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Studio Tours Shouldn’t Replicate The Gallery Experience

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For two weekends this month, the local Creative District is operating their annual artist studio tours. There are other associated activities, but the artists’ opening their spaces for people to wander in and look around is the focus of the event. And if people are moved to buy something, so much the better.

One of the features of the tour the president of the Creative District has been pushing artists to do is not sanitize their work spaces. She feels that when artists clear their materials away into closets and throw sheets over bookcases, it removes many of the interesting elements that can lead to a conversation about process.

I tend to agree. I visited a number of studios this weekend with more on my list for next weekend. In some cases I was able to stand right in the studio was people worked. Most of the time I was in a living room with all the furniture cleared out and the work hung on the walls, arrayed on display racks, or shelving.

Because I have some familiarity and knowledge, I was able to ask some questions about process and materials used, but many curious visitors would basically have had the impression they wandered into a home gallery.

Part of my concern is that seeing a person painting in their immaculate living room with a small tarp under the easel essentially reinforces the idea that art is done by a special breed of people who create things immediately without error.

When in fact, their studios are paint and clay splattered, with swaths of material shoved in to nooks and crannies, and metal filings and sawdust swept into piles. All testaments to their efforts. Not to mention photos, sketches, and early iterations that comprised their study and preparation of the final product leaning against the walls.

Galleries are places in which artists can control the context and perspective in which the visitors encounter their work. Studios tours provide an opportunity to let visitors encounter and better understand their process. There is a missed opportunity when studio tours are essentially replicas of the gallery experience.

Post-Pandemic Cultural Habits Are About Set

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About twice a month Colleen Dilenschneider and the folks at IMPACTS Experience release some interesting data they have compiled about trends they are seeing that may impact arts and cultural organizations. Recently they released an update on the recurring topic of what have audience preferences been since the start of the pandemic.

One aspect of this data I feel I have missed and not adequately emphasized in my previous posts on these articles is that they have been measuring the tendency of someone who regularly participated in an activity in 2019 to return to that behavior.

 It means that people whose normal behavior in 2019 was to go to movie theaters report being less likely to return to movie theaters now. It means that people whose normal behavior was to go to public parks are even more likely to visit them now than they were before the pandemic.

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Among exhibit based organizations, visitors have trended away from science and children’s museums and toward outdoor spaces like zoos and gardens as well as larger museum spaces which were perceived to have more space to move around during the pandemic. These latter groups have returned to their 2019 attendance levels more rapidly than science and children’s museums.

Live performance organizations have also generally seen a slower return to 2019 levels, except for live theater which is just shy of attendance numbers of six years ago. In some cases, those audiences shifted their cultural participation to exhibit based entities.

Folks who were interested in the symphony went to the art museum instead, and many Americans habituated away from these performing arts experiences. The challenge is and has been to do our best to shake the masses and wake them back up to the magic of live theater, the power of chamber music, or the grace of the ballet.

Demand is slowly inching back to 2019 baseline, but it may be happening too slowly to meaningfully overcome negative substitution. 

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The IMPACTS folks note that research has shown that on average habits are formed in about 66 days and it has been five years since the start of the pandemic. As a result there is a bit of inertia to contend with if you are trying to convince people to make you part of a new habit.

Economist View Of The Conflicting Tensions In Arts And Culture

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Economist Tyler Cowen was interviewed by his colleague Alex Taborrak about Cowen’s 1998 book, In Praise of Commercial Culture . (Transcript) Apparently this was the book that put Cowen on the map and garnered him recognition.

Cowen talks about a lot of the debates around culture and art that still continue today.

One of the first things that caught my attention was the question of doing art which is challenging and hones the artist craft vs. doing it for commercial success which I mentioned in a post about Seth Godin’s thoughts about aligning organizational practice with the values it espouses.

Cowen said those concepts weren’t considered mutually exclusive by classical musicians and artists.

If you read the letters of Mozart or Beethoven, they’re obsessed with money. They seem to be quite good bargainers. They always want more money. You might think they’re greedy, but also money is a means toward realizing your art. How good a piano can I buy or how good an orchestra can I work with, or can I travel to give a concert in Prague or Vienna?

The more an artist cares about art in many situations, the more they’re going to care about money. It’s a very simple point. At the time or even still, you didn’t hear it much. It’s always money versus art rather than you can care about money as a means to your art. 

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In another interesting segment of their conversation, Cowen says that governments often facilitate the creation of great art at the inception of their efforts before things either become too politicized or made mediocre by the need to please the consensus.

All this came to a head in the 1990s, disputes over what the National Endowment for the Arts in America was funding. Some of it, of course, was obscene. Some of it was obscene and pretty good. Some of it was obscene and terrible.

What ended up happening is the whole process got bureaucratized. The NEA ended up afraid to make highly controversial grants. They spend more on overhead. They send more around to the states. Now, it’s much more boring. It seems obvious in retrospect. The NEA did a much better job in the 1960s, right after it was founded, when it was just a bunch of smart people sitting around a table saying, “Let’s send some money to this person,” and then they’d just do it, basically.

[…]

There are plenty of good cases where government does good things in the arts, often in the early stages of some process before it’s too politicized. I think some critics overlook that or don’t want to admit it.

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The whole interview is a little over an hour and covers other topics like: great art needing great audiences; artist compensation; more discussion about pursuit of art vs. creating for the market; group consumption of art is bad, you want to appeal to individual; the fact that people having greater wealth means niche artists and shows can receive support by appealing to individuals, but at the cost of fragmentation of shared culture; and the usual debate about whether modern art sucks.

It is either interesting or depressing that it is often difficult to determine whether their conversation is about the state of things today or what Cowen was observing about culture the late 1990s. It sort of indicates we are struggling with the same questions we were 25 years ago and haven’t arrived at the answers we need to move us forward.

Just the same, it is gratifying to have economists discussing the conflicting interests and views that exist in the arts and culture sector. It is something of a validation that these are real topics for consideration and not issues that have been manufactured internally.

Picture Yourself Patronizing Businesses In A Construction Zone

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This seems to be the week for pictures on the old blog. About a month ago I wrote about an effort to use art projects to mitigate the impact of road construction occurring across five blocks of the busy downtown corridor of my city. As you could see from the pictures in that post, it didn’t require a lot of money to create interactive participatory projects. (Which is obviously good for construction project adjacent installations.)

Case in point, they spray painted a hopscotch pattern on the sidewalk opposite my office. Everyday I see kids, teenagers, people in their 20s, 40s, 60s, etc jumping on it. It is probably both the least expensive and most interacted with piece of the whole effort.

Last week they installed artist created selfie frames. The downtown development authority is encouraging people to find each one, and take pictures, and submit them in order to be entered to win a pretty nice package of prizes.

Here are a few I have come across in my travels. Unfortunately I am not eligible to win the prize.

Being Clear About Who It Is For

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Seth Godin recently made a post on the question of “Who Is It For?” as a measure of the success of an endeavor. He says that while the concept of “maximizing shareholder value” is often cited, he has never met anyone who has adhered to this precept long term before finding it an empty measure.

I am a little skeptical that he is naive enough to think there are plenty of people who are completely comfortable employing that as a central operating philosophy.

He cites the example of a doctor who is focused on meeting patient needs and managers who reward employees for good customer service as instances when investing extra time is expensive short term, but can result in long term successes.

Godin goes on to detail a familiar debate in the arts world–the question of whether to produce works that engage the interest of visual and performing artists or works that will garner commercial success. He uses the example of visual artists and symphony musicians wanting to do challenging work which hones their craft and follow a creative path and the “audience is just one way to achieve that.”

He contrasts that with”

Others are eager to play crowd-pleasing programs, discovering that audience success rewards them even more than their own definition of artistry.

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He doesn’t make judgments about which is the better approach. Rather he says that often the stated values can conflict with the values that are actually practiced which can create confusion and inhibit the effectiveness of the organization. (My emphasis)

The conflict, in any organization, is a challenge. We’d like our team members to use their best judgment, to find the satisfaction they seek in their work. But what happens when these definitions of success don’t align?

Too often, management simply conceals what they really seek, or lies about it. If “employees are our most important asset” then why not act that way?

Let’s be clear about who it’s for and what it’s for. It makes decision making more productive and communication and measurement far more effective.

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What Will Transit Cuts Mean For Philly Theater Audiences

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Funding cuts for Philadelphia’s transit system known as SEPTA (Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority) is causing a lot of concern around that city. SEPTA runs both trains and buses. I have seen a lot of concern expressed by parents and schools about how students are going to be able to get to school.

I also recently saw an article discussing concerns theaters in the city have about how the cuts may impact attendance at performances. A survey by the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance revealed a number of attendees either drove or took public transportation. Difficulty parking was identified as a major barrier to attendance and now there is a concern that lack of public transportation may become an issue as well.

As the technical report shared by the Alliance shows, 58% of people in the region drove to the theater venues, while 22% take public transportation, and 20% walk. The Philadelphia-only numbers are a little different — 39% of the city’s theater audiences drove to performances, a comparable 30% took public transit, and 32% walked.

The surveyed audience skews older: Most respondents were between 58 and 77, while only 7% of audience survey respondents and 11% of public opinion respondents fell into the Gen Z (18-25) bracket. Gen Z respondents named cost and the lack of transportation are the two biggest barriers to their participation.

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The article notes that most respondents were white, a small number were Black. Latine and Asian participation in the survey was nearly non-existent.

I wanted to point out that while transit cuts potentially impacting 30% of audiences living in Philadelphia, the fact that 32% of people walk to performances says something about the walkability of the city and the distribution of theaters relatively close to residential areas.

Not Easy To Provide Cultural Experiences To A Nation’s 18 Year Olds

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Via a LinkedIn post by Rainer Glaap, I was disappointed to learn that Germany’s KluturPass program is being discontinued. (In German but most browsers can translate pretty well.) The program provided passes to 18 year olds that could be used to attend theater performances, cinema, purchase books, etc. The hope post-pandemic was to get young people out participating in cultural activities while also boosting the cash flow to cultural industries.

A number of European countries created similar programs which I have written about over the last five years or so.

The KulturPass program has been criticized for being a poor use of funds and has had funding cut a few times. Recently it was apparently determined the government doesn’t have the authority to fund the program.

The reason for this is an assessment by the Federal Court of Auditors, according to which the federal government lacks constitutional authority to finance the project. Based on this assessment, the non-partisan Minister of State for Culture, Wolfram Weimer, sees little chance for the culture pass. “From now on, we will intensify other projects to promote culture for young people,” Weimer said.

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According to another piece on the Politik & Kultur site to which Rainer linked, the implementation of the program was a little rough due to some young people not having the required Internet access and difficultly communicating the availability of the program due to privacy laws.

In a post Rainer made in 2023, he noted there were some pretty big hurdles to using the pass to purchase theater tickets. Apparently you could only use the pass through a central ticketing platform rather than reserving tickets directly with the theater. From what I understand, book stores had some of the best sales volume through the use of the app. It also sounds like a person would get a voucher rather than actual tickets.

Rainer wrote:

“However, anyone unfamiliar with the intricacies of booking may initially struggle to find the right price category and discount, both at Eventim and in the theater’s online shop..”

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The writers at Politik & Kultur suggest that the program should be provided more time to work out the kinks and a commitment to more consistent support. They note that the parallel program in France started in 2021 and reaches 60% of 18 year olds (KulturPass got off the ground in 2023)

Why You’ll Frickin’ Love This Collection

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Earlier this month, Hyperallergic had a short article about a video that actor Steve Martin made for the Frick Collection in NYC. What I appreciated was the way the information in the video was ordered.

The first 1:15 is focused on what the attendee might find interesting. The next 30-45 seconds talks about the “product features.” The remainder of the 6 minute video is about the history of the Frick collection.

I have to believe that this ordering was intentional rather than a happy accident of the way the editor pulled the information together.

That second part which I label as “product features” contains internally focused language that arts organizations would primarily use up until recently listing the qualities the organization thinks are important.

“..a singular New York City experience: A storied trove of art and decorative objects housed in a meticulously restored Gilded Age mansion….”

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However, the video starts with the following which is externally focused and all about the visitor experience:

“Consider what you or I might be drawn to…maybe it is a gilded beard, or a velvet sleeve, a trend setter, a love triangle, a mysterious exchange…Maybe what you see reminds you of a friend or a place you’ve been, or a book you’ve read, or a show you’ve binged.

Maybe it jogs a memory or fills you with a sense of delight, desire, power, wonder, bemusement, or calm.

Maybe you need a moment to sit and think and escape. Somewhere peaceful. Somewhere with a view….this is what the Frick collection is for. For slowing down, following your eye, and getting closer to objects of beauty and awe…”

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The structure of the video reflects an understanding of how people consume content online (and probably through other media experiences as well.) It starts out talking about what the visitor will enjoy. Then focused on the quality of the art and experience. And then if you are still curious and want to learn more, talks about the history of the collection’s founding by Henry Clay Frick in the late 19th century.

Baseball Team Seeks Good Singers

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You may not have heard about the Savannah Bananas baseball team. Or rather it may be more accurate to say Banana Ball team because they play a game that is a heavily altered version of baseball. The game is limited to two hours. Score is kept based on points rather than runs. Audience catching foul balls count as outs. One of the pitchers bats and pitches on stilts.

I have seen a handful of arts professionals cite the team as an example of the rule breaking arts organizations should embrace to remain relevant in their communities.

Their games are in pretty high demand among audiences. They played two dates earlier this month in Denver’s Coors Field which holds 50,000 people and you had to register in November 2024 for a lottery that would allow you to purchase tickets.

One of the big elements to the show/game is the choreographed dances the pitcher, catcher, infielders, and sometimes the umpire execute.

Recently there was an interview with the choreographer, Maceo Harrison, in Dance Spirit to talk about how the dances come together. I thought it was a good indication of what the Bananas are trying to accomplish when Harrison talked about how they were recruiting players with performing arts backgrounds.

Have you noticed that as the Bananas’ exposure has grown, newer players tend to come in with more arts training?

Yes, this year we are seeing a lot of players that have a wide background of skills. We have guys that can play piano. We have Dalton Mauldin, who’s an actual singer, and we have Kyle Jackson (“KJ”), who has a musical theater background. We have a lot of athletes that have hidden talents—even dancing. So I think that’s definitely what we’re gravitating towards moving forward.

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Your Website Is Doing The Heavy Lifting Getting Visitors In The Door

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Colleen Dilenschneider and her colleagues at IMPACTS Experience recently released data on social media engagement for cultural organizations.

If you don’t intend to read any further in this post at least read this: Keep your website up to date and make sure it works well on mobile.

Looking at data from Baby Boomers, Gens X, Y, Z, the top three sources of pre-visit information, in order, are Mobile Web, Web (desktop/laptop), and social media. Level of use various a fair bit with Gens Y & Z hovering around 80% on each of these. Gen X around 75% for both types of web and 68% for social media. Boomers are around 45% for mobile and social media and 63% for web.

However, regardless of the level of these percentages these top three are far and away the dominant sources of pre-visit information. The fourth highest source, word of mouth ranges between 22% for Boomers and 15% for Gen Z.

It just underscores the importance of making sure your web content is up to date, inviting, and contains the information people are seeking to make their visitation decisions.

One interesting observation they make about peer-reviewed sites which come in as the fifth most popular source of info:

Interestingly, Boomers very slightly outpace other generations for using peer-review web sources such as Yelp and TripAdvisor. It is not a massive difference, but it may be enough to make senior leaders think twice about Google reviews not reaching more senior audiences.

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Looking at how social media influenced people’s satisfaction during a visit, they found that people who referenced online content related to their visit while onsite had a greater level of satisfaction than people who didn’t check out online content. This level was slightly higher for exhibit based entities and performance entities. They attributed this to the lack of opportunity to access information during a performance vs. wandering around a gallery, garden, zoo, etc.

Providing people with content that allows deeper exploration related to their experience can be beneficial to their enjoyment.

Social media may cause an even greater bump than mobile web because social media encompasses sharing and allows guests to meld their own personal brands with a museum or performing arts brand. It allows us to say to the world “I’m the kind of person who attends art museums!” and to share the experience with friends, adding a layer of personal relevance.

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In terms of what social media platforms receive the most engagement from high-propensity visitors: For performing arts entities it is Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter/X in that order.

Exhibit based entities are slightly different

For exhibit-based organizations, Instagram is a 4.3x more important platform for millennial engagement (i.e., likes, shares, comments) than is Facebook. For Baby Boomers, Instagram is 1.3x more important for engagement than Facebook. That said, Facebook beats out TikTok for the Baby Boomer crowd…but only the Baby Boomer crowd.

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Showing Off An Art Prescription

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While I was scrolling through Reddit this weekend, I came across a post about a doctor’s office in the San Diego area prescribing visits to the New Children’s Museum for the poster’s 4 year old (New is its proper name, not an adjective. It opened in 1983 and changed its name in 2008)

In addition to advising daily structured and free play time, the prescription serves as a one year membership to the museum and encourages visiting once or twice a month. The program has lead sponsorship from GitHub, but the museum site also lists  Dr. Seuss Foundation, The Parker Foundation, and First 5 San Diego as supporters.

I have posted quite a bit about social prescription programs in various locales around the globe. They typically include everything from passes/vouchers to arts and culture, outdoor activities, rail passes, and book purchases. I was glad to see an examples of one of these programs with pretty generous terms.

Obviously, if people attend twice a month for a year with a 4 year old participation is likely to turn into a habit. I imagine the museum is hoping that translates into paid memberships for at least another 4-5 years of a kid’s youth.

Perception of Cultural Orgs By Party Identity Not As Different As You May Think

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When I saw that Colleen Dilenschneider and the folks at IMPACTS Experience had posted data about whether Democrats and Republicans feel differently about cultural organizations (subscription required) I wasn’t sure if I wanted to read the results.

The answer, however is, not really.

They compared The National Awareness, Attitudes, and Usage Study data from the 2nd quarter of 2022 to the second quarter of 2025 for both exhibit based and performance based cultural organizations comprising 11 different categories. The responses of those who answered that they agreed or strongly agreed with statements is presented.

Across pretty much every category there was a slight increase between 2022 and 2025 on questions about whether an organization had a political agenda. However, the percentages started relatively low in 2022 and only increased a few percentage. This is compared to the same sentiments about newspapers, non-governmental organizations and state agencies which all had high perceptions of having agendas.

In terms of cultural organizations being perceived as mission driven, the percentages responding agree or strongly agree were very high and there was little daylight between Republicans and Democrats.

There were similar results on the question of whether an organization “should suggest or recommend certain behaviors or ways for the general public to support its causes and mission.” The percentage of those agreeing was high in 2022 and has only increased in 2025. Again with only a few percentage points difference between party affiliation.

In terms of a question about whether a cultural organization was welcoming to people like themselves, the percentage of those feeling welcomed by an organization was very high. Unlike the previous questions where Democrats were more likely to agree/strongly agree by 2-3% over Republicans, in this case Republicans tended to feel more welcome. It was only 2-3% more for exhibit based organizations but for performance based organizations the difference was 6-7% more.

Based on the way the questions were phrased, it was likely people were responding about their perception of local cultural organizations with which they were familiar rather than organizations by category. So while there may be a general narrative on social media, etc that seems to reflect a significant divide in opinion about cultural organizations, it seems that people have a positive view of organizations local to them.

It should be noted that Dilenschneider & Co. observe that Democrats are more likely to report being high propensity visitors to cultural organizations (36%) compared to those identifying as Republicans (29%) or Independents/Unaffiliated/Other (35%)

Goal Is To Get People To Come, Bring Friends, Make Part Of Core Identity

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Last month I wrote about an article on the Metropolitan Museum of Art that appeared in Yale University’s The Business Behind The Art series.

Another article that caught my eye was about the Memphis Art Museum’s move from the suburbs to a new location downtown under the direction of executive director and Yale alum Zoe Kahr.

Kahr talks about some of the challenges the museum has faced over the years as well as the decision to move the museum downtown rather than expanding/renovating at their original site.

One of the things that really caught my eye was her reflection that pricing doesn’t equal engagement whereas relevant programming does.

We found that our traditional membership model was failing. When the offer was free admission, people weren’t connecting with us,” Kahr explains. “But when we spoke to them about a topic that either connected to their identity or was super interesting to them, people who had not previously been involved were suddenly coming to every event.” ‌

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The museum created affinity groups which resulted in greater engagement with the museum, but also greater connection between the group members which Kahr recognized as creating community.

The way she describes the layout of the new museum space, it appears it is intended to foster community and be a gathering space. She mentions that a lot of the museum will be accessible without paying an admission fee. (my emphasis)

The aim is to make the museum—and its art—part of everyday life in the city. “If you’re just ducking in to get some very good coffee, you’re also going to see a bunch of great art,” Kahr explains. Those drawn to watching the sunset from the roof garden while enjoying music and wine will be in a sculpture garden…

Kahr accepts that the art will be secondary for many visitors. “That might be perceived as sacrilegious in certain institutions….“If you’re a community art museum, your goal is to get people to come again and again and again and bring friends and see the museum as part of their core identity,” says Kahr. “To do that, you have to show them themselves, but also continuously expand their horizons about who they are.”‌

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The Story Behind The Storytelling Increases Perception Of Value

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Came across a press release about a study conducted on Gen Z and Millennial perceptions of Broadway. The provocative title suggested that Broadway wasn’t overpriced, but rather undervalued. According to the study’s sponsors, No Guarantees Productions, once people learn everything that goes into a Broadway production, the amount they are willing to pay increases.

While many of the study participants indicated they were cutting back on their spending due to economic uncertainty, they were open to spending on experiences shared with friends vs. things. This has been a trending sentiment across many studies, especially since the scaling down of pandemic restrictions. These experiences are perceived to provide a greater emotional return on investment than purchasing things affords.

The study includes direct responses from participants and really illustrated the amount of thought people were putting into curating these experiences for others. Some people were thinking about the music a friend/family member liked, others wanted to take friends to their first Broadway show and were thrilled to provide friends with their first theater attendance experience ever.

As seen in the chart below, the study used a number of prompts to determine how much people were willing to pay to see a Broadway show, then provided the context of the expense for a typical vacation trip, then provided the context of how much it cost to run a Broadway show each week. With the addition of each bit of context, the amount people were willing to pay increased from $141 to $286 to $512.

This does align with previous findings that people are more interested in purchasing goods or experiences if there is an engaging story associated with it.

While respondents said they would attend more frequently if the tickets cost less, about 63% said that discounted tickets made them suspect the show’s quality was low or the seats were bad for some reason. No Guarantees suggested that discounting didn’t necessarily make a show more attractive.

In fact, some people responded they would rather pay a little extra to ensure they would have an enjoyable experience:

For Nikki, trading up for a more memorable experience trumps ticket price overall. She explains “If we’re going to spend money to go see a concert or game or a show, we’d rather spend the extra $100 and get the better seats and have the better experience than sit in a nosebleed section,”—a sentiment in line with the artisan economy and the intentionality people are prioritizing in experiences today.

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One response type that was interesting to me was that the perception that Broadway shows run forever was resulting in a lack of urgency. I am sure it would dismay a lot of Broadway marketing teams to learn that it regardless of how much buzz they generate about the opening of a show, there are a lot of people who think they can always see it later.

Nikki is a great example of having high interest in Broadway, but low urgency to go to a show. “I would love to see Hamilton, it’s been on my list for a while. I hear it’s the most amazing show, but they’re not taking it off anytime soon. So, I just haven’t gotten around to getting tickets to go see it.”

It’s true that, relative to many other entertainment experiences, Broadway feels static. The
perception that the same show that’s been playing for twenty years will go on for another
twenty hinders the opportunity for attracting new audiences. This is particularly true at
a time when a constant stream of new content has become an expectation for younger
generations

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No Guarantees suggests one solution for Broadway would be the creation of social clubs and locals-only events. One of the respondents said social clubs targeting her and her friends is what has gotten her to attend a number of events at Lincoln Center.

One thing to note is that most of the respondents were from the NYC area or tri-state region (NY, NJ, CT) with fewer from the national sphere. So many of them may have been plugged-in or at least highly aware of opportunities even if they indicated they didn’t attend frequently. While I imagine that people living in other parts of the US may have a similar perception of the value proposition and would be willing to pay more if they had similar context, the differing range of opportunities available and expectations about participation will likely impact the amount they would be willing to pay and degree to which they would engage.

How Will My Advice Help?

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Arts Midwest sent out their monthly newsletter this week which included stories they had published on their website during July. One of the pieces was a quick set of case studies of small arts organizations making efforts to prevent burn out among their staff and volunteers.

Another piece included three examples of arts organizations’ efforts to create community advisory committees. The experience of one organization in particular, 825 Arts, caught my attention because it emphasizes the importance of being specific when recruiting for committees. It is something that seems obvious, but is seldom recognized and put into practice.

Essentially, they tried to recruit a group to advise them about how best to serve the Frogtown and Rondo neighborhoods in St. Paul, Minnesota. They had a hard time recruiting and retaining people to the committee because people didn’t quite understand the purpose of the group.

Once they shifted their messaging and communication about the group, they saw more involvement.

 …they changed the name of the group from “Community Engagement Committee” to “Neighborhood Dream Team.” The new name captured the spirit of the group’s new goals: dreaming and visioning on programs and their potential for their neighborhood. 

They also decided to shift formats, engaging members through an ongoing text thread in addition to in-person meetings. The text thread allowed members to respond and contribute on their own time, while the bi-monthly meetings focused on larger proposals and the bigger picture. 

825 Arts found success with their community advisory group by honoring members’ time, adapting to their preferred communication styles, and establishing a clear, shared goal.

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Among the advice 825 had for others was to make sure people not only understand how they are contributing to the organization, but how those contributions have shaped the final result of things that have been implemented.

What’s Member/Non-Member Age Gap?

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Last month Colleen Dilenschneider and the folks at IMPACTS Experience provided an analysis of exhibit and performing arts audiences from the perspective of age. (sub required)

It will come as no surprise that older generations (GenX, Boomer, Silent) participate more relative to their representation in the general population than Millennials and Gen Z. Similarly, Boomers and Silent Generation are more likely to be members of an arts and cultural organization relative to their representation in the general population.

What I found interesting was their analysis of the average age of attendees with memberships vs. non-members. For exhibit based entities, botanical gardens had the largest delta with 13 years between the average of 57 for members and 44 for non-members. Members of other exhibit based entities ranged in average age of 38-45. Average age for non-member attendees to art, natural history, science museums was 8-9 years. For history, zoos, aquariums it was 4-6 years.

Children’s museums were the only outlier in that non-members were on average 1 year older than members. That’s understandable given younger people tend to have kids who visit children’s museums.

For live events, symphony members were 57 on average while non-members were 48. Live theater had the biggest delta with members at 48 and non-members at 37. All other live performance had members at 46 and non-members at 36.

While I am really summarizing the data since they don’t permit reprinting their charts, this can begin to give a bit of a baseline against which to compare your organization’s internal data about members and non-members.

As colleagues like Ruth Hartt have pointed out, you can’t build a marketing plan around targeting demographics because you have no idea WHY people are deciding to participate.

The IMPACTS data notes that a sense of belonging and supporting the mission are among the top two responses people given when asked what the primary benefit of being a member/subscriber is. The younger a person is, the more importance they place on these two elements.

Both tend to be more important to members of exhibit based organizations rather than performance based organizations. The IMPACTS folks suggest this may indicate there is benefit for performing arts organizations to remind people they are supporting a unique mission in the community.

It’s not binary – members want to feel like “insiders” at the organization … but they also want to know that their memberships are making a difference. Today’s members may be primarily transaction-motivated or mission-motivated, but members are increasingly identifying as both. Smart cultural organizations provide members with the opportunity to know that they are bettering their communities by helping to support an organization’s mission.

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No Refunds, Did You Buy The Insurance?

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Last week Seth Godin made a post about how companies use technicalities in their terms of service (TOS) to generate more revenue after quoting a low initial price.

There was one statement he made that started me pondering its applicability to refund policies many arts organizations have.

The metric is simple: every time you have to tell people they should have read the TOS, then either your marketers or your legal team has made a mistake. You’ll need a TOS, sure, but you don’t want to rely on it to communicate.

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In the last decade or two I have tried to be relatively forgiving about refunding for death, injury, and illness–which was especially important during the Covid pandemic.

Recently, the requests for refunds are tending to be a result of inattentiveness during the online purchase process. It makes me wonder how often people are paying far too much for things they didn’t intend to buy.

Recently we had someone purchase tickets for an event she thought was the same week rather than three months hence. The most frequent issue we run into is people who purchase tickets together in the orchestra of the venue and then an errant single seat in the balcony. My theory is that they are buying tickets on their phones and are brushing the screen and selecting another seat. But apparently they are not checking the shopping cart before completing the transaction and not noticing they are purchasing more ticketing than they intended.

We have a new ticketing system which offers insurance against any unforeseen circumstances that may arise. I am not sure if being inattentive during the purchase is covered. The fact the insurance is available to purchase does provide ticket office staff with an out and an ability to say “we have a no refund policy, did you purchase the insurance?”

But like Godin’s comment about the TOS, that feels more like a way to generate revenue rather than a way to create relationships and trust.

Do High Levels Of Creative Activity Help People Feel They Have The Capacity To Be Creative?

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This is definitely anecdotal rather than backed by any data, but based upon observations across a few decades and working at three-four different organizations, there seems to be a degree of “a rising tide raises all ships” in regard to ticket sales. While audiences certainly have a limited amount of time and money to spend on participating in different arts and cultural experiences, it seems like more activity may be better than less when it comes to stimulating interest.

Last week we went on sale with tickets for our upcoming season and I was generally pleased with the rate of ticket sales for upcoming events. One thing I noticed though was that there was also a surge of sale for some of the rental events coming up between now and the end of the year. In some cases, shows that had been on sale for weeks but hadn’t had anyone purchase started to see purchases.

I have seen the same thing occur in other communities in which I have worked. There is also something of a reciprocal effect when rental partners are selling well or have a series of events occurring in the course of a weekend, my organization will see sales increases for our events.

I have observed something similar on the creative side which has convinced me that a vibrant arts and culture scene requires a lot of competing activity. I have worked for organizations where the administrative and creative staff have been highly degreed and credentialed and found myself wondering why less interesting and innovative work was happening despite having little competition that might require them to be cautious versus organizations where the participants were less credentialed and there was a lot of competition.

I came to realize these less credentialed people were participating in a lot of opportunities around the community. They were in improv troupes, Shakespearean plays, newly written/workshopped plays and musicals, singing cabaret, attending/performing in drag shows. When these folks created works of their own, it didn’t take much to see how these experiences informed their new creative endeavors. Not everything was brilliant, but you could see a lot of thought and work had been put into the storytelling.

I am sure some researcher can come up with a calculation that shows the sweet spot between where too little activity provides no incentive to do better and too much activity stifles innovation and chokes resources.

I have recently begun to generate a theory that a lot of creative and cultural activity in a community can help people feel they have the capacity to be creative. If there are only one or two prominent entities with highly credentialed creators, the general public can end up pointing to those organizations as the place where the people with special abilities and talent make art.

But if there are a lot of arts and cultural organizations providing different types of ways for people to express themselves creatively then there will be a greater chance for them to feel they have the capacity to be creative. This may manifest as opportunities to view or participate in performances and recitals , creating sidewalk chalk art, and contributing to pie and chili cook-offs. Where there are organizations that teach people to build bikes in impractical, but visually interesting ways and then parade around town while dressed in funny costumes. Or maybe hold soap box derbies with similar aesthetics.

Giant Pencils As Creative Placemaking

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Early last month I saw a story about a giant pencil being sharpened in a Minneapolis suburb. Apparently a few years back the owners of a storm damaged oak tree on their front lawn had the idea to have it sculpted into a giant No. 2 pencil. About four years ago the started to hold an annual party and ceremony where they sharpen the pencil with a giant eraser.

While I had taken note of it and had been amused, I didn’t really delve much deeper until earlier today when I mentioned the pencil to a co-worker who was also from the Minneapolis area.

We ended up watching a video made by one of the attendees and realized I clearly did not appreciate how big a deal the sharpening is.

Over the course of the video the crowd grows to the point where there were apparently 2000 people occupying the street and lawn of this residential neighborhood. There were bunches of people in pencil costumes and pencil caps. There was a marching band. A musical invocation by an alpine horn playing duo. Some of the pencils danced and did a trust fall off the porch of the house. The pencil was “interviewed” over a tin can phone strung between the porch and scaffold erected around it. People jockeyed to get pieces of the pencil shavings dropped to the lawn.

It was a great example of organic grassroots placemaking (none of that fake turf grassroots placemaking!). Around the 4:05 mark, the MC observed that Minneapolis punches above its weight in terms of arts and music.

Thing Enjoyed About Outdoor Summer Concerts

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The New York Philharmonic held a concert in the borough of Queens a recent weekend. The performance was under the direction of guest conductor, soon to be music and artistic director of the NY Philharmonic.

The New York Times did some sketch interviews with some attendees and published them this weekend (h/t to Artsjournal.com).

Since some of the comments aligned with audience relationship efforts to which arts organizations pay attention, I wanted to post a few.

This first one reminded me of John Falk’s categorizations of museum visitors which have pretty significant overlap with performing arts. Some people pursue experiences with celebrities or blockbuster exhibitions. Someone in this first group admits they aren’t a fan of classical music, but are attracted by Dudamel’s reputation which has spread beyond that particular niche.

Illustrations by Vidhya Nagarajan

This next one I appreciated because it reflects the sense of value and place arts events can bring to a city or community. Obviously this person is actually attending an event, but research has repeatedly shown that people like to live in communities that have cultural amenities even if they don’t regularly avail themselves of those opportunities.

Part of many people’s identities are connected with the idea that they live in a place that has opera, galleries, theater…and outdoor concerts some distance from the formal symphony hall.

Similarly, people like to see other people of different backgrounds enjoying the same experiences they do. In the earliest days of the Macon-Mercer Symphony which performed at the hall I managed, many of those whom you might identify as being in the core classical music demographic were happy to see so many younger people attending the concerts. Some of the pieces that were programmed may not have been their cup of tea, but they were happy to see the seats filled and the lobby full of chatter and laughter.

Broadway For The Bros

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According to a recent article in the Washington Post, while male attendance at Broadway shows generally hovers around 1/3 of audiences, a recent slate of plays labeled as “Bro Shows,” are seeing much stronger attendance from the male demographic.

These shows tend to be non-musical plays headlined by recognizable names: “Othello,” starring Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal; “Glengarry Glen Ross,” starring Bob Odenkirk, Kieran Culkin and Bill Burr; Kenau Reeves partnering with “Bill & Ted” bud Alex Winter in “Waiting for Godot;” George Clooney in “Good Night, and Good Luck.”

There is an acknowledgment that marketing of Broadway shows has typically been targeted at women who frequently make the attendance decision and all the arrangements around attendance but a different approach is being employed with these shows.

“Oftentimes, when we talk about finding the audiences, it’s often been targeting women and finding a show they can bring their partner to,” said Marc Jablonski, head of business intelligence for Broadway marketing firm AKA. “Now it’s the other way.”

[….]

“I can almost guarantee you there were guy friend groups on text threads being like, ‘Hey that guy from “Succession” is in “Glengarry,” we should go check it out,’” [producer] Johnson said.

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The article also mentions that the productions are benefiting from the ability to more precisely target ads to men on social media platforms and streaming services.

Not every show has been successful, but enough have that more productions like an adaptation of the movie “Dog Day Afternoon” are planned with males as a primary target audience.

National Park Service Belies The Image Of The Unimaginative Government Agency

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Government agencies tend to have a reputation for being dull, unimaginative, and rule bound. Speaking from experience, I can confirm there is good reason for that reputation.

I have to say though that the National Park Service social media accounts can serve as an exemplar for most commercial and non-profit enterprises. There is a engaging goofiness to their posts where they mix humor with educational content about the parks.

Interestingly, the best content seems to be on LinkedIn. Though since they don’t post the same content on every social media site on the same day, I may have missed some posts on Facebook and X that may have appeared further back than I scrolled.

For example, a post today on LinkedIn about splooting (basically animals splaying their bodies out to keep cool) appeared a couple days ago on Facebook.

Last week there was a post that started “It’s not the heat that gets you, it’s the dinosaurs. 🦖 Well, it may be just the heat.” It went on to talk about the importance of staying hydrated during the summer with references to hallucinating about dinosaurs as well as references to Jurassic Park.

💧Drink water often. Stay hydrated and drink before you feel thirsty. Plan to bring extra water just in case you need to place a cup on your dashboard to watch for concentric ripples portending the arrival of a large creature.

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The post ends with a picture of a guy in a dino suit eating a park ranger which they caption

Image: This ranger was clearly not hydrated. Costumed dinosaur and a ranger have an awkward encounter in front of the Dinosaur National Monument sign.

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There was a really extensive post on Friday the 13th referencing all sorts of horror film lore while warning about approaching animals and living camp fires burning.

3: Like, he’s not that cute. 🦬

Oh my gosh, like, as if! That squirrel is, like, totally adorbs with its fluffy tail and those cute little paws. And that bison, like, needs a friend for sure, but, like, let’s not forget that squirrels can totally bite, especially from the bitey end, and that the bison has all the friends they need. Now, like, who packed the bandages and the extra leg splint?

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However, one of my favorite posts in recent weeks was one where they asked viewers what their favorite National Park color palette was and matched palettes up with 12 different National Park sites.

We talk about how arts organizations need to emphasize their value to their communities. National Park Service social media staff does a great job of communicating that value and capturing the national imagination.

NBC News Looks At Dynamic Pricing At Museums

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I was pleasantly surprised this past weekend to see NBC News devote a little time into reporting about the use of dynamic pricing by zoos and museums. I would typically expect them to report on dynamic pricing used for large stadiums and festivals so I was happy to see them spending time exploring how exhibit based arts and cultural entities are approaching pricing.

As you might expect, prices aren’t as high if you commit well in advance of the date you wish to visit. Some of the software helping these organizations make pricing decisions are also factoring in weather and Google searches alongside actual purchase patterns, capacity, time of day, day of the week, etc.

Museum industry groups laud this as a win-win for everyone, but customer perception may be a little different:

Data-driven pricing can be “a financial win for both the public and the museum,” said Elizabeth Merritt, vice president of strategic foresight at the American Alliance of Museums. It can reduce overcrowding, she said, while steering budget-minded guests toward dates that are both cheaper and less busy.

But steeper prices during peak periods and for short-notice visits could rankle guests — who may see anything less than a top-notch experience as a rip-off, said Stephen Pratt, a professor at the University of Central Florida’s Rosen College of Hospitality Management who studies tourism.

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Research by IMPACTS Experience that I wrote about in March presented survey results that support the claim consumers have higher expectations of their ticket buying experience at exhibit based organizations. In particular, consumers didn’t want to commit that far in advance out of concern someone might get sick or a scheduling conflict might arise.

Pricing confusion of the type mentioned in the NBC News piece was also mentioned–both in terms of not knowing what rate was applicable when and not being able to easily compare a desired date with surrounding dates to determine if visiting on another day of the week might be much cheaper.

The NBC News article mentioned that many museums offer a plethora of discount categories alongside their full price. I suspect that may add to the pricing confusion that was noted as a barrier in the IMPACTS data. I also wondered if these organizations were undermining all their dynamic pricing efforts by offering so many discount categories.

Is Your “Buy Tickets” Button Really Emphasizing That Action?

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Last week Drew McManus posted a slidedeck he used for a presentation at the Chorus America conference on LinkedIn. I wasn’t at the conference, but I have previously attended conferences at which he did his Click. Click. Done. presentation on using Google Analytics. So I have been a fan of his conference presentations for awhile.

The one he did at Choral America followed his naming theme, Ciick, Buy, Cry. This one was on the topic of web design and how some elements can be a deterrent to a customer’s purchase experience.

The slidedeck he made available as all the presenter notes and talks about different aspects of a user experience from how people scan a webpage, how mobile first design prioritizes how people increasingly interact with webpages, and the importance of repeating your primary links if people have to scroll more than two page lengths to view all parts of your site so that they aren’t forced to scroll back up later.

The part that really caught my attention was the visual hierarchy of buttons: A solid button indicates more important role than an outlined button which indicates a more important role than just text.

I have included that specific slide and Drew’s notes below. If this piques your interest at all, check out the full slidedeck and notes.

When Members See Themselves As Donors

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Earlier this month, Colleen Dilenschneider and IMPACTS Experience released data on exclusive access being a membership benefit that was important to high value museum members.

I wasn’t really sure that I would find anything in the article that piqued my interest so I didn’t prioritize reading the research. But it turns out there was one thing that caught my attention and made me wonder if it held true among performing arts audiences.

Apparently people who join at membership levels of $250 or more view themselves as donors rather than members and have similar expectations donors have. (Dilenschneider’s bold, my italics)

We tend to see in the data that individuals purchasing memberships at the $250 price point or above consider themselves to be donors more than members. Yes, they know that they are technically members, but their expectations align more closely with those of a donor than a member at a lower price point.

If people see themselves as donors to our organizations, then it’s often beneficial to treat them this way to not only meet expectations but to cultivate further support. Your museum might consider members and donors to be different people, but research indicates that this may be a false categorization on the part of museums. Higher level members tend to view themselves as donors.

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It bears paying attention to this because another thing IMPACTS found was that member households with an income of $200,000 or more value priority/exclusive access and members-only events over free admission. This is not to say they aren’t happy to have free admission, this group tends to want deeper access than households with incomes less than $200,000.

Something I was curious to know was whether this tendency was associated with income or was in tandem with the amount they gave. As mentioned earlier people with memberships of $250+ view themselves as donors deserving of donor type treatment. However, if a household making $200,000 has a $150 membership, do they have an expectation of access to exclusive experiences. I imagine people who spend more would expect more, but I was interested to know if the expectation was more closely associated with household income level regardless of membership level.

Dilenschneider acknowledges some organizations may feel they don’t have the time and resources to meet these higher expectations on a daily basis. She points out that these members and donors are what keep the lights on and the doors open. She notes their research shows that the top three increases in museum membership complaints since 2019 have been lack of special access (member hours, member entrance, member events), not being able to skip the lines, and solicitation phone calls. (the phone calls are #2 between special access and skipping lines).

This represents an aspect of the growing tension between funder expectations and organization desire to focus on the core mission activities. This manifests not only in terms of organizations preference that they not have to provide so much special treatment to donors, but also from a desire to provide consolidated, streamlined grant applications and final reports rather complete the multiple forms and formats of each funder.

Dilenschneider’s own research has shown visitors, especially among younger age cohorts, value organizations that are mission focused in their activities and communications. So museums may find themselves caught trying to devote resources to both mission focused experiences and special membership access experiences.

Talk About How Your Cancelled NEA Grant Impacts Your Community

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This weekend Margy Waller posted a guide for arts and cultural organizations to use to talk about the termination of your National Endowment for the Arts grant.

The guide is based on research the Topos Partnership did about how to talk about arts with your community. Waller says not to just focus on the dollar amount, but the impact it will have on the community.

What was the goal? What impact would it have had on the community? How is it specifically relevant?

Waller goes into detail on each point, but the common through-line was communicating the relevance and impact to the community rather than the arts organization. This is very much in line with how folks like Ruth Hartt advocate for marketing arts experiences in terms of the benefits and outcomes for the audience rather than using artist or organization focused language.

For example, when discussing the community impact, she advises:

Second: What did you expect the grant to do? How can you describe it in a common-sense way, in one sentence? Try leaving out the jargon and insider language that requires explanation to people outside the ‘family.’ What is it? Explain HOW you will accomplish the goal you established, for example: Paying artists to…

-Put on a show that will bring people into the neighborhood where they will connect with others and enjoy drinks or dinner too

-Make art that tells stories of your place

-Develop events that build neighborhood connections and engagement

-Create campaigns about health services

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Related to this, artist and director Annie Dorsen created a Google doc which crowdsources all the entities that had their NEA grants rescinded. Its apparently gotten such heavy use they are now requiring people to fill out a form with their responses. Arts Analytics has been crunching the numbers from the Google doc and provided an analysis as of May 20.

There were a lot of familiar names on the crowd sourced list. One of the ones that made me cringe the most was Springboard for the Arts’ losing $150,000 for a project meant to combat the mental health crisis in rural and urban Minnesota. I have been a fan of the work they do for decades. Springboard Executive Director Laura Zabel was among the arts leaders interviewed by PBS Newshour a week ago.

Test Driving Seats Without The Pressure Of Performance

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I had purchased tickets from the Straz Center in Tampa, FL as a gift for family members earlier this year so I ended up on their mailing list.

This week I received an email inviting me to a sort of open house they are hosting (below) in a couple weeks where people can “test drive” seats they want to sit in at Broadway shows.

I would be interested to see how many people attend the event. I am sure there are quite a few people who are seriously invested in where they sit, but there are also likely to be quite a few people who will take advantage of the opportunity to wander through the hall without the pressure of needing to push through a crowd to find their seats before a show.

I offer this as an interesting marketing tactic others may want to emulate in some degree.

However, on a personal level I will say that I had a difficult time and faced so many barriers in purchasing tickets, including having the staff offer solutions and then contact me the next day to rescind that solution, offer an alternative and subsequently rescind that offer the following day. The recipient of the tickets also needed to navigate some hurdles.

I rarely complain aloud about an experience I had on my blog but the issues I faced were so bad that I am doing so. If other customers faced problems similar to those I did, I feel like this test drive offer isn’t going to create better relationships with the audience. Their time would be better spent on fundamentals like tightening up policies and procedures before employing an approach like this.

These Are Not The Fans You Are Looking For

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Seth Godin recently made a post about fans which can sort of hit close to home for arts organizations. His observations also serve to illustrate that the relationship dynamics experienced by arts and cultural organizations are not exclusive to that sector.

He states not every fan of an entity, product, or franchise necessarily contributes to their continued success. He says the cranky fans:

And the cranky fans, who know that they have found a place where they will be heard, and who use that opportunity to split hairs and find something to be disappointed with. They are cranky because they care, but they’re also cranky because it gives them power.

They’ll happily pirate the software, argue about a launch strategy, demand comp tickets to the event and reserve their conversations for other insiders, instead of spreading the word.

[…]

“I’m your best customer” is what they might say, when they’re not at all.

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One of the reasons I used the term franchise before is because Godin seemed to be pretty much describing the fans of so many superhero and sci-fi movie/tv series..

But when he mentioned these fans reserving conversations for insiders rather than spreading the word, I realized that there can be a lot of overlap with insiders at arts and cultural organizations.

The bigger realization I had was that while these groups may be speaking passionately and at great length about arts and cultural organizations they may not be spreading the word. And that is probably running counter to our best interests.

Godin says as much in the penultimate paragraph when he emphasizes the importance of choosing your fans. What he describes is cultivating a relationship with and for fans rather than taking a transactional approach:

…some creators and small businesses respond to early fan response by doing things to the audience (cashing out) as opposed to working to do things with and for them (leading). It puts some fans on the defensive, even if this particular creator has made the difficult decision to stick with the mission.

[…]

At the same time, I see small businesses and creators that I care about struggling, simply because their fans are not only taking them for granted, they’re becoming entitled and insular as well. When fans commit to a movement and help it grow, they benefit.

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Understanding The Importance Of The Conductor

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This weekend someone posted a video of Gustavo Dudamel conducting the LA Philharmonic in a rehearsal of Mendelssohn’s Scottish Symphony 13 years ago in the nextfuckinglevel sub-reddit with the title “The importance of a conductor.”

It brought me great joy to read some of the comments from people who could see the difference in the performance Dudamel was getting from the musicians. The top comment on the post was to that effect.

A guy with the username DanTheDrywall wrote:

Wow what the hell it totally makes sense now. I actually sometimes go to a classical concert but am a complete noob enjoyer. I have always wondered about the role of the conductor. That was a great example!!

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As part of that discussion thread WorryNew3661 wrote and delo357 responded:

Not knowing that is why most people, myself included until this post, either don’t see the point or openly mock the position. Really happy to have learned something new today

I’m not afraid to say im jumping on the learned something new today train

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Someone else posted a video from about 14 years ago of Simon Rattle conducting students from six Berlin school orchestras making a similar observation about the difference in the performance between 1:37 mark compared to the 19:25 mark.

While a lot of the conversation on social media sites can be pretty abrasive, pretty much every comment on this post was praise for the performance, cheering from Dudamel fans, and folks saying they have a much better understanding and appreciation of the process than they had before.

The posting also illustrated the value of letting people discuss their experience through their personal lens and amplifying that rather than depending on the organization’s marketing messaging. Obviously that approach has its hazards because it can come back to bite you.

Not to mention people may not operate on the schedule you want. Both the videos cited in this discussion are over a decade old. I didn’t see any provide a more recent example of a conductor getting a more compelling performances across hundreds of comments on the topic.

Contemplating Your Role In The Community

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Kyle Bowen at Museum as Progress presented an interesting perspective on the way arts organizations can approach supporting the outcomes their visitors and participants seek. He tackles the perception that people seem to come to arts organizations with so many different problems they need solutions for, it can seem impossible to effectively be all things to all people.

We have all heard the saying that if you try to do a little of everything, you end up doing nothing well.

Kyle uses the example of the different lenses through which people view money. One person may have experienced a market crash and seeks to invest in things with which he can directly interact and control. Another seeks stable investment returns over time vs. risker bets. Another may have seen their parents fighting about money and wants to be in a position where money never harms their personal relationships. While each comes to a financial adviser with different emotional relationships with money, they all have the same desired outcome of financial stability even though they have different ideas and comfort levels associated with how to achieve that.

Bowen says financial advisors define their role as supporting clients financial security.

He goes through a similar process with examples of different perspectives people bring to their fitness goals. He defines, “Fitness professionals supporting clients who want to get healthier.”

Bowen claims that museum professional actually have a large range in which they can operate to support the goals of visitors and participants:

I’ll point out that museums are in a rather unique position — unlike financial advisors or doctors or trainers or so many other professions, museums can support a plethora of outcomes. They have the privilege of choosing from among many outcomes — whether social, personal, physical, or intellectual — where so many others have their work cut out for them by comparison. And even so, the same rules apply to other sectors — the more a financial advisor or trainer or airline or landscaping company understands what makes their customers tick, the greater advantage they’ll have.

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So in this context, perhaps mission statements need to be changed from something along the lines of “Providing world class experiences and artistic excellence of the highest caliber to our community” to something like “Providing opportunities for our community to stimulate their curiosity, cultivate their creativity, strengthen relationships with family and friends in a relaxing, rejuvenating environment.”

While that may be a little heavy handed, it does represent a conceptual shift from providing a product to defining the organization’s role in the community.

Art That Will Stop Your Heart

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I am generally opposed to promoting arts and cultural experiences as events that will make you swoon or enter some sort of ecstatic state. These aren’t common outcomes and there can be an implication of sorts that you are doing it wrong if it doesn’t happen to you. Obviously, you can have a really great time without swooning and there are many elements that can contribute to that experience that aren’t necessarily the work of art.

But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. Aeon recently had a lengthy article on Stendhal syndrome. The syndrome is named for Stendhal, the nom de plume of Marie-Henri Beyle, who experienced

“…a fierce palpitation of the heart …; the well-spring of life was dried up within me, and I walked in constant fear of falling to the ground.’

after visiting a chapel in Florence, Italy in 1817.

While I had heard of Paris Syndrome and Jerusalem Syndrome where people experience great distress/disappointment and psychotic episodes, respective upon visiting those cities, somehow I had missed Stendhal syndrome. While it is also called Florence syndrome, it is more closely associated with experiencing great works of art than with being in Florence.

Though since it is something of an understatement to say Florence has a plethora of great art works, the hospitals of that city certainly see a number of visitors experience all types of physical distress.

Every year, a few dozen tourists to Florence are rushed to the local hospitals, literally overcome by the city’s array of paintings, sculptures, frescoes and architecture. Some lose their bearings, others lose their consciousness, yet others still, on rare occasions, nearly lose their lives. In 2018, a heart attack befell an Italian tourist, Carlo Olmastroni, as he gazed at Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus in the Uffizi. (His life was saved by four other tourists, all doctors, who had also been standing and staring, slack-jawed, at the Botticelli.)

According to Graziella Magherini, the psychologist who in 1989 coined the term ‘the Stendhal syndrome’, dehydration and dense crowds certainly played a role in these tourists having heart palpitations and hallucinations. Yet in an interview in 2019, she insisted on another factor: ‘The psychological impact of a great masterpiece.’ Even scientists who dismiss the syndrome as psychosomatic confess that art can have this impact, though they refuse to diagnose it as a psychiatric disorder.

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Robert D Zaretsky, author of the Aeon piece, says that while he visits many famous art institutions a year, he has not had the occasion to swoon. He mentions that the way people consume art these days tends to insulate them from having these feelings. Not only do most people only spend a few seconds viewing art in galleries, they often mediate the experience through cameras and social media postings rather than allowing themselves the time to experience and consider the works.

But as with so many perceived problems with arts audiences today, the complaint isn’t new. Stendhal/Beyle felt the Louvre was far too crowded with visitors squeezing through the galleries back in the 19th Century.

“Their eyes are red, their faces tired, their lips tightened. Happily, there are couches to sit on. ‘How superb!’ they declare between yawns wide enough to dislocate their jaws. What human eye can remain unaffected under the assault of 1,500 paintings?”

[…]

Not surprisingly, Beyle rebelled against the crushing abundance of paintings at the Louvre, and instead believed its holdings would be better distributed among dozens of smaller museums where people might stop and engage deeply with these great works of art rather than glance at them over their shoulders as they passed at a slow walking pace.

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A Play About A Book About A Guard In A Museum

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Patrick Bringley, who wrote a memoir about his time as a guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art has an off-Broadway show based on his book.

He now stars as a version of himself in a one-man Off-Broadway show of the same name, dressed as a Met guard and regaling audiences in his soft, calming voice with meditative tales of unscrupulous visitors, the colourful backstories of his colleagues and, of course, about some of his favourite works of art.

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Some of the most interesting stories related in The Art Newspaper articles were about the wide range of occupations and backgrounds of the over 500 people who work as guards at the Met Museum. One of them intersected with the impact of being surrounded by all these artworks.

Bringley says one of his colleagues was a banker in Togo who fled the country after avoiding an assassination attempt. He and Bringley worked together at the Astor Chinese Garden Court, a Ming Dynasty scholar’s garden with an iconic, round Moon Gate as its entrance. When the colleague retired, he showed Bringley a picture of a house he was building in Ghana which had a replicae of the moon gate.

What caught my attention initially about the article is that I have seen a number of articles and comments from museum professionals who have recognized that their guards are often among the most popular and knowledgeable sources of information for visitors in their organizations. A couple mentioned centering programming around some of their guards.

So it isn’t terribly surprising to learn Bringley’s book about his experiences was a best seller.

Doubling The Yield Vs. Doubling The Land You Have

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Seth Godin made a post last week that aligns with the idea that it is easier and cheaper to retain a following rather than constantly trying to acquire new customers. Aubrey Bergauer will often post on social media about the issue of audience churn in the arts along these same lines.

Godin uses a slightly different, though very applicable, framing to illustrate his point

A farmer might yearn for twice as much land. But it’s far more efficient to double the yield on the land he already has.

Marketers often hustle to get the word out. To reach more people. And yet, activating the fans you already have–the ones who trust you, who get the joke, who want to go where you’re going–is far more reliable.

[…]

This is the overlooked secret of my book streak. I write books for my readers instead of trying to find readers for my books.

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Obviously this doesn’t mean one should abandon efforts to better connect with a broader segment of ones community which are core to the purpose of arts and culture non-profits. Since the long time base of arts audiences are dwindling there is a need to add new people.

Godin notes in part of his post I didn’t quote that it is better to double down on those that agree with you and encourage them to bring their friends than to spend a lot of effort convincing those who oppose you.

There are often segments of the community who are inclined to attend, but haven’t yet. Activation efforts focused on existing fans can envelop them as well. I had someone stop me on the street a week or so ago to tell me how interesting an event promoted on a marquee poster looked and assured me he would bring his family to see it. They didn’t attend the event. However the fact that he was engaged enough to stop me on the street and tell me he viewed one of our programs as something he and his family would enjoy was an encouraging sign. I suspect we will see him and his family in our space before the summer is over.

Reading To Your Kids Is Never A Bad Thing

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Last month an article in The Guardian reported that the number of parent reporting that they enjoy reading aloud to their kids 0-4 has dropped from 64% in 2012 to 41% for the same age group in December 2024.

Among the things I found most concerning is that there appears to be a degree of gender discrimination in terms of who gets read to as well as a difference in how different generations perceive reading aloud as enjoyable.

A significant gender disparity was identified, with 29% of 0- to two-year-old boys being read to every day or nearly every day compared with 44% of girls of the same age.

[…]

Gen Z parents are more likely than millennial or Gen X parents to say that children’s reading is “more a subject to learn than a fun thing to do”. HarperCollins said that parents in this age group grew up with technology themselves, so may think “fun comes more from digital entertainment than from books”.

Source

The survey was conducted by publisher HarperCollins and book data company Neilsen so there may be a degree of biased self-interest involved. However, I don’t think they are off-base in their concern that children may grow up seeing reading as an academic subject you are tested on and can either succeed or fail at rather than a pleasurable pursuit.

The survey findings suggest that though it is less than a majority, many adults still do find reading with their kids to be enjoyable. Research has shown that reading with and to children increases the likelihood they will find reading an enjoyable lifetime pursuit. HarperCollins and Neilsen encourage parents to continue reading with their children even after they appear to have mastered the skill.

Some parents stop reading to their children once they can read by themselves, assuming that their children will choose to continue reading, or that if they continue to read to their child who can already read, “it will make them lazy and less likely to read independently”, reads a report accompanying the survey. “None of these beliefs are true.”

Source

I would have liked to know more about why those beliefs about negative impact of reading to children after they mastered the skill were incorrect but I didn’t see a link to the study in the article.

Opening Doesn’t Provide The Opening Bands Hope For

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Interesting bit of research by Jeff Apruzzese who looked at whether opening for a major band on tour provided a bump in fame to launch them to stardom.

Apruzzese had been a live musician on tour with the group Passion Pit for about six years. In his experience, going from doing your own shows in from of 3000 people to opening for a band playing in front of 15,000+ felt a little alienating.

Reality was different. After playing our own packed shows where fans cheered and called for encores, we suddenly found ourselves in 15,000-capacity arenas, where it seemed like everyone was ignoring us: chatting among themselves, still getting to their seats or waiting in line for food and drinks.

It was a wake-up call. The transition from being a headliner at a smaller music venue to opener for a major act didn’t feel like a step forward. It felt like starting over.

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He conducted a study of bands who opened for major groups and found there was often a surge of listenership on streaming platforms of 18-20%, with some even seeing a 200% bump. However, that listenership often faded relatively quickly after the tour was over. Success that was promised by hitching ones wagon to a big star rarely emerges.

Apruzzese suggests that musicians face a more difficult job trying to gain a following because people aren’t invested in curating their own listening experience leaving the choices to an algorithm.

In a landscape defined by passive consumption, there’s still something powerful about the shared experience of live music. A performance can create an emotional connection that a stream simply can’t.

Today, discovery often starts with a playlist. Someone hears a song and maybe adds it to their rotation. But they rarely click to learn more about the artist. Listeners follow the playlist, not the person behind the music…

Live performances offer something different. A great set can turn a casual listener into a true fan. I’ve heard countless people say a particular show changed the way they experienced that artist’s music, that it left a lasting impression and forged a bond with the singer or group.

That kind of loyalty doesn’t come from an algorithm…

Source

$11 Opera Tickets Are Back In Philly

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When I made my post about the new TKTS booth in Philadelphia last week it occurred to me to check if Opera Philadelphia would be offering it $11 tickets for any seat in the house again this year. Sure enough, the next day, May 1, they started offering $11 tickets to subscribers, donors, and Opera Pass holders. Starting May 11, they open the $11 offer up to everyone else.

Prior to going on sale with the $11 tickets on May 1, they did offer fuller priced subscriptions to two of their venues ranging from $137-$666 for the series at the Academy of Music and $17-$166 for their Flex Package at two other venues. Both were promoted encouraging people to get their seats before the $11/seat subscriptions went on sale.

So to a great extent this is a matter of how important it is to you as an audience member to get the seats you want and how much you are willing to pay for them. If your risk-reward calculation suggests you can get acceptable seating waiting for the $11 on sale, then you wait and see.

There were some stories out about the return of $11 tickets in early April. There was also a video announcing the return of the pricing and addressing the critics. Essentially, they say they got the audience cross-section they were seeking and the attendees were invested in the experience. At the end a woman in an Instagram Reel says she saw everyone having a great experience. Opera isn’t dying, “it is just too daggone expensive.”

Discounted TKTS In Philadelphia

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The iconic TKTS booth in NYC’s Times Square and London’s West End has branched out and started serving Philadelphia. The Philly branch provides discounted tickets for theater performances, though I also saw a couple dance shows listed as well.

According to the article, over the last five or so months, the booth hasn’t done a huge volume of sales for local organizations. From what I have read elsewhere, the service in Philly licenses the TKTS brand so it doesn’t have the resources of the Theatre Development Fund behind it. But on the other hand, those running it don’t have their attention and interest spread across multiple markets.

Previous efforts by other ticket discounters didn’t meet their promise and left the city. The TKTS booth is locally owned and run by the Philadelphia Visitors Center Corporation and so is more invested in the success of local organizations.

Those interviewed attributed the low sales volume passing through the booth to lack of awareness. but they have high hopes. Those using the TKTS service are counting on it to raise their profile and awareness among both locals and visitors.

Services like Gold Star and TodayTix “didn’t step up in my mind. All the work was on us,” Flannery said. ”But the genius of TKTS and what Visit Philly and the Visitor Center are doing is that it’s focused on Philly.”

Quintessence’s collaboration with the TKTS booth makes her hopeful. “It’s a win for Visit Philly, the Visitor Center, and a win for the bigger arts community,” she said. “It’s especially perfect for us because we’re in Mount Airy. We’re not in Center City, so it takes a little bit of city knowledge to find us.”

In time, Flannery said the TKTS booth could play an integral role in bringing Philly theaters back to pre-COVID numbers. But more broadly, she expects Philly arts to become a more recognizable part of the city’s identity, similar to the Rocky Steps and Liberty Bell.

Source

Freakonomics For You Broadway Freaks

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For the last three weeks the Freakonomics radio podcast has run a three part series on the economics of live theater, Broadway shows in particular.

They are using the example of the effort to develop the show, 3 Summers of Lincoln, for Broadway as a backdrop for the discussion of all the forces that come into play when trying to make a show succeed.

My favorite, probably unsurprisingly, is the second episode that primarily focuses on the business side of things, including the role the owners of the Broadway house play.

For those who aren’t aware, 33 of the 41 Broadway theaters are owned by one of three companies –  the Shubert Organization, the Nederlander Organization, and A.T.G. Entertainment. So they have a lot of influence over what shows appear where and how large a share of the revenue they will take. As one Broadway producer says, “ It’s a fantastic business. It’s heads I win, tails you lose.” No matter whether the show does well or not, the house always wins because they get paid first.

Of course, they also talk about the labor costs of putting on a show when 13 different unions are involved. One of the producers admits that some of the more arcane rules in the union contracts are likely the result of someone trying to cut corners at some point and creating an unsafe or exploitative environment.

But all these things are predictable. Even after 100+ years of Broadway, the producers interviewed for the episode all pretty much admit that no one really has any idea why shows do well or not. Show that were smash hits in the past get big budget revivals and fail. Meanwhile, smaller budget off-Broadway shows become unexpected runaway hits.

Even as producer Hal Luftig talks about why people may decide not to see Broadway production of Legally Blonde, there is a clear sense that while his hypothesis has merit, he simply doesn’t really know.

Shows don’t work on Broadway for a whole host of reasons. it doesn’t have to be that the show is awful. You come to Broadway, let’s just say you have 30 other choices. What people choose can be a byproduct of where they are at that moment. We learned this on 

Legally Blonde. If you are coming into the city and you have two kids, a boy and a girl, invariably, the boy said, “Oh, I don’t want to see that. That’s a girl story.” So they choose another show that everyone’s happy with.

There are people who feel like I don’t need to see that on Broadway, I saw the movie — not really comprehending that a good adaptation has its own vocabulary. It’s not just the movie on stage. If a movie is associated with a star, as was Legally Blonde with Reese Witherspoon — “Well, is Reese in it? No? I’ll go see something else.”

Source

A core reason I liked this episode is that it did look at all levels of the life cycle of Broadway shows. Not only the original productions and revivals, but the economics of taking the show on the road for a tour and then licensing it to high schools to produce. Sometimes a show that failed economically on Broadway ends up doing pretty well on tour and/or generating a good revenue stream in high school productions.

One of the cases they mention is the Broadway adaptation of the movie Newsies! which was only intended to have a token run on Broadway for a few weeks to placate fans. It did well on Broadway because the production costs were kept low. It did well on tour because the Broadway set was designed to be taken on tour. And it has had a great career as a high school show because the cast requirements are flexible and scalable to the needs of schools.

What Do You Recommend We Do?

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As ever, I am paying attention to data on various trends, one of which is the level of perceived trust of cultural organizations. Colleen Dilenschneider and the folks at IMPACTS Experience have reported that trust in cultural organizations has increased, particularly since the end of the pandemic.

Last week they released some findings about perceptions during the first quarter of 2025. In general they found that trust of museums has held steady and trust in performing arts organizations has seen an uptick. But they warn that it would be a mistake to assume this trend will continue. (emphasis original)

On average, Americans trust cultural entities more than the daily newspaper, other non-governmental organizations (NGOs), state agencies, and federal agencies – and this has not changed since the administration changed and attendant new policies were issued!

[…]

It is also not reasonable to infer that trust perceptions will continue to increase or remain unchanged. We are looking at national perceptual changes on a short timeline (i.e., one quarter of a year). The American public may still be watching cultural organizations’ reactions closely, or they are trusting that these entities will remain true to their previously stated missions and values.

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One of the aspects most valued in cultural organization is being mission-driven. Dilenschneider and company had reported on this about a year ago and I summarized a bit in a blog post then. At the time they warned not to assume younger audiences valued the mission focused elements of an organization more than other generations because they were deeply invested in the mission of organizations. Rather, IMPACTS suggested it may just be that they haven’t been marketed to for as long as previous generations.

In any case, they recommend organization continue to focus on and communicate their mission as they tackle challenges they may face as they move into the future.

What particularly caught my eye in this latest bit of data analysis is that the survey data reflected a belief that organizations should recommend behavior. This is certainly something to think about.

Generally speaking, Americans do not love being told what to do. However, a majority of Americans “agree” or “strongly agree” that exhibit-based and performing arts organizations should suggest or recommend certain behaviors or ways for the public to support its causes and mission…

Even now, Americans generally expect cultural organizations to recommend behaviors to help elevate their communities as it relates to their missions. Depending on your organization, this may mean suggesting ways to further art education, keep the ocean clean, protect endangered species, cultivate native plants, advocate for theater, bring music to emerging audiences, make science-based decisions, or any number of things. And these action items may range from signing up for a program, to becoming a member, to donating, to attending an event, to telling folks about an organization’s important work.

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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.

Source

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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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.

Source

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.

Source

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.

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.

Source

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…

Source

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.

Source

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.

Source

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.

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.

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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,”

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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.

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Butts In The Seats by Joe Patti is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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