Since Drew McManus is the orchestra guy, I have waited a couple days to see if he would comment. It isn’t so much out of respect for him, this arts blogging business is so cutthroat after all, but simply because he is better equipt to comment than I.

But he ain’t sayin nothin so here I go.

In the Sunday, August 21 New York Times, (I am not directly linking to the article because in two weeks you will have to pay for it.), Daniel Wakin wrote a story about how different orchestras are dealing with slumping attendance.

He goes through the typical reasons people cite for declining attendance -lack of music education, short attention spans, modern media and Joseph Horowitz’s argument that there are too many concerts, among them.

He goes on to list what organizations are doing to attract people.

“The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, a leader in what might be called the fun-factor area, has a Thursday night series that provides free dinners…”College Nite” concerts feature postperformance parties twice a year, in which students nibble appetizers and listen to a local band (not the symphonic kind)…The orchestra’s CSO Encore! group, for young professionals, is sponsoring a “Dressed to the Nines” party at the hall for opening night, when a Beethoven symphony – no need to say which – is on the program. At the beginning of last season, the symphony even sold “Paavo’s Baack” T-shirts, a surprising accessory to Mr. Jarvi’s intelligent music-making and serious demeanor.

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra is shaking things up too – shaking, but not stirring – with Symphony With a Twist, a series of four concerts preceded by martini bars and jazz in the lobby. The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s version is called Bravo.

IN Houston the focus is less on the party in the lobby than the visuals on the stage. The Houston Symphony projects images of the musicians, arms sawing and fingers flying, and the conductor, baton a-waving, on large screens in the hall. (The Omaha Symphony, the San Diego Symphony and the Philadelphia Orchestra have all tried similar experiments, as did the New York Philharmonic.) “We have to recognize that this is a visual generation,” Evans Mirageas, an orchestra marketing consultant, said. “They are used to seeing things more than they are used to hearing things.”

Many who are hearing classical music are doing so as a secondary effect of seeing things – like movies and video games. Some orchestras are trying to build on that, enticing people into concert halls by playing a symphonic version of the score to “The Lord of the Rings” and the music from the “Final Fantasy” video game, among others.”

There are some organizations who are dubious about the benefit of such programs. Many programs place symphonies in a role subservient to the other material or misrepresent what the organization is all about.

It isn’t clear if these programs will actually increase attendance to to organizations over all. Cincinatti has seen some success, but results are muddied for other locations.

I was most depressed by the news that a Knight Foundation study found that “education – like more Web material, preconcert lectures and expanded program notes – did not appear to increase ticket sales at all.”

The question that came to my mind after reading the article was whether the organizations were making any attempts to cultivate an actual appreciation for their product. It just sounds like they are employing strategies that bring in a quick buck today but aren’t focussing on deepening attendees investment in the music.

In addition to all the other factors that may contribute to a decline in attendance is the fact that we live in a transitory society. If the orchestra is all bread and circuses in one city but the city a person moves to doesn’t offer flashy programs, then symphonies as a whole may lose an audience member.

It works both ways too. A symphony may not care about the next city down the line because it doesn’t benefit them. But if the only attraction for a person is social opportunities for singles in one city and your flashy social opportunities are more geared for families, you can lose that person as a patron as easily as if you had no program at all.

I am thinking that using Drew McManus’ proposed docent program (found here, here and here oh, and here) used to complement these programs would be very valuable.

In addition to reading his reasons why, you can also read my reasoning here and here. (The Artsjournal blogs recently under went a reformatting and I just discovered the links in my entries to Drew’s blog entries no longer work. I linked to the new locations in the previous paragraph.)