic which discusses the success of their programs. Among these were the expansion of their basic income program to include 100 artists for five years and their efforts to support the arts in rural locations which included supporting placemaking leaders in rural and Native Nations, hosting a Rural Futures summit, and expanding their Rural Regenerator Fellow program to include artists in Nebraska and Kansas.

      Despite the claim that I could read the report to find out more about the programs depicted in the infographic, there was no mention of the 450 square foot mini-ice rink! You can’t tease us with such things and make no further mention of it!

      A quick search turned up their Springboard on Ice page which lists some programs and open skate opportunities at the ice rink they set up at their new headquarters.

      Seeking Outsider Staff With Outsider Ideas

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      The last two days I have been covering some of the responses the National Endowment for the Arts received in the dozen listening sessions they conducted with theaters in spring and summer of 2024.

      The full discussion can be found in their publication Defying Gravity Conversations with Leaders from Nonprofit Theater.

      The overall theme of the responses seemed to be that theater leadership doesn’t have the education and training it needs to address the challenges it currently faces. This held true in the section regarding workforce.

      Staff members have new expectations regarding their work environment. They are no longer willing to work long hours and flirt with mental and physical burn out. A number of theaters already began to move in this direction 2-3 years ago, but:

      Multiple participants said that many theaters and other arts organizations are poorly run, and that this mismanagement exacts a considerable toll on theater workers and artists. As one way to address this need, listening session participants said they would like to see more training and education for new entrants or even those currently in the field.

      Defying Gravity page 10

      A number of participants discussed outsourcing some functions or exploring combining back office functions with other arts organizations. Because many people left the arts industry during and after the pandemic, many organizations are looking to hire people from outside the industry and are finding these new hires are bringing new perspectives and ideas. Similarly, theaters are exploring ways to lower barriers to entry for those that don’t have the economic means and network to support themselves through low paying jobs as they seek to develop a career.

      One participant said, “We’re trying to get creative in terms of how we look at job descriptions and try to hire outside the industry and train people such as, like, expert project managers or data specialists to come into development or come into our production industry

      Defying Gravity page 10

      There was also recognition that those in mid- and advanced career positions need some form of continuing education program for their own career development.

      One strategy mentioned was to extend accessible opportunities for professional growth across different theater roles through accreditation or certifications in specific areas of expertise. This could be achieved through theater service organizations focusing on theater development by providing support for “accreditation and professional development in a higher-skilled way

      Defying Gravity

      In that same vein, some participants suggested theaters could host training programs in their own communities to teach people the different tasks required to put on a show (i.e. costumes, lighting, set design, stage management, and technical direction).

      I have actually tried to offer these sort of training modules in different communities in which I have worked, mostly focused toward community arts groups and renters who might be looking to improve the quality of their work and facilitate their preparation and planning process. With few exceptions I wasn’t able to get buy-in from the groups. 

      Those that did avail themselves were mostly renters and only interested in specific areas. But let me tell you, things got a lot easier for both the organization and my staff once they started using what they had learned.

      Need More Education And Time To Absorb It

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      Today I am following on yesterdays post about the National Endowment for the Art’s report on a dozen listening sessions they conducted this past spring and summer, Defying Gravity: Conversations with Leaders from Nonprofit Theater.

      Yesterday, I focused on theater leadership’s perception that they didn’t have enough time to digest research on promising practices* and a desire to have access to big thinkers on systemic change from outside the theater world.

      The sense that theater managers were feeling lost and unsure about how to tackle the challenges they were facing seemed to be the subtext of the responses the listening session participants provided. On an individual basis, I am sure these professionals generally felt they are competent at their jobs and secure in the knowledge they possess. In aggregate the responses almost painted a picture of a group that is struggling and didn’t feel equal to the task.

      While the image of a harried, overworked staff has been a stereotype for theaters for decades if not centuries, some of the quotes the report includes about needing to have good manners when speaking with donors doesn’t do theater professionals any favors. I hope it was taken out of context.

      As one participant said, “We’re finding it difficult to keep up with foundations or our state agencies and what their requirements are in terms of changing what panelists are looking at.”

      Similarly, there was a recognized need for financial consultative services in many topic areas. These areas included how best to use existing funds, how to become financially stable, and how to price services or tickets. “Perhaps an area of expertise that we’re struggling with is that we are quickly having to learn how to be a single ticket shop,” one participant said. Another remarked: “It would be nice to also get funding for support in terms of financial advisement.”

      …“If you’re asking people for money, you … have to have the good manners to speak their language,” one participant noted, “that’s something that would be helpful … if you can help teach or give our organization resources on the language that you need to keep your donors and your boards happy.” This service might help theaters to become transparent about their financial needs and current fiscal standing and, therefore, to communicate more effectively with employees, donors, boards, and other funders.

      ….Participants proposed using technological tools such as AI, electronic tip jars, ticketing apps, management apps, and fundraising software to help theaters increase and manage their financial resources.

      …“We want investment from the tech sector to fix this, one participant said. “I wish we could do better because it’s hard enough … even to get working internet in our theaters so people can check the QR codes that we’ve given them already.”

      Defying Gravity, PDF pgs 8-9

      As I mentioned in my post yesterday, there are already people addressing many of these issues but there is definitely a need for more robust and widespread education and resources on finances, ticket pricing, technology, communication, programming design and philosophy etc., in order to effectively respond to trends and expectations.

      But again, as I suggested yesterday, does the availability of these resources do any good if those who might benefit most don’t feel they have the time and bandwidth (and money) to receive and use them?

      *Want to give credit to Anika Tene from CreativeWest for introducing me to the term “promising practices” instead of best practices. Although it was a quick mention in a webinar she was leading, I immediately realized that the term relieves pressure on organizations to immediately implement new practices at the most effective level. Also, there is a suggestion in promising practices that these practices are not one size fits all organizations. They may be beneficial, but the value may not manifest in the same manner or degree for everyone.

      NEA Report Suggests You Won’t Have Time To Read And Digest It

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      This morning the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) released Defying Gravity: Conversations with Leaders from Nonprofit Theater. The result of the report are based on conversations during 12 virtual listening sessions the NEA conducted with non-profit theater staff in spring and summer 2024. The composition of each of the listening session cohorts may be found on PDF page 27 or in the image below.

      Among them were freelance artists, journalists, Theaters for Young Audiences, Leadership Alumnae and Interim Managers, Black, Indigenous and Theaters of Color. Perhaps most interesting and most appropriate given the recent theater operating environment was a session composed of Recently Close Theaters. The report authors cite the responses of the recently closed theater participants with some frequency.

      The image below gives a sense of the operational challenges focused on by each of the 12 listening session cohorts

      The report is only 28 pages, but I intend to highlight different topics over a couple days to keep things bite size. I am also going to largely skip over discussion of issues that seem widely known like financial difficulties, diminishing donations and ticket sales for some more focused and nuanced observations. I encourage readers to take a look at the full report if they want deeper insight.

      While I often encourage people to read research and highlight how short the document is and/or how easy a read it is, we all know that arts professionals rarely can find the time to do so. And that comes up in the NEA’s report:

      One participant referenced a bandwidth issue, saying, “The ability to monitor, intake, synthesize, regurgitate, [and] present on data is just something that always moves to [the] sidelines.” Research investments should include supporting the personnel required to conduct and translate it.

      Another type of investment is to bring in voices from outside the theater industry to help address larger issues facing organizations. One participant said, “I would love if there was a way to bring some brilliant systematic thinkers in … who are not involved necessarily in theater, but who are working with extreme systematic change.” This approach could afford theater organizations the opportunity to engage with a more objective, external view on how to address challenges.

      Listening session participants wanted to know what is or has been successful for other non-theater art forms to see if those practices could transfer to theater. As one participant asked, “What are the opportunities that are seeing dramatic growth beyond our discipline? And what might this mean?”

      Defying Gravity, PDF page 17

      I almost feel like there is self-reinforcing vicious circle here because there are a number of people talking about systemic change from outside the arts using frameworks and terminologies that make the concepts relatable to arts professionals. But I am aware of these people because I read a lot of research and discussion where others haven’t created the bandwidth to do so.

      Even if these arts insiders discussing these non-arts industry concepts aren’t able to provide the guidance for full extreme systemic change the listening session participants ultimately seek, they can probably provide a transitional frame of reference that would allow arts professionals to more effectively translate this change into theater practice.

      Seems Like The Kitchener-Waterloo Musicians Deserve A LOT More Credit Than First Appeared

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      A few weeks ago I wrote about how the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony appeared to have found a path to return to activity, albeit tenuous, after the musicians were blindsided by a bankruptcy announcement.

      In my post last month, I cited the board chair as saying the musicians invested a lot of effort in helping to save the symphony.

      But let me tell you, after reading an additional piece in The Globe and Mail, I think that may have been an understatement. From the account on the newspaper site, it sounds like not only did the musicians raise $500,000 to support the out of work musicians and put on their own concerts, they also did the research and formulated the plan through which the symphony could be restored.

      {French horn player Kathy] Robertson and a group of other musicians began to wonder what was salvageable from the original orchestra. If very few potential creditors would get paid from bankruptcy proceedings given the multimillion-dollar shortfall, the musicians reckoned it wouldn’t affect creditors too greatly if they avoided bankruptcy entirely and still didn’t get paid.

      So they went to the Canadian Federation of Musicians, who connected the musicians with lawyers – who in turn confirmed that if they could find a way to satisfy creditors, it might be possible to save the orchestra.

      Source

      New board members contributed expertise and represented the orchestra in negotiations with creditors, but it sounds like the musicians provided the impetus and significant amounts of sweat necessary to get things back to a tentative footing. I am not sure what the laws in Canada allow, but it seems like the new Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony should be constituted as something of an employee owned and operated entity.

      Rebranding Is A Change Of Promise

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      Seth Godin recently made a post using the recent Jaguar rebrand to illustrate the difference between rebranding and re-logoing

      They think a rebrand and a re-logo are the same thing, they’re not. A rebrand happens when you change the promise that you make, and the expectations we have for you. A re-logo is cosmetic. Rebrand at your peril, especially when the old brand is trusted, iconic, historic and connected to a basic human need. It’s a mistake to focus on clicks, not magic.

      Source

      It is that statement about changing the promise that the company/organization is making that caught my eye. I think there is definitely a case to be made that many arts and cultural organizations have been intentionally working post-pandemic to change their promise and consumer expectations in a more constructive direction.

      But that doesn’t necessarily mean a rebrand is required. Especially, as Godin says, if your current brand is already associated with a degree of trust and your efforts are seeking to deepen that trust.

      Godin quotes the managing director of Jaguar talking about the need to be relevant, desirable and future-proof for the next 90 years. Godin suggests that statement won’t stand the test of time. Yet there is a lot of conversation in the arts and culture sphere about striving to be relevant. I have been advocating in that direction for close to a decade.

      But I have also been saying not everything you can measure necessarily matters for an even longer time. Godin says much the same thing:

      Clicks are not purchase intent.

      Awareness is not desire.

      Gimmicks are not marketing.

      Social media followers aren’t following you.

      Noise is not information.

      Burning down your house draws a crowd, but it’s a lousy way to renovate.

      Source

      Just because you are getting a measurable response doesn’t necessarily mean you will achieve the results you desire. In fact, there is a danger in becoming so enamored with the attention you are getting that you abandon pursuit of those meaningful results.

      Yes, Customers Are Paying Attention To Online Fees

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      Colleen Dilenschneider and the folks at IMPACTS experience released some more great research last week. This time regarding tolerance for online transaction fees. (subscription required)

      High-propensity visitors to cultural organizations will likely tolerate online transaction fees up to $4.95…provided the organization charging this fee has been deemed competent and successful in terms of the guest experience, the online purchase experience, and favorable reputational equities. Critically, these data may be more insightful for market leaders considering implementing transaction fees than for those organizations which could be struggling to meet their audiences’ expectations.

      Before you click away having decided that is all you need to know. There is more to consider. Number one, notice they use the term high-propensity visitors which means people who already have an inclination to attend exhibit or performance based experiences. Tolerances can differ for people who have less of an inclination for the experience. The other thing to note is that the organization must have already earned the confidence of audiences in terms of quality of difference experiences and reputation.

      There are other factors like perceived value —which they take pains to note is not the same as price. An experience can be viewed as expensive while also being perceived as having high value. Readers may recall a post I made in August where IMPACTS found that free and low cost organizations often receive lower satisfaction score and intent to return responses. So low price does not always result in high satisfaction or perception of value.

      Looking at perception of value, willingness to recommend to others, and intent to return, intent to return seems most impacted by online fees followed by perception of value and willingness to recommend.

      Overall, intent to return begins to decline at the $3.00 mark, value perceptions begin to decline at the $5.00 mark, and willingness to recommend visiting to a friend starts to decline at the $6.00 mark. Depending on myriad factors concerning content, programming, reputation, the online purchase experience, and broad value perceptions, the ill-advised deployment of a transaction fee may risk a negative impact on an organization’s market potential and its ability to attract guests.

      One other thing they called out – labeling additional fees as “convenience fees” elicits increased negative perceptions. Purchasers don’t necessarily see it as convenient for them.

      There is a lot more nuanced analysis and cross-refencing to earlier posts they have made in this recent post so it is probably worth taking a closer look if you want to know more.

      Music Rights And Athletic Competitions

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      A recent Slate piece covered the music rights issues being faced by athletes who use music in competition – among them figure skating, gymnastics, artistic swimming, cheer, ballroom dance, and competitive dance. Essentially, pretty much no athlete at any level all the way up to the Olympics, has been securing the rights to use the music they perform to and the rights holders are bringing lawsuits against them.

      To some extent it was surprising to me to learn that while Olympic athletes had been submitting a list of the songs being used in their routines, NBC wasn’t making sure the rights had been secured prior to broadcast despite the scads of lawyers that work for the network. Either that or they made sure there as language in their agreements with the different countries and athletic federations putting the onus on them to ensure the rights had been secured for the Olympics.

      Complicating the situation is the fact an athlete not only has to secure the rights to the music, if they are going to perform choreography to it they will also need to secure synchronization rights. If you have ever watched any of these competitions you may have noticed that athletes often use a medley of dozens of songs which means securing the rights for each.

      Not to mention, some songs have multiple rights holders who might have agreements with multiple licensing agencies. For example, for the Eagles “Hotel California,” Don Henley, Glen Frey, and Don Felder all have rights to the song. Henley and Frey’s are administered by Global Music Rights and Felder’s are handled by ASCAP.

      There are songs in the public domain that may be used, but there is a desire to have the competitions feel relevant to audiences by using recognizable, contemporary music.

      A quick fix, some have suggested, would be for athletes to just use classical music, which, when not fully in the public domain, often has fewer—likely less litigious—rights holders. Romain Haguenauer, coach to the 2018 and 2022 world and Olympic ice dance champions, said that if figure skating had to stop using popular music, it would be “catastrophic.”

      “I think modern music is good for the audience, and especially for younger fans who can relate more to Beyoncé than [the opera] Carmen,” Haguenauer said. “If that would have to change, it’s like we will go back to the past. And that’s never good for sport.”

      source

      There are companies that have been formed to negotiate the rights for athletic competitions, but the process is slow and the available catalogue from which to choose is not extensive according to the article’s author.

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