Free Admission Isn’t An Audience Building Strategy

Thinking that free or discounted tickets will increase accessibility and loyalty is something of a pet peeve of mine. Yesterday I commented on a post Sean Kelly of Vatic made on LinkedIn where he noted that people who didn’t want to use dynamic pricing for their events that were selling well would willingly discount or … Read more

Free Admission Wasn’t Useful But Will It Become Necessary?

According to CityLab Berliners are returning to the city’s museums, with credit being given to free admission Sundays.  Sixty-seven museums are offering free admission which is part of a larger effort to explore ways in which people can assemble during the pandemic.   Participating museums are required to follow hygiene and distancing rules. Offering free … Read more

Prioritizing Hospitality And Accessibility In The Face Of Fear

You may have heard that museums in Vienna, Austria offered free admission to Taylor Swift fans who were faced with the cancellation of the concerts due to terroristic threats. My one quibble with this is their claim that admission is so expensive for young people —who paid the equivalent of $750 plus travel to see … Read more

It’s The Mission, Not The Money That Keeps Them Coming Back

Earlier this month, Colleen Dilenschneider’s team at IMPACTS released some interesting insights about what features of memberships and subscriptions most appeal to different groups. (subscription required) For instance, people born before 1980 prioritize: free admission, priority access, members only functions, advance notice of upcoming activities, and member subscriber discounts, in that order. Those born after … Read more

Cheaper By The Dozen, But I Only Have One Set of Eyes And Ears To Experience It

Seth Godin made a post about leveraging the power of word of mouth by incentivizing sharing with friends. Krispy Kreme grew to become a doughnut behemoth in the US. The formula was simple: Scarce supply, high short-term taste satisfaction, and a dozen priced almost the same as just four. As a result, most people bought … Read more

Your Tax Dollars At Art

You may recall that back in 2010 the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) was permitted to put a property tax up for vote on an election ballot to ensure a source of financial support. In return for the property tax increase, which was $20 on a home valued at $200,000, residents of three counties around … Read more

SVOG Program Updates Coming Fast Now

While I am pretty sure people are following the developments of the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program pretty closely and are probably getting regular updates from their state and industry service organizations, I figure it doesn’t hurt to put reminders and updates out there myself. Especially since all the updates I have been getting from … Read more

Take The Opportunity For A Reboot

Research has shown that offering free admission doesn’t lead to an increase in participation by new audiences.  In most cases those that are attending are the people who normally attend, they are just showing up again a little sooner than they might have. This past October/November I actually paid attention when I visited a museum … Read more

Discount Unto Others As You Would Have Others Discount Unto You

Collen Dilenschneider is increasingly becoming my go-to source for general data about audience behavior in relation to pricing. Last month, she posted about the perception and attitudes free, discounted and full price engenders among attendees. She had previously written, and summarizes in this recent post, that discounts tend to bring people who are already engaged … Read more

Sweetening Incentives To Experience Creativity With Strangers

Knowing that one of the biggest barriers people experience when planning to go to an event is not having someone to accompany them, five years ago I was inspired by a Brazilian bus company that set aside seats for those who wanted to meet new people. And more recently I wrote about an English town … Read more

Data You Need To Believe Over Your Gut

I so frequently tell my readers that Collen Dilenschneider has made an awesome post on her blog that it makes it difficult to convey the increased urgency to read one of her pieces when she has made an even awesomer post. Despite this impediment, believe me when I say she recently made a post that … Read more

Philadelphia Museums Seem To Be Gathering A Trove Of Interesting Voices

There seems to be a trend among museums in the Philadelphia area which sees value in the perspectives of non-traditional guides and voices. I have written about the Jawnty tours provided at the Barnes Foundation and University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology using Iraqi and Syrian refugees as guides to the Middle East … Read more

Museum Hackers Target The “Not For Someone Like Me”

In the last week I have seen mention of Museum Hack, in both Bloomberg (h/t Artsjournal.com) and Washington Post (h/t Nina Simon). The company does customized tours of museums from a particular frame of reference. For example, their Badass Bitches Tour, …shares stories of female artists, muses and subjects. (Versions of the tour are also … Read more

We Get All Types In Here

Yesterday I talked about some brainstorming that occurred during a post-museum show opening get together. That party was a lot more constructive for me than I expected because it provided fodder for this post as well. I happened to fall into the orbit of the museum artistic director as she talked about the five types … Read more

We Have To Destroy Our Arts Organization To Save Our Arts Organization

The news of Hostess Bakeries making good on their threat to liquidate in the face of a baker strike reminded me of You’ve Cott Mail’s “Is bankruptcy the answer for arts money woes” round up from this past August. Back then Thomas Cott linked to a story about how the Barnes Foundation let everyone believe … Read more

No Special Grace (Alas)

I was having a conversation with a friend from a previous job that brought up a few questions for me about what motivates people who work in the arts to attend arts events. This gentleman was assistant marketing director and then marketing director for a theater at which I once worked. He eventually left to … Read more

Food for I

I didn’t come across anything today that would inspire me to write a lengthy entry. But thanks to Tyler Green at Modern Art Notes, I learned that the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego has created a very cool and fun website to introduce their free admission policy for people under 25 made possible by … Read more

Support Your Local Artist

Talking about how the community supports Appel Farm got me to thinking about how Appel Farm’s Festival lends support to the community. I don’t necessarily mean in terms of gas and food purchased locally though that is certainly an aspect of the support. One aspects of the mission to support artists is manifested in the … Read more

Yes, Customers Are Paying Attention To Online Fees

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 … Read more

How Will The New Albright-Know Be Received By Buffalo’s Working Class

Bloomberg had an article about the renovated Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, NY, now rebranded Buffalo AKG Art Museum. Prior to the renovation, the director said people would frequently tell him the museum was meant for the elites.  The post-renovation goal is to have the working class residents of the city feel comfortable visiting the … Read more

More Europe Performing Arts Orgs During Covid

Last week German arts administrator Rainer Glaap made a Facebook post linking to the first ever study of theatres across the European Union (EU).  Additionally, some of the survey participants were non-EU members of the Creative Europe program.  Readers may recall I had made a number of posts looking at how various governments across Europe … Read more

Unexpected Development In Student Debt

There was a warning shot across the bows of university/conservatory arts training programs whose graduates have debt out of proportion with their earning potential in the Chicago Tribune last week. Harvard University is suspending graduate admissions for their theatre program for three years after receiving a failing grade from the Department of Education. Simply put, … Read more

Clarifying Pricing Practices

Colleen Dilenschneider made some really important points about misunderstood concepts that lead non-profit organizations to make poor decisions and policies. The “Six Concepts that Visitor-Serving Organizations Confuse at Their Own Risk,” she discusses have subtle distinctions that can be difficult to clarify. It is somewhat akin to the differences between PR, Marketing and Advertising. Even … Read more

Talk About Your Org Before Someone Else Does

Last week Americans for the Arts held a Private Sector salon on ARTSblog where they discussed where the interests of the arts and business intersected. Much of the discussion was very interesting, but one entry by Margy Waller stuck with me for a few days. Part of it was the timeliness of her subject. She … Read more

Buildings That Say We Want You To Stay

A hat tip to the Stuff Christian Culture Likes blog for the link to the photostream of Jody Forehand, a regional director for Visioneering Studios which does a lot of church design. I don’t want to get into a discussion about the influence of mega-churchs or the morality of such conspicuous consumption in church buildings. … Read more

So You Think You Are An Emerging Leader…

…or maybe there is someone you think is. Arts Presenters is soliciting applications for participants at the next Emerging Leader Institute being held at conference January 2008. Deadline is next Monday though. I am sorry I didn’t see the announcement on the website sooner. The application may be found here and the guidelines here. There … Read more

Ushering — Destroyer of Souls!

I was listening to the latest entry from the Cool As Hell Theatre podcast while reviewing the financials from last month when both the host and the interviewee began talking about how ushering in return for admission was demeaning and soul killing (around 13:00). I actually backed the audio up and listened and then did … Read more

Babes In Arms

Came across an article today reporting the Rhode Island legislature is considering a bill requiring that breast feeding infants be admitted to theatres for free. The impetus for the bill was a mother who told her representative that “she was required to pay an additional $75 to take her child to a show.” I found … Read more

Playwriting and Tulips

It seemed to be so close to being added as an afterthought that I almost skipped over it, but in his Field Letter this month, Theatre Communication Group Executive Director Ben Cameron touches on the fact that people are staging readings of plays without negotiating royalties. “Please understand that this represents a grave misunderstanding of … Read more

Another Crazy Idea

Back in July I posted an entry about how internet sites were limiting access to their content through various means. At the end of the entry, I promised to think upon it and post a follow up later. Well, here I am posting a follow up. I had hoped to do a little more reading … Read more

Passion and Education

I was listening to NPR today (it is somewhat depressing for me to think that at my age, I consider commercial radio to be crap and am tuning to NPR, the old people’s station.) and caught an All Things Considered piece on “Big Picture Schools.” While the story isn’t specifically arts management connected, it is … Read more

Who’ll Stop the Rain?

My apologies to my readers, my days since my last entry have been rather full with the preparation and execution of the festival. On Thursday at about 4pm, the forecast for Saturday changed from sunny to rain. To avoid the problems of past years, the executive director cancelled the craft portion of the festival and … Read more