Musings on practical solutions for Arts Management
NewsRoom Contact Us

Audience Relations

While You Worry About Business Slowing Down, Prepare For A Sudden Ramp Up

by

The Conversation site had an article about the impact of Covid-19 on entertainment venues and events last month. (h/t to Artsjournal.com)

Authors Chris Gibbs and Louis-Etienne Dubois urge event managers to be cautious about making decisions to lay off or idle staff.  You may have seen similar warnings in other places about losing people who represent institutional memory and crucial relationship points with audiences and donors. The authors additionally note that dismissing the wrong people may hinder responsiveness and agility when everyone ramps up their activity all at once.

Live events and entertainment are people-based businesses that rely on the creation of emotional experiences and human interactions. Shedding too many employees, or the wrong employees, may impede the ability to resume operations when the crisis ends.

The author of an article in Harvard Business Review about management in uncertain times also suggests taking pragmatic actions and cultivating emotional steadiness in order to support employees and make them feel better than doing nothing.

In addition, a common response to crisis is to maintain customer engagements so that they return when the conditions allow. This is even more critical now knowing that companies are likely to relaunch all at the same time and engage in a costly battle for audiences’ limited attention. Employees should be encouraged to keep their companies’ name out there by connecting with customers in surprising and unexpected ways.

Many organizations are already doing a lot in the way of providing content and other touch points which will help keep them at the forefront of people’s minds.

My staff has been having conversations trying to anticipate whether audiences will be clamoring for something to do as soon as restrictions are lifted or if they will be hesitant to venture out until a few weeks later. That is why I have been following Colleen Dilenschneider’s surveying on that question so closely.

The other thing we are concerned about is whether we will have enough stagehands to work larger events. Supermarkets and Amazon are looking for more employees. If people in our stagehand pool find work in these places and decide to stay once things loosen up, it will be great for them to have more consistent employment, but that will impact us.

And if there is a flurry of activity from summer concert series in the region trying to return to activity, we will be competing for staff against organizations with potentially deeper pockets than we possess. So even as we worry about how the epidemic is impacting current operations, we have to be thinking about all the implications a return to activity might hold.

Public Policy Has Broader Influence On Attendance Than You May Realize

by

I had mentioned before that Colleen Dilenschneider was making weekly posts on an ongoing cycle of surveying about how Covid-19 is impacting intention to visit cultural organizations.

The post she made yesterday was especially interesting because she included a regional breakdown of attitudes. She grouped the different states according to similarity in attitude. She pointed out that while Washington, Oregon and California have similar attitudes, for some reason North Carolina residents are distinct from South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.

For all her data sets, she provides survey results from the same time periods in 2019 as a basis for comparison.  In 2019, the data for NC, SC, GA, & FL were roughly equal.  This year the difference in attitude is much larger.

She hypothesizes that these differences result from the fact Covid-19 is not impacting every region equally and the public policy of each region also varies.

While the national data is helpful for a broad diagnosis of the sector as a whole, COVID-19 is not impacting regions equally at the moment. New York has seen over 3,500 deaths and is bracing for a particularly difficult week, but Georgia’s governor has reopened its beaches and South Carolina is one of the few states still holding out on a stay-at-home order at the time of the data collection. These sentiments may be informed by what’s happening on the ground (i.e., how dire is the situation in the local communities), and by prevailing public policies.

She says some of the good news is that the overall survey results are stable over the last couple weeks. If you look at the bar graphs, everyone, regardless of region expect a return to normalcy at the three month horizon onward.

Just in general, I think this survey data indicates something we have probably long suspected –that government policy at every level creates a context which impacts our successful operations. It isn’t just funding decisions, but the aggregate influence of policies that apply to everything from infrastructure, licensing, agriculture, food, housing, transportation, education, and on and on.

All the more reason to have close ties with your chamber of commerce, convention and visitors bureau to become aware of decisions that are being made. Look for opportunities to learn about and provide advocacy for areas of the local & regional economy that may not seem to have a direct impact on you. If you are on webinars with other local government, business and community leaders trying to figure out if you are eligible to apply for funding available to small businesses, take opportunity note of who is in the virtual room, especially if any appear across multiple sessions, with the goal of  cultivating relationships at some point in the future.

You Know You Have Developed Good Relationships When A Coal Miner Supports A Solar Power Project

by

About two years ago I briefly mentioned a presentation made by Ben Fink at a conference about a community solar project Appalshop was working on in the heart of Kentucky coal country. Fink recently had a piece on the Brookings Institution website that went into detail about the where the effort stands today.

I wanted to point to it as an example of a cultural organization working in productive partnership with a community whose politics might strongly differ from their own .

The solar project wasn’t something Appalshop decided to do whole-cloth because they thought it was the right thing for the community. It was built on the relationships and trust developed over the course of years while working in partnership on other projects that aligned with the interests and needs of the community.

Results of this community wealth-building work have included expanding an award-winning farmers’ market into a community kitchen, reviving Kentucky’s oldest community square dance, and starting a brick oven bakery where neighbors recovering from addiction and incarceration could find work.

Despite being in the middle of coal fields, one of the biggest challenges facing companies and organizations was rising energy costs that threatened the existence of everything from the local markets to the volunteer firehouse.  While solar provided a solution to this ironic situation, being located in the middle of coal fields also made it a hot button issue.

Bringing solar to coal country was risky. Coal had been king for generations, and there was plenty of propaganda accusing solar supporters of siding with “elite, anti-coal activists.” It would have been easy to assume “the community” would oppose the project—except for the fact that the community was the one running it….

[…]

But the relationships built through the CCED process remained strong; the fire chief, a former strip mine boss and lifelong right-winger, continued to champion the project.

This work is not about changing residents’ political views. It’s about neighbors coming together across differences to create a new story about the place we all live in and love. To some, it’s a story about saving the planet. To others, it’s about saving money or fighting an energy company. But to everyone, it’s about supporting our communities and the centers that keep them strong.

The reference to the fire chief remaining a supporter was a testament to the strengths of the relationships they built. The fire house was a partner in the solar project but backed out when a gas company guaranteed the firehouse would never lose its gas supply. The fact the fire chief remained a supporter illustrates that his involvement wasn’t just motivated by desperate need.

Fink suggests that the relationships they formed helped overcome the perception that life in their community was a zero-sum prospect where what was better for someone else meant you lose.

I Figured This Was Highly Unlikely. What A Difference A Month Makes

by

Early last month I bookmarked an article by Jeremy Reynolds in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette intending to come back to address it in a blog post in some manner. In the article, Reynolds was arguing for shorter classical music concerts.  At the time, I figured it would never happen broadly due to the inertia of tradition.

Now with public events shutdown and artists and organizations streaming their performances, I strongly suspect a lot more people are going to be open to exploring the basic concepts Reynolds espouses.

If concerts were shorter, the quality of musicianship could increase significantly. I often chastise classical groups for bloated, unnecessarily long recitals. An hour of tight, balanced, in-tune playing is vastly preferable to a two- or three-hour slog of mediocrity.

While some organizations say a program should fill an evening, offering quantity over quality is a poor strategy even if funders tend to favor inventive and diverse programming.

He also accuses ever lengthening intermissions of impeding the momentum of the experience. Since his article opens with him advising friends to go home at intermission, I imagine he would be all for a short, intermissionless performance which would solve two problems at once.

He addresses the idea that you have to give people their money’s worth:

I realize that the cost of ticket prices (which I recently argued are too expensive given how little revenue tickets generate) causes some groups to feel they need to hit a minimum threshold of time, but this is arbitrary. Maybe it’s not about the length of the program, but what an organization does with it that matters most.

[…]

The New World Symphony, a forward-thinking training ensemble in Miami, rolled out a series of concerts years ago that ran for 30 minutes and 60-75 minutes.

“The trick is not to think you have to fill an evening,” orchestra President Howard Herring said. “The question isn’t just: What music do I want to bring forth? but What is the uncompromised artistic experience that only we can provide?”

Now that groups and individuals are streaming their performances, they are almost certainly getting a lot of exercise evaluating and providing a highly focused uncompromised artistic experience. If things ever move back to the former semblance of normal, I think it would be a safe bet that those who continued to employ the “muscles” they developed while focusing on delivering an uncompromised experience will be on a firmer path to success.

Streaming And Providing Content Is Well And Good, But What’s Next?

by

Last week in reaction to my post about Colleen Dilenschneider’s suggestion that cultural non-profits continue their marketing efforts during the Covid-19 shutdowns with a shift in focus, Carter Gillies made a number of comments on my post warning about making the marketing all about the organization rather than outwardly focused on the needs of the community.

So it seems absolutely vital that we take as much of the cues for misperception off the table. Even if we are not actively ‘selling’ anything, we can’t let the public be confused that our motivation at this point is somehow still about ‘us’. The Starbucks CEO was absolutely terrified that his attempts to remedy racism would be seen as more marketing. Marketing in normal circumstances is, well, normal. In a climate where the focus is so narrow, as it is today, we must pay special attention to doing what is right FOR the community, whether-it-is-right-for-us-or-not. If we are perceived as merely doing what it takes to promote our own identity and importance this will quickly backfire. Even saying organizations should be “maintaining high levels of awareness and being top of mind in the meantime” sounds offensive and selfishly oriented.

When I was writing about Dilenschneider’s post, I was envisioning that she was encouraging organizations to provide content on social media about streaming events, online activities, creative projects you can do at home, pretty much as they are doing now.

Keven Karplus chimed in with a comment pointing at such a home activity that the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History had recently posted.

So it didn’t really surprise me when the erstwhile director of Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History, Nina Simon, made a post on Medium wondering if this spate of event streaming and online activities was really the best approach. I had been harboring the same questions about whether the rush to provide content would ultimately be in the best interest of the arts and culture community.

Part of my concern was that organizations might be providing validation that a virtual experience was as good as an in-person experience. If the organization is able to pull this sort of thing out of their back pocket in a week, then they have the capacity to provide it on a continuous basis, right? Many people may not realize that a lot of the content is archival and was never intended to be seen by an audience.  American Theatre has a great piece that talks about many of the factors that are weighing on people’s minds as they make content available.

In her post Simon writes,

And it makes me wonder: is this the most meaningful way cultural organizations can contribute — or is it just the fastest way?

I’m not opposed to these offerings. I can see the hope and pleasure small snippets of art, music, history, and nature provide. But why are we doing it? Are we doing it based on some kind of expressed community need? Are we doing it with an eye towards serving communities that are struggling most? Or are we doing it to assure ourselves that we are “doing something,” to assure our donors we still exist— and that our jobs are worth keeping (which is in itself important!)?

You could argue that these organizations are contributing what they do best. But we’re a creative sector, and I think we could get more creative. In the race to deliver, I worry we may distract ourselves from the potential to envision and deliver true community value.

She lays out four steps she is using to figure out how to best contribute. As I read them, there was nothing I hadn’t heard before regarding connecting with new segments of the community. Only, now that there is less activity in our organizations, we have more time and energy to focus on following these steps.

1 – Select A Community Focus – she gives the example of homeless, elderly, nurses, but they can be any group.

2- Listen To The Community – While you can’t physically meet with people associated with your chosen segment, you may have the time to use social media to research, identify leaders, resources and challenges that face the community

3- Map Your Skills and Assets – I have to quote Nina directly here because she points out assets you may not think of (i.e. lending a lonely family member your dog)

If you’re exploring this as an individual, you might have assets like your time, your bilingualism, or your ability to cook. As an organization, you might have assets like a building, a digital following, or the ear of the mayor.

For me, the most important part of this step is creative dot-connecting. How can you use your creativity to make unexpected connections between what is desired and what you have? These connections don’t have to be huge to be meaningful

4- Check Your Assumptions – Nina points out she didn’t just drive to her sister’s house with a 70 lbs dog and drop it off, she had a conversation first. Nor should you decide what the segment of the community needs from you before marshaling your energy and resources.

Toward the end of her post, she encourages moving fast when there is an obvious way to contribute, but move slow when the path is not obvious or creativity could yield better results. She lays out a deliberate approach she is using in applying the four steps above and estimates it will be three-four weeks before she comes up with something concrete and useful.

As I do with many of my posts, I encourage readers to read her whole post in depth rather than relying on my imperfect synopsis. Especially since she lays out her argument much more convincingly than I have.

Imagine That, Creative Expression Retains And Increases In Value In Difficult Economic Times

by

By now you have probably heard about all the residents of cities around the world who have emerged on balconies and rooftops to sing together or provide impromptu concerts to those in their neighborhoods.  Imagine all the economic value they are generating with this creative activity! Surely it will help sustain the commerce of their communities in this difficult time.

Except, no it won’t. No one is doing any of this to bolster the economies of their communities, they are doing it to bolster a sense of hope and solidarity among their neighbors.

If there was any time to illustrate that the value of creative expression is independent of economic outcomes, it is now.  People are singing together across streets and alleys. Libraries are streaming their staff reading books. Organizations are providing creative activities that families can do at home together as downloads or video demonstrations. I saw a link to a public radio story about a group in NC who will provide a 30 minute virtual concerts to loved ones.

The biggest danger is the one that  has always existed–the assumption that if you were willing to provide this content for free during tough times, you can find some other means of support during better economic times.

Yet there is also the opportunity to turn around and say, when people were scared and panicking about whether they had a sufficient supply of toilet paper, expressions of creativity forged bonds between citizens, buoyed their spirits and gave them hope.  Artists provided a great service in maintaining the mental, spiritual, and emotional well-being of their community in a time of national angst. While this activity normally does yield economic benefits in a ratio significantly greater than the funding inputs, the real value creatives provide is unrelated to the economy.

While we may say these things all of the time in different ways, right now there are a lot of examples floating around broadcast and social media one can reference when making the case for support to funders.

In addition, while you wouldn’t necessarily want to continue doing something for free indefinitely, there is also an opportunity to leverage processes and expertise you may have developed communicating and providing content from afar into a more significant program. (i.e. You never had the time and resources before to stream content until your priorities were shifted for you.)

Likewise, once the current crisis is over, there will be an opportunity to hopefully solidify any relationships your activities for those in isolation have helped you develop.

In the meantime, pay attention to all the ways in which creative expression is exhibiting its value to society and take notes for later use.

Not Only Is Marketing Everybody’s Job, It Has To Be Done All The Time–Even Now

by

I highly recommend watching Collen Dilenschneider’s Know Your Own Bone site over the course of the Covid-19 epidemic. Every Monday she is posting data about intention to visit cultural entities in as the epidemic unfolds. She says her company is receiving data in real time. I am surprised to learn people are taking the time to respond to surveys.

In any case, it appears people anticipate going to cultural entities in the next 3-6 months. That didn’t significantly change between March 16 and March 23, but she warns we may see a shift in the next week as the reality of the situation begins to sink in.

With this in mind, she is cautioning people against letting their marketing efforts flag during this period of time and offers suggestions about how to shift the focus of those efforts from “visit now” to keeping yourselves on people’s radar.

Because there can be pretty large time gap between when people decide to visit an entity and when they take action to visit, marketing you do now is informing people who will arrive months down the road. She also points out that it often costs more to re-engage audiences than it is to retain them.

At the end of her post, she offers 4 suggestions for re-focusing marketing efforts:

A) Strategic deferral in paid media to local audiences

In response to the observed decline in immediate-term intentions to visit among local market members, it makes sense to selectively defer campaign spending for paid media that targets audiences with relatively short lead times….

To be clear, this does not at all mean ceasing all marketing and not communicating with local audiences. It means strategically deferring select paid media efforts for this market, and holding these funds in abeyance for deployment at a more opportune moment.

B) Replace investments aimed at immediate activation (“visit now!”) and focus instead on maintaining top-of-mind status and broad awareness

…However, the current environment suggests more of a “maintenance” approach that intends to preserve awareness of what your organization does and stands for in order to keep your cultural institution at the forefront of people’s minds.

Unaided awareness and top-of-mind metrics are measurable –… Organizations want to be ready to immediately reactivate audiences when they reopen, and that means maintaining high levels of awareness and being top of mind in the meantime.

[…]

C) Meet people where they are right now: Online

{…]

There is a terrific opportunity for creative connection right now that proves relevance far beyond your walls – from providing resources for parents aiming to home school or keep children busy, to conducting events with staff experts on social media, to sharing penguins exploring their empty aquarium to give a sense of what’s still happening behind the scenes. The opportunities for creative and engaging ways to execute our missions and connect with our communities are seemingly endless. They are a good idea right now.

Finding ways to execute missions, support communities, and stay top of mind are strategic initiatives that position organizations to better succeed when their doors reopen.

D) Be responsive – not reactive

…This is not the time for knee-jerk reactions and short-sighted “gut instinct.” This is the time to think through opportunities and the current condition so that cultural entities are in a position to succeed when their doors reopen. This may be especially difficult as executives field calls from fear-driven board members demanding speedy, unfounded, and feelings-based actions.

[…]

In regard to marketing investments during this time, an immediate instinct may be to achieve significant short-term savings. Some may even consider going dark. Be careful. Data suggest that doing this without considering how these cuts are likely to increase costs and reduce attendance revenue upon reopening may be a financial problem rather than a solution.

Your organization has likely worked hard to show how you elevate the community. You’ve cultivated a level of awareness. You’ve worked hard to achieve top-of-mind status for certain audiences.

Now is not the time to let people forget that your organization exists.

Now is the time to show people how effectively you stand for your mission and your community – both when your physical doors are open and when they are closed.

 

Small, But Growing Resources & Ideas For Live Streaming Your Covid-19 Displaced Events

by

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, Americans for the Arts hosted a webinar on the impact of Covid-19 today. At its peak, there were over 800 participants.

With all those people watching, there were a lot of serious questions posed. If you have the time, it would be worth watching the recording when it is posted in the next 24 hours or so. Pay particular attention to the chatroom because people were trading a lot of useful links.

I wanted to share some of the links because a number are very helpful if you are considering livestreaming events.

But first, Americans for the Arts and others are trying to collect information about the impact the current crisis is having on arts organizations so they can do some lobbying for relief. They are asking people to complete the survey found here. There are also a lot of other resources on that page so check it out.

Association of Performing Arts Professionals also has resources and appeals for Congressional action.

If you have visa questions about foreign artists, Covey Law has updates about consular offices and answers about visa extensions.

In terms of streaming resources.

•Someone posted this flow chart for musicians to help them decide what streaming service to use based on whether they want to monetize the experience or not.

•A really good resource about deciding to stream, what do use for video vs audio, and whether you want to monetize or not can be found in this Google doc. I am not clear who is updating it, but they are providing a great service. There is also an calendar of some upcoming livestream events toward the bottom. Even if you aren’t interested in the content of the event, it could be worth seeing how people are structuring their livestream to get tips for your own effort.

•A participant also pointed to this Better Lemons page that has resources and ideas for viewing parties, etc

•Someone also created a Facebook group, (on the fly during the webinar, I suspect) where you can list your livestream event as well.

Gotta Keep Reading, Even Though You Hate To

by

With all the anxiety being generated by news surrounding COVID-19, you probably don’t want to continue reading about the decisions groups are making about whether to continue events or not, and if they are continuing, what steps they are taking.

However, reading about what steps other people are taking can make you more aware of your options for moving forward and communicating with audiences.

I have probably read a good 20-25 articles since Monday in addition to an equal number of messages on our state consortium discussion group.  Still after all that, I saw an American Theatre article on the topic today that raised a point I hadn’t considered or seen anywhere else.

It was just a single mention about theaters no longer offering same-cup refills at concessions, but that wasn’t something that had entered our discussions at my venue. We are sanitizing left and right, but we had forgotten that by encouraging people to bring their theatre branded tumblers with them to help avoid creating plastic and paper waste, we raise the risk of cross contamination if they come back to the bar more than once in a night.

So as unpleasant as it may be to constantly read articles about responses to the virus, it is worth reading and paying attention in order to ensure you have a more comprehensive plan in place.

…..Damned if it isn’t going to be galling to ask people not to recycle.

 

Respecting The House Rules As A Guest

by

While looking for something totally different, I happened upon a tribute to the recently deceased executive director of Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo Service Center, Dean Matsubayashi. What attracted me to the article was the title, “Welcome to Little Tokyo, Please Take Off Your Shoes.”

I wanted to know what that was all about. My intuition about the intent of slogan was pretty much on the money.  Apparently when she was a student, Christina Heatherton, coined the phrase which was seen as a something of a counterpoint to bumper stickers declaring “Welcome to California, Now Go Home.”

The author of the tribute article, Josh Ishimatsu said the “Welcome to Little Tokyo” slogan embodied the goals the Little Tokyo Service Center had in

…being true to the underlying values of anti-gentrification and anti-displacement. In a piece that Dean and I wrote about LTSC’s role in the larger Sustainable Little Tokyo project, we said:

For LTSC, the challenge was to frame a vision of anti-displacement work that did not reify NIMBYism… How do we honor the past, prevent erasure, AND welcome the new in respectful ways… And, most of all, how can we do all this in ways that are equitable, sustainable, and empowering?

[…]

The slogan “Welcome to Little Tokyo; please take off your shoes” expresses the ethos that newcomers are welcome, but need to acknowledge and respect that they are entering a place with a pre-existing identity and normative culture. In this spirit, the Sustainable Little Tokyo planning process not only includes the participation of longstanding community stakeholders but also involves new residents who appreciate the role that the neighborhood has played (and continues to play) as a cultural hub and in supporting the community’s most vulnerable residents.

I feel like that last paragraph above not only embodies the approach people should have when entering a new neighborhood, but also one arts and culture organizations should embrace when approaching a new demographic/geographic area they previously haven’t served or feel they have under served.

I have written about this recently in relation to the concept of “arts deserts” and groups that don’t see themselves as hard to reach or having low arts engagement. The basic idea being that people who are deeply invested in the cultural traditions and practices of their community won’t necessarily welcome people coming in with a pitying attitude and offering to lift them up to respectability.

Portland, OR Art Tax Update

by

Back in 2012, Portland, OR approved a $35 tax to supports arts education and arts organizations around the city. In 2017 I wrote a post about how overhead was starting to cut into the amount of money available to distribute to programs. Part of that overhead was attributable to the fact people weren’t paying the tax and so funds had to be diverted toward enforcement.  Last week, via Artsjournal, is another article mentioning that the tax hasn’t proven to be the boon supporters hoped it would be. For one, people still are resistant to paying it.

The art museum, like the rest of the big five, never received the targeted 5 percent support.

That’s in part because the tax has never brought in the $12 million a year voters were told to expect. (Revenues were $9.8 million the first year and peaked at $11.46 million in 2016.)

Portlanders have been reluctant to pay it. Although the city’s population has risen nearly 12 percent since November 2012 and tax receipts should have increased proportionally, figures show revenues still never reached levels proponents forecasted.

A point I want to clarify. The article makes it sound like arts funding for schools has diverted money that was intended for non-profit arts organizations. However, from my earlier posts, it appears the law that was passed intended to fund the schools first and then the non-profits would receive funding. In fact, this recent article says when the measure was passed in 2012, funding the schools was politically more attractive to voters than funding non-profits. While the arts organizations had been pushing the art tax idea for a long time prior to the vote, when the time came, the resolution being voted upon was written to fund the school first.

The other thing the article notes is that between the collection effects and the art tax name, there are public relations and perception issues which have proven problematic.

While arts leaders all favor more Portlanders paying the tax, some worry the city’s zeal to collect is counterproductive. “You get pinged with a letter, you get pinged with a postcard, you get an email saying time to pay the arts tax,” says Portland Center Stage’s Fuhrman. “That’s where I think the bad PR comes in.”

Andrew Proctor, executive director of Literary Arts, which produces the Portland Book Festival, says the public’s ill feeling has a cost. “Even the name ‘arts tax’ sounds punitive,” he says, “and it misleads citizens that in paying the tax they have supported arts institutions. They haven’t. It can damage our fundraising efforts and can polarize the conversation.”

[…]

Hawthorne, the former RACC official, says he fears the public may believe the tax works. “Ten to 12 million is a lot of money,” Hawthorne says. “People may perceive the arts have had their influx and now it’s time to focus on more pressing needs.”

The whole article provides a lesson for those considering advocating for an arts tax of some sort. The basic idea isn’t bad, but the way it is structured and executed needs to be thought out. The example of Portland points to things people want to avoid. The name; the way in which it is collected, structured and discussed; all call negative attention to it.

It is worth reading the whole article because it also mentions the Regional Arts and Cultural Council’s (RACC) initiative to provide more equitable funding for smaller arts organizations. Back in 2012, RACC was starting to require more diversity on the boards, staff and eventually audiences of Portland’s arts organizations. In January, I had written about how the Arts Council of England was instituting similar requirements, forgetting that Portland had been working toward that goal for nearly a decade now.

Last year, RACC shifted their funding model to better align with this philosophy which includes size and economic diversity among its criteria. As a result, the larger organizations in town receive less of the art tax money than they once did.

Leaders Call For Disarmament Of Weapons Grade Elitism

by

I think there is probably enough overlap between my readers and Drew McManus on Adaptistration that I am not bringing anything new to the table when I point to his most recent post.

But man! It is so much in my wheelhouse that I wish I had written it. And with a title employing the phrase, “Weapons Grade Elitism,” it is hard leave it alone.  It pushes all the right buttons.

Drew had an encounter with program notes for a concert that were so dense, even as an orchestra insider with decades of experience wasn’t quite sure what the author of the notes was referencing. I think some of the content was worse than anything Trevor O’Donnell has criticized.

Long time readers know that I often cite findings of the 2017 CultureTrack survey and frequently discuss how the language in promotional and informational materials can be alienating to people who are just starting to be curious about different creative disciplines. I was pleased to see Drew invoking both ideas in his final paragraph summarizing his experience with the program notes:

In the end, these program notes do far more harm than we probably realize. When the CultureTrack ’17 report showed the number one barrier to engagement is people feeling like “it isn’t for someone like me,” we should actively revolt against practices that result in program notes like this. If someone with a music degree feels alienated upon reading them, imagine how the rest of our patrons will react.

Weapon’s Grade Elitism In 800 Words Or Less

Discount Unto Others As You Would Have Others Discount Unto You

by

Collen Dilenschneider is increasingly becoming my go-to source for general data about audience behavior in relation to pricing. Last month, she posted about the perception and attitudes free, discounted and full price engenders among attendees.

She had previously written, and summarizes in this recent post, that discounts tend to bring people who are already engaged with the organization back through the doors rather than achieving the goal providing additional access to people who can’t easily afford entry. She suggests that part of the reason is that the discounts are communicated through the same channels that made existing audiences aware of the organization rather than through channels and techniques that reach the desired additional audiences:

Thus, it’s often the people who already know that the experience is worthy of their time who take up a general discount. Also, general discounts – even if they are intended to pique the interest of income-qualified audiences – are often promoted using the same channels as every other outbound message, resulting in more awareness of access programs amongst people with household incomes greater than $250,000/year than individuals with household incomes of less than $25,000/year. (Here’s more on this topic.)

The new data she presents surprisingly indicates that the lower the price, the lower the value people place on the organization and experience.

In terms of satisfaction which influences whether people will return, tell their friends and have a higher value-for-cost perceptions,

This may surprise some. (“How can people who get discounts be more satisfied than people who paid no money at all to attend!? They got in for free, for goodness sake!”) What may surprise folks even more is that average satisfaction is notably highest of all among people who paid full admission prices for their experience.

In terms of likeliness to endorse the organization to others, it is much the same.

General admission visitors were significantly more likely to endorse an organization than those who got a discount or attended for free.

As it turns out, when organizations provide a general discount, visitors generally discount them right back.

Perhaps most importantly, what people paid for admission influences the perception of how dedicated the organization is to its mission.

When an organization discounts its onsite experience through free or reduced admission, it impacts how visitors perceive the organization’s mission, too. What happens onsite doesn’t just stay onsite

That’s why this finding may be the most important of all in this article.

People who paid full admission price believed much more strongly that these entities were effective in executing their missions. The difference is dramatic.When an entity discounts its admission price, it changes how the public perceives its mission and what it stands for.

She doesn’t say all discounts and free admissions are bad. As implied earlier, a disciplined, focused strategy of communicating discounts to a specific target audience rather than to the broader constituency can achieve the desired aims. However, it takes time and energy to cultivate relationships with the right people and direct money and resources to the correct communication channels.

Don’t Ignore “Can’t Use My Tickets” Posts On Your Social Media Page

by

I wrote a post that appeared on Artshacker today about ticket scams occurring in the comments section of performing arts organization social media accounts.

Essentially, what happens is that a short time out from an event, posts start appearing in the comments section of your organization’s Facebook page apparently from people who need to get rid of their tickets because they have a conflict with the date.

The biggest, most immediate tell-tale sign that this is a scam is realizing there are more tickets offered for re-sale than have been purchased. In the screenshots I posted as examples, the $5 movie we were offering only had 16 advance tickets sold but there were at least 54 tickets being offered for sale. This doesn’t count all the offers we deleted.

You also need to wonder about the promised heavy discounts people were offering on a $5 ticket that made it worth texting or sending a direct message to a stranger.

Another thing I see if I don’t catch the fake post in time is tickets being offered for free that suddenly have a price attached if someone responds with interest.

The answer, of course, is that most of these accounts were bots.  If you follow the link back to the poster’s account, you might find pictures of the person with family and friends which make it look legitimate (and I suspect some were real accounts that were hijacked) but others you notice some big inconsistencies like the fact their residence is in Sweden and they work for a company in Spain.

As I note in my Arts Hacker post, the simplest solution of shutting down commenting or requiring every comment to be approved can impede spontaneous reactions and conversations that create a sense of trust and community. Not to mention, it is difficult to conduct engagement campaigns if people are limited in their interactions.

Additionally, if people do get caught in a scam, it is likely to result in a negative association with, and perhaps distrust of, the organization on whose social media page the scam appeared.

If you knew you got a virus on a website or had your credit card number stolen on a gas pump skimming device, you would probably avoid returning, right?

One thing I didn’t mention in my original post but won’t probably come as a big surprise to many is that it is nigh-impossible to get the social media site to shut the scams down. We had a recent case where a person/bot posted their ticket offerings on their own page and tagged our page. I have to think this was a mistake and couldn’t have been effective because when we visited the page, there were more than 50 identical posts from a “woman” whose husband was deathly ill and couldn’t make dozens of monster truck rallies, concerts at bars, events at performing arts centers, many of them occurring at the same time across Canada and the United States.

We reported the page to Facebook. Even if it wasn’t a scam, a personal page was being used to conduct commerce. The response we got was that it didn’t violate any rules.

Anyway, check out the post on Arthacker, if nothing more than to see the screenshot examples of the type of posts you might encounter. I wouldn’t be surprised if the same names popped up on your social media pages.

Scammers In Your Social Media Community

Sweetening Incentives To Experience Creativity With Strangers

by

Knowing that one of the biggest barriers people experience when planning to go to an event is not having someone to accompany them, five years ago I was inspired by a Brazilian bus company that set aside seats for those who wanted to meet new people. And more recently I wrote about an English town that was attempting to do the same with park benches. There are coffee houses turning off the wifi in an attempt to get people to talk, as well.

I attempted to create a similar program at the performing arts center at which I previously worked. The idea was to match up people who didn’t have anyone to attend events. The results were good, but not exactly as I had planned.

Thanks to some funding by the local community foundation and buy-in from the local arts alliance, we are trying another iteration of this idea. Credit where it is due, my marketing director has pretty much spearheaded the effort (i.e. wrote the grant and is doing a lot of the groundwork) together with the executive director of the arts alliance.

The concept is pretty much the same as I had attempted before, except that it involves all the arts organizations in the community and provides a little incentive to sweeten the deal.

Essentially, the arts organizations will offer free admission to selected events. People will sign up indicating what type of events they would enjoy attending. They are matched up with someone else with whom they attend the event. They are given $20 which they can use to go out to get coffee or drinks, etc and discuss their experience. (Yes, it is a rare grant that allows the purchase of food.) Participants are expected to provide some sort of report back. I am going to nudge my marketing director to suggest that creative responses   (i.e. writing a poem, singing a song, making a video, etc.) are just as welcome as a narrative essay reflecting on the experience.

Our marketing director talks about the whole concept in a video interview if you want to learn more.

Details are still being pulled together, including getting participation from arts organizations. Keep an eye on the old blog here for periodic updates on the progress.

When The Docent Is Just As Storied As The Artifact

by

Back in November 2018, I wrote about how the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology was hiring refugees from Middle Eastern countries to act as docents for galleries of that region. Last week, NPR ran a story on the program which has expanded to include docents from Africa and Mexico & Central American to guide people through those collections .

The program has proven popular with visitors and peer institutions,

Attendance at the Penn Museum has shot up since the Global Guides’ first tours in 2018. A third of its visitors today attend specifically to take a tour with a Global Guide, according to the institution’s internal research, and the program has attracted attention throughout the museum world. Nearly a dozen other museums have asked about developing similar programs, and there’s already one in place at the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford in England.

Something that struck me as valuable to any arts & cultural organization, whether it is a museum or not, was the training these docent received:

The guides received traditional training in archaeology and ancient history. Plus, the museum hired professional storytellers to help the Global Guides lace in personal tales about their lives.

In the quest to make what we do feel more relevant to people in our communities, storytelling is an increasingly valuable skill. I have come to recognize in recent years that while we all have stories which have a powerful resonance for ourselves and others, not everyone is particularly skilled in telling stories. Making storytellers part of staff, volunteer and particularly board training can have some productive results.

Related to that, reading about the museum hiring professional storytellers reminded me of a post I did in 2011 about how the North Carolina Arts Council used folklorists to survey the residents of a county in which they wanted to set up an arts council.

This apparently yielded better results than having a surveying firm canvas the county because the folklorists were able to identify and access niche communities that might normally be missed–especially among those who don’t consider themselves to be artists. So on the flip side, people who are adept at collecting stories may be valuable to surveying efforts.

Folklorists, as it happens, are some of the best trained interviewers out there. They also have a particular advantage when it comes to arts research: folklorists are trained to seek out and recognize creativity in all forms, especially that which comes from people who don’t consider themselves “artists.”

 

 

P.S. Once again, I have missed my blog’s birthday. It was 16 years old yesterday. At least this time I remembered before Drew McManus wished it a Happy Birthday first. Not that this assuaged the blog’s resentment at having its birthday forgotten once again. You know how it is with teenagers

Pop Music, Now With Less Pep

by

Via Arts and Letters Daily is a link to an Aeon piece that claims pop songs have gotten increasingly sadder and negative over the last 50 years.  They lay out their method of analyzing lyrics and data which seems to reinforce this idea. Sadly, all the death metal, goth, emo, etc music my friends and I listened to in my youth didn’t seem to factor in as much as I hoped. It is hard to believe anyone today is titling and singing songs more blatantly depressing than Girlfriend in A Coma.

But I wanted to know why this trend might be manifesting. They posited three factors which might influence this: success bias, prestige bias or content bias. These terms are defined along these lines:

We checked for success bias by testing whether songs had more negative lyrics if the top-10 songs of the previous few years had negative lyrics…

…prestige bias was tested for by checking if the songs of prestigious artists of the previous few years also had more negative lyrics.

…Content bias was checked for by looking at whether songs with more negative lyrics also happened to do better in the charts.

Acknowledging that there is still more work to be done on studying this, they came to the following conclusions at this point in their research:

Although we found small evidence for success and prestige bias operating in the datasets, content bias was the most reliable effect of the three in explaining the rise of negative lyrics. This is consistent with other findings in cultural evolution, in which negative information appears to be remembered and transmitted more than neutral or positive information. However, we also found that including unbiased transmission in our analytical models greatly reduced the appearance of success and prestige effects, and seemed to hold the most weight in explaining the patterns. ‘Unbiased transmission’ here can be thought of in a similar way to genetic drift, in which traits appear to drift to fixation through random fluctuations, and in the apparent absence of any selection pressure

What really interested me was the idea that the decentralization of the recording industry removed a bias for distributing happier language in songs:

Given this preference, what we need to explain is why pop-song lyrics before the 1980s were more positive than today. It could be that a more centralised record industry had more control on the songs that were produced and sold. A similar effect could have been brought about by the diffusion of more personalised distribution channels (from blank cassette tapes to Spotify’s ‘Made For You’ algorithmic tailoring). And other, broader, societal changes could have contributed to make it more acceptable, or even rewarded, to explicitly express negative feelings.

This concept got me thinking about claims that no one wants to see theater dealing with serious themes any more and only want to see big flashy musicals that provide escapist entertainment rather than challenge people to think about their lives.

It could be that the fact people experience music privately through earphones allows them to gravitate toward a personal preference for negative themes that they don’t feel as comfortable engaging with through their public attendance of theatrical performances.

Or it could be that since theatrical production is so centrally controlled, the content that is distributed and marketed has convinced people about the type of shows they want to see. This may be particularly true if people don’t feel as confident in their ability to choose theatrical performances they want to see as they do music they want to listen to. It is easier to defer to the expertise of others.

 

The Socio-Economic-Ethnically Diverse Audience You Seek Is At The Library

by

There was an article on the Arts Professional site urging care in the Arts Council of England’s initiative to increase investment in libraries over the next decade. The author of the piece, Hassan Vawda, expresses concerns that attempts to revitalize libraries using arts may unintentionally damage all the beneficial elements of the library environment.

Statistics from DCMS’s Taking Part survey shows libraries are the only space used proportionally more by Black, Asian and ethnic minority (BAME) audiences than those who identify as White. In contrast, arts organisations and museums are used disproportionately by White audiences – despite more than a decade of language, policy and schemes aiming to support diversity.

[…]

People often have far more input into the way libraries are used as public spaces than they do with arts and cultural spaces – for all their outreach. At its best, the library is an intergenerational resource that adapts and moulds around the communities it finds itself in.

[…]

Outside the professional arts sector, libraries have engendered a trust that has eluded many traditional arts venues – and this must not be lost. The arts can definitely support the development of libraries, and amplify the case for reinvestment. But libraries must not succumb to the fate of the many art and culture-led spaces that have inadvertently become dominated by the middle classes.

As far as I know, there isn’t a similar effort in the U.S. to make libraries into trendy arts hubs. In fact, as Drew McManus pointed out today, the The Institute of Museum and Library Services is up for dissolution right along with the NEA, NEH and PBS.

However,  pretty much all the observations Vawda makes about libraries in England are true for libraries in the U.S. Even if Black, Asian and ethnic minorities don’t use libraries in greater proportion than those who identify as White in the US, I feel pretty secure in saying libraries are visited by a much more ethnically and socio-economically diverse group than most arts entities.

Reading this article it struck me that there is  potential to “get it right,” as it were. As Vawda mentions, arts organizations have a long history of outreach efforts that have had middling results.

The opportunity exists then in  putting a lot of effort into studying very closely the environment libraries provide, both in general and as specifically appropriate to their neighborhoods/communities and implementing radical changes to transform existing arts organizations.

Or, perhaps more pragmatically, arts organizations can bring their resources to libraries and be guided by them about how those resources are deployed.

I say this is the more pragmatic option because in all likelihood, in choosing it, an arts organization is acknowledging the great difficulty established arts organization would have implementing the sort of internal radical change required to cultivate the level of trust engendered by libraries. Even this would be a difficult decision for many since there is no guarantee that a close partnership with the library will ever increase the level of direct participation with the arts organization.

If the organization has the internal will to implement former option of providing an experience with the same sense of openness and user agency provided by a library, partnering with the library would already be part of the plan or the organization would already be hitting satisfying benchmarks and see no pressing need to partner.

Though with as imaginative as people are and as different the dynamics of every community, it is distinctly within the realm of possibility that some few arts organization wouldn’t have to radically change their business model and philosophy.

Pretty much either option requires a recognition that if the people you are dedicated to serving won’t come to you, you need to move toward them and meet them where they are.

The First Rule Of Modern Composer Club, Don’t Talk About Modern Composer Club

by

Conductor Robert Trevino had a novel idea of getting people to attend concerts by modern composers…don’t tell people what the program was going to be. Counter-intuitively, the concerts had full audiences.

He got his inspiration from a restaurant in Malmö, Sweden. When you go to have a meal, they ask if you have allergies and then bring you your courses without telling you what you are eating. In this way, you don’t prejudge your experience.

The experience of that meal made me realise that in some way or another we all are pseudo-connoisseurs – by which I mean, many of our experiences in aesthetic, subjective art forms are evaluated – even pre-evaluated – through highly formed expectations and preconceptions. We come to things with well-defined preferences, we don’t usually engage openly and directly with what has been presented.

He said he had proposed a program of modern composers and seldom heard works, but was told no one could attend. He said he believes that this estimation was correct. People would decide the concert was going to contain unpleasant, discordant music and would stay away.

So with a lot of cooperation from the musicians of the Basque National Orchestra, media and ultimately, audiences, all of whom conspired to avoid spoiling the experience for future concert dates, they kept the program a secret. All the concerts in the four states of Basque Country sold out despite all the mystery.

What occurred, remarkably, was a great trust-building exercise between us, our musicians, our audience and the media (who had to be complicit in all of this … The national news channels came and filmed rehearsal but broadcast in such a way that you didn’t actually hear anything identifiable, and I myself presented a promotional trailer for the orchestra where I jokingly promised to finally reveal all, but every time I was about to say a composer’s name we made it look like the signal had failed!

If you watch the video that accompanies the story, (I also include it below), you will notice the concert was a logistical challenge. The musicians come on to the stage at different times, moving into position while playing their instruments. Other times, they move around the stage. Trevino leaves the stage and goes to sit in the audience during the performance of a work.

If audiences are usually uncertain about when it is appropriate to clap, they were pretty much completely lost during these concerts.

But as I approached and saw all the people lining up for their tickets, I saw a look on their faces that you don’t often see in concert halls. It was excitement, blended with total uncertainty about what this experience was going to be like. The energy and curiosity in the hall was palpable. And once I stepped out on stage for that kinetic first sequence of works, the audience didn’t know quite how to behave – in the video you see me encouraging them to clap and celebrate the musicians at various points. When I went to sit with them during one of the pieces, people were shocked at the complete breakdown of the standard concert procedure and yet at the same time they were fixated and engaged and present for what was happening.

If you find yourself muttering, “we could never pull that off here,” because you don’t think your audience is adventurous enough, consider that you might be underestimating them.

Obviously, there was a lot of advance work that went into teasing audiences into being curious about the experience and then into providing an event that was both visually and aurally engaging. It is likely that few would have shown up if a conventional marketing approach was employed and they wouldn’t have been as engaged by a conventionally staged performance.  Everyone involved with the Basque National Orchestra, media and audiences made the effort to deliver on the promise that something interesting was going to happen.

 

 

Reading Rebranding As “You Aren’t Wanted”

by

Last month you may have read a number of news stories about the Methodist church in Minnesota with declining attendance that decided to kick out all their old members so they could attract younger members. Except that wasn’t exactly what the church was doing. They just wanted to close the one church for about 18 months in order to do some renovations and rebrand it and were asking members to attend a sister church in the meantime.

The goal definitely was to attract a younger congregation and the new pastor would be about 30 years younger than the current pastor. It sounds like the renovations had the goal of creating spaces in which younger people felt comfortable worshiping.

Shifting all this to the context of arts organizations, there is an eternal conversation about attracting new, younger audiences. However, research shows, arts organizations are actually pretty good at attracting new audiences, but not too good at retaining them so they return with some consistency.

This story about closing and rebranding made me wonder if there is any value in doing so if it makes your organization look more welcoming to a broader range of the community. We know that one of the biggest barriers to participation for people who aren’t already doing so is not seeing themselves and their stories being depicted.

If you were going to pursue closing and rebranding in a similar manner, it would have to encompass more than just freshening up the physical plant with a renovation.  The type of programs the organization offered would need to be revised. Likely the way in which they were delivered might need to be changed. Staff would either need to be retrained and/or new staff hired to deliver on the promises the organization was making.

Is there a good chance that all of this might scare your existing audience away in the same way it is turning off the current congregation of the church? Yep, good chance of that.

In the past I cited a couple of Nina Simon’s talks about providing relevance to the people whom you hope to serve. While she talks about creating metaphorical new doors for people to enter, if you are doing a renovation, you might create physical ones. She notes that it may be difficult for long time supporters to understand that not everything that is being done now is for them, even if nothing has been subtracted to provide experiences for others.

As I wrote:

A new initiative may displace one of regular events. Instead of 10 things designed for you, you only get nine. For a lot of people even 1/10 of a change can result in them feeling the organization is no longer relevant to them. This may especially be true in the case of subscription holders. That one bad grape in ten ruins the value of the whole package.

In this situation it can be a little tricky to say, that’s okay you don’t need to come to that show, we have other discount configurations that may suit your needs. Not only might your delivery of that message be flawed and sound offensive, but even with perfect delivery, the patron may only hear “that’s okay you don’t need to come.”

Even if the new initiatives are additions and don’t displace any of the current offerings, patrons, donors, board members can still feel the organization is no longer the one they value, despite having lost nothing.

Reading the different stories about the church in Minnesota, I got the sense that the current congregants were hearing “that’s okay, you don’t need to come,” in the planned renewal of their church. While that may turn you off of considering making changes for fear of losing what you already have, consider that what you are already doing may be telling a lot more people who have never walked in your door or come once or twice, “that’s okay, you don’t need to come.”

Glasses Are Just One Way To Hear People’s Light

by

About two weeks ago, I wrote about how England’s National Theatre has been developing technology and processes to provide closed captioning glasses to audience members who may be D/deaf and hard of hearing.  In the last week I saw a story in American Theatre about how People’s Light theatre in Malvern, PA had started distributing those glasses developed by National Theatre to their audiences.

I had initially just thought I would make a quick mention in a post or just tweet as a follow up to my earlier post. However, the American Theatre article included such great feedback and observations of people using the glasses, I felt the need to draw more attention.

One thing I wanted to note is that People’s Light is using the glasses as one option among many that they are offering . They originally pulled out the glasses when their existing open captioning technology stopped working in the middle of the show, but they mention they are still providing open captioning and American Sign Language at performances. Their goal is to provide these services on a consistent basis so that anyone can decide to attend on the spur of the moment rather than being restricted to a couple of signed or captioned dates.

From the observations of those interviewed, the potential range of people who might use the services appears much broader than one might expect.

There are some obvious applications. One woman who experienced hearing loss in her 40s said she stopped attending performances even though People’s Light was just down the road and hearing aids were semi-helpful in understanding dialogue. Once she saw the email about the captioning devices, she said it took her 30 seconds to decide to attend shows again. Another woman who lost her hearing 30 years ago and helped People’s Light purchase the LED screens they use to provide open captioning also took part in the trial use of the National Theatre equipment. She was equally enthusiastic about the options it opened up.

Perhaps the best testament was related by People’s Light staff:

“On the first night, we had a woman who arrived late,” Bramucci says. “It was her first time coming to People’s Light, and rather than throw her into the theatre, we had to give her the tutorial. We were in the lobby explaining to her how the glasses work while the curtain speech was playing on a monitor. When she put the glasses on her face for the first time, her face just exploded in this smile.

“After the performance, she could not have been more enthusiastic or effusive in what this meant to her,” Bramucci continues. “She felt that she was in on the experience. When people were laughing, she was able to laugh with them. She felt incredibly empowered, and she said she thought, this is what it must feel like to feel normal.”

But in terms of potential wider use by unanticipated constituencies,

Abigail Adams, People’s Light’s artistic director and CEO, felt similarly when she tested the glasses (which are now available at all National Theatre productions) during a performance of Follies. “I’m more of a visual person than an aural person, and I really liked having that text available,” she tells me. “I think it speaks to the different ways that people process information.”

People’s Light is considering how they might use the technology to provide greater access to non-native English speakers on an ongoing basis. But also, perhaps employing them in a reciprocal manner to stage performances entirely in another language and provide the English translation on the glasses.

Is The Key Focusing On Accessibility First?

by

Via Artsjournal last week was an article about the London Short Film Festival using glasses technology developed by the National Theatre to provide captioning to D/deaf and hard of hearing audiences. From what I have been able to determine, the National Theatre started using the glasses with performances in 2018, though they unveiled the project in 2017. Apparently, in the first 6 months, they had 300 people use the glasses, “and more than 10% of these visitors hadn’t previously been to the National Theatre.”  The Leeds Playhouse became the first regional theatre in England to use the technology in April 2019.

I have written about the multiple attempts to provide program notes during a performance through various devices, including glasses and phones, that have never really seemed to get off the ground. I don’t know that I have previously come across an attempt using similar pieces of hardware to expand accessibility to a broader segment of a potential audience as with D/deaf and hard of hearing

From the National Theatre’s results, I wondered if a focus on accessibility might be a better initial goal on the road to eventually delivering program notes. The technological challenge of creating captions that not only provide the synchronized dialogue during a live performance, but also the names of the actors, notes on sound effects and offstage noises by cross referencing voice recognition, sound and lighting cues seems like a lot to take on. Anyone who has mastered that probably has tons of insight into folding in all the enhanced, interactive program materials those other projects hoped to provide.

 

 

Seeing Your Stories In The Audience

by

If you want to see a good example of a show that is answering people’s need to see themselves and their stories on stage, check out Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj. The show is on Netflix, but you can catch episodes on YouTube as well.

Actually, the best examples aren’t the show episodes but the Deep Cut videos. The show itself is scripted and addresses social, economic and political issues with comedy–attempting to communicate serious issues without feeling preachy.

The Deep Cuts are separate videos of conversations Minhaj has with the audience. At first it seemed they were using them to keep the show in people’s minds when there weren’t any new episodes being released. Now the Deep Cuts seem to be a feature of their own. Where they used to be only around 5 minutes long, they now rival the length of the regular episodes.

What I had noticed in some of the earliest episodes of the show was that there seemed to be a very racially mixed group of people in the front row of the audience. The fact I noticed this made me realize just how homogeneous live studio audiences tend to appear on TV. At first I was thinking he was making an effort to seat diverse faces in the front rows, but once I started seeing the Deep Cut episodes where the camera is turned toward the whole audience rather than just catching the first couple rows, I realized there was no difference between the first row and any other row.  (So if there was anyone who said there aren’t any Asians in NYC interested in seeing a show dealing with topical issues, Minhaj proves them wrong.)

The stuff the audience asks Minhaj runs the gamut from asking him to choose between two silly options to making fun of his enthusiastic hand gesturing to questions about pop culture and his relationship with his parents. Many of the questions are derived from his family background as Muslim immigrants from India, which again has dealt with everything from parental expectations and Bollywood references to more serious issues associated with that identity.

Or rather, the questions are derived from a SHARED experience and background. Minhaj often turns the question back on the person and gets their answer. It is as much seeing your stories in the audience as it is on stage.

In a recent Deep Cut episode, he discussed being on Ellen DeGeneres Show and correcting Ellen when she mispronounced Hasan. He said he saw his mother cringe in the audience and decided to address it. As a comedian, he did it in a light-hearted way, but he said his father was angry with him on the drive home. Minhaj observes that his father’s generation had to tolerate the indignity of having their names mispronounced in order to survive and make a place for their kids, but that he felt like it was his generation’s responsibility to hold people to make the effort to use their real names rather than convenient shorthand.

I think it is conversations and stories like that which help establish the sense of trust audiences need to feel assured that their faces and stories will be depicted with sincerity and accuracy.

Now how that translates into something arts organizations can bring to their homes, I don’t know. It is definitely different for every community. In some places it may be facilitated by humor, in other places, food.

Making a pitch to a local community to come see a comedian who will talk about the economic forces that make retirement increasingly impossible, but will also chat with the audience about his favorite hip hop artist and sneakers may garner no interest even though that describes an episode of Patriot Act. Not everyone can make the format work the same way and Minhaj put thousands of hours of sweat into his career before getting his show.

It is almost guaranteed that mistakes will be made.  Readers may recall my post about Mixed Blood Theater and the fits and false starts they experienced while trying to develop a meaningful program with the Somali community in their neighborhood.

 

Arts Marketing Is About Shared Interests, Not Demographics

by

Back in October Sara Leonard made a blog post for Americans for the Arts about marketing in the context of the “false-consensus effect,” the idea that your personal opinions, beliefs and interests are more widely shared than they actually are. She says this gets in the way of effectively promoting an experience to others

It makes sense; it’s such a logical starting point! We go to market an event and think to ourselves, “What do I think is cool about this?” or “Why would I want to go?” Or maybe we’re repeating what the artist themselves thinks is the key source of attraction to a given event, believing that the artist must know what’s good about their own work. But here’s the problem: we—you, me, artists—are NOT our average audience members…. Our job, as arts marketers, is to serve our current and prospective audiences a picture that connects with their interests and values in a package that evokes an experience they want to have. And to do that, we need to cast our imaginations beyond the limitations of our own perspectives and experiences, get to know what makes our people tick, and to imagine the other complexly and with respect.

She says the best approach is to employ three  W questions- Who? Where? Why do they care? But in addition to using these questions to segment the universe of potential audiences in order to properly target them, she suggests applying them in slightly different ways with those whom we already know versus those we don’t know yet. The latter group being people who rarely, if ever, participate in events we sponsor. (Though I suppose it could equally apply to people who might attend frequently with whom we have a pretty tenuous relationship in terms of understanding their motivations.)

What I appreciated about Sara’s perspective on this was that she reversed the order of her 3W questions when it came to people we don’t know yet. She asks “Why do they already care”   about some part of what is being offered first. From there she goes on to identify Who those people are and where connections with them might be made.

Perhaps the most salient point she exhorts readers to keep in mind came toward the end (my emphasis):

Your “who” groups should not be based solely on demographics. There is nothing about our demographic characteristics alone that explains WHY we spend our time and money the way we do, so let’s imagine and create connections based on shared interests and values first. Then, look around the room and see what demographic groups are missing. (Hint: That’s a “who” for next time…)

 

Making Singing “Ah” For Six Minutes Sound Interesting

by

Last week Vox had a backstage video on the Metropolitan Opera production of Philip Glass’ Akhnaten. What I loved about it and wanted to call attention to was the way in which they made elements of the production that would be barriers for both new and existing audiences intriguing, potentially piquing curiosity.

I mean, if I told you the opera was sung in four different languages; featured a six minute period where everyone sang “ah!”; had a minimalist set; a costume festooned with baby heads; a cadre of professional jugglers; and period of full nudity, you might be a little wary about going.

Though that might sound more appealing than the description on the Met site:

Director Phelim McDermott tackles another one of Philip Glass’s masterpieces, following the now-legendary Met staging of Satyagraha. Star countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo is the title pharaoh, the revolutionary ruler who transformed ancient Egypt, with the striking mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges in her Met debut as his wife, Nefertiti. To match the opera’s hypnotic, ritualistic music, McDermott has created an arresting vision that includes a virtuosic company of acrobats and jugglers. Karen Kamensek conducts in her Met debut.

Please be aware that this production contains some full-frontal nudity, which may not be suitable for young audiences.

The video starts out addressing the 6 minutes of “ah” pointing out that it is harder than it sounds, and showing the stars tackling it with grinning gusto and periods of frustration.  Charismatic star Anthony Roth Costanzo references the pharaoh, Akhnaten, the first to embrace monotheism, as a “totally fascinating, weird, complex guy.”

The video makes the whole idea of the trained voice accessible by having light hearted conversations about vocal warm ups disturbing the neighbors, working with Castanzo’s vocal coach in a living room–and then seguing to the importance of the first tone when the singer opens their mouth to deliver.

Then they talk about what sets composer Philip Glass’ minimalist approach apart from other operas.

They aren’t afraid to use unfamiliar terms like “sitzprobe” because after defining it, they talk about why it is important — the singers and musicians come together for the first time after weeks of working apart–and it is an exciting time. They also illustrate how much work it is to bring all these pieces together – how easy it is to fall out of time and how the conductor and the prompter keep the musicians and singers synchronized with each other.

The reason for having 12 jugglers is explained. The viewer gets a sense of how the swiftly moving balls are a counterpoint to the music and slow movement of the rest of the performers and how the balls and massive sun are tied symbolically.

Even the nudity is addressed with Costanzo discussing the experience of descending 12 steps over the course of three minutes staring directly at 4000 people while completely naked.

Actually, at the end of the video Costanzo discusses the whole challenge of the opera:

“If I told you you’re going to come see a minimalist 3.5 hour opera about ancient Egypt, where there is no real story and it is sung in ancient Egyptian, you’d think ‘Man, there is no way I am going to that.’ And yet, I bet you are going to love it.”

I will be the first to tell you, whoever put this 10 minute video together spent a lot of time and money on it.

However, it succeeded in making the show seem interesting and accessible due to the way it framed the information it was presenting, not because of the high production values. You are interested in learning more because you like the people and they talk about what they are doing in a relatable way. There is nothing in the video to refute a claim that the nudity is gratuitous, but there is probably going to be a part of you that is cheering Costanzo on because he is literally manifesting the nightmare about walking into work naked.

I offer this as an example of how to talk about your work and diminish the intimidation/ perception of strangeness newer audiences may experience.

 

Escapism Over Escape

by

Historically, theater fires have been among some of the worst in terms of loss of life and property damage. Improvements in firefighting equipment and building design and construction have fortunately made most of those tragic tales infrequent, relative to the situation in the late 19th and early 20th century. An article on New York City theatre fires in Lapham’s Quarterly during this time period illustrates what significantly increased the hazard and opportunity for loss of life were gross misrepresentations of the safety of theaters coupled with a lack of effort to improve the conditions.

To combat the growing reputation of theaters as death traps, New York City impresarios began to advertise their venues by stressing just how safe they were—without changing the actual structures. In 1901 the top of the Broadway Theater’s playbills, above the production information, read “Safest theater in the world—34 exits.” That same year, the Knickerbocker’s playbills stated that it was “Absolutely Fireproof.” By 1904 the Majestic was billing itself as “New York’s finest—the world’s safest theater—positively fireproof—42 exits,” and by 1906 the Colonial was claiming it was “absolutely fireproof—this theater has the lowest insurance rate issued to any theater in the world.”

…According to Gerhard’s report, as of 1899 New York’s Fifth Avenue Theater could hold 1,400 people but be emptied in 2.5 minutes, while the Abbey Theater could hold 1,450 people and be emptied in 1.5 minutes. The enormous Madison Square Garden, which could hold 17,000 people, apparently required only 4.5 minutes for complete evacuation.

These hypothetically efficient evacuations were impossible to execute, however. Theaters and movie theaters often were illegally packed to standing-room-only capacity, with additional bodies blocking potential routes of egress. Furthermore, Gerhard found that the doors were locked in many of the buildings, and many of the exits first wound through basements or alleyways. Some exits even led to wooden staircases. Families and young children were frequently given permission to be seated in the highest galleries, which made their top-priority exits more difficult.

What is interesting is reading about how much the theater owners and managers resisted safety procedures fearing the optics of making people aware of fire exits would make people consider other diversions. A good number of the bad choices were preserved in the name of maintaining the escapist environment of the theater.

Among the reforms that had been suggested were having firemen walk out on stage at the start of the evening holding placards directing people’s attention to the nearest exits. It was pretty much exactly what flight attendants do on a plane today. When it was brought up in a meeting of theater managers, there was a great deal of push back out of fear of panicking audience members or souring the experience by suggesting the theater was unsafe. According to the article, actors would see a fire but would continue performing in order to maintain the facade they had constructed. In at least one case, opening a door caused a cross draft sending the fire the actors were observing flaring into the seating area.

It is something to think about as live performances try to compete with digital forms of entertainment. What lengths are people willing to go in order to provide the immersive experience they believe is required. What corners will be cut? I have already seen hints of this where occasionally contracts request/require no pre-show announcements or stipulate they occur so early only half the audience sees them. I don’t imagine any of this would expose current audiences to the dangers looming silently over 19th & early 20th century audiences, but the lessons of those times bear consideration.

It’s Annual Appeal Time?! My Papercuts Still Haven’t Healed From Last Year’s Envelop Stuff-A-Thon

by

As Thanksgiving approaches, your anxiety level may be rising at the prospect of spending uncomfortable meals with relatives, engaging in an even shorter official Christmas shopping season than usual, and getting your annual appeal letter out.

I can’t help you much on the first two, but a couple years ago Fracture Atlas posted their helpful “Procrastinators’ Guide to Sending a Year-End Appeal”

Reading their guide might cause you a little bit more anxiety at first when they suggest the appeal consist of three different missives rather than one, but I promise there is a method in their apparent madness that aims to make the whole process productive for you. (my emphasis)

The centerpiece could be a 1-2 page letter mailed in a pretty envelope with a seasonal stamp. This will set the flavor for your whole campaign, aesthetically and thematically. Your “sides” could be a follow-up email about two weeks later, with a final email request within the last few days of the year. Make sure there’s a visual through-line in these materials and that they reference each other, otherwise the recipient may not recognize that the materials are related.

If you have read this blog for any length of time, you know I talk about the importance of marketing materials being focused on the experience of the participant rather than on the importance of the organization or performer. The appeal letter is no different. Juliana Steele who wrote the Fractured Atlas piece says the emphasis should be on the impact the donor can have and be positive in tone rather than focused on the organization and its frightening dire need.

While it may be true that your program, production, or exhibition will have to scale back if you don’t raise the appropriate funds, remind them of what you will be able to do with their support, not what you won’t be able to do. The holidays may have them stressed out — give them inspiration!

Other suggestions Steele makes deal with the logistics of the ask–including specifically asking for a donation rather than implying it. Projecting success is important, but not the appearance of wasteful spending. Steele says the letter should be printed on good paper, but nothing so fancy that people become concerned about organizational priorities.

It should be easy for people to return their check in a return envelop or make a donation online. The more steps people need to take to get funds to you, the greater a chance their process will stall along the way.

Of course, sometimes the hardest part of writing an appeal letter is just getting started. Take it from someone who learned to type on an actual typewriter–the best thing about word processing is that the time cost of writing more than will be ultimately necessary is near zero. Starting to write anything knowing you will edit it down moves you closer to the end goal faster than staring at a blank screen. (These blog posts don’t come easy a lot of times and often evolve a fair bit from the topic I started writing about.)

Steel provides the following advice along those lines:

Writing a letter that is inspiring can be challenging and anxiety producing. Honestly, all you can do is sit down and get words on paper. Turn off the television, navigate away from your inbox, read appeals from other organizations, and make a list of all the amazing stuff you do (and will do next year). After a while, you will have something to work with and build upon.

Museum, The Video Game

by

Via a social post ArtsMidwest made, there is a museum management game coming out next year called Mondo Museum. Thinking back to all the posts Nina Simon had made on Museum 2.0 over the years, my first thoughts were that there was no way a game could really encompass all the ways in which a museum needs to work to become relevant to their community.

Then my misgivings started to move toward 10 on the dial when I read the following:

Success is quantified in two ways: money, which comes from ticket sales and gift shop revenue; and prestige, which is measured by visitor numbers and their experiences. These metrics feed each other: a prestigious museum will have high foot traffic, while a big-budget will give you more opportunities to please audiences.

Granted, the game designer wants Mondo Museum to have the widest appeal possible so these are terms which general players could best understand, but revenue and visitors are hardly the best measures of a museum’s real value.

My concerns began to dial back when I read there would be some nuance required in the curation of displays and that the designers were cognizant of some important conversations associated with museum collections.

Curating shows that draw meaningful connections between disparate collections—like a model of the solar system next to ancient Egyptian astronomical tools, the designer suggests—will earn you points.

[…]

Yet, by and large, the game is not about replicating the modern museum. Instead, it posits an alternative form of institution, one free from colonial histories, strict genre restraints, and underpaid labor.

In the world of Mondo, art is never purchased, and artifacts are never obtained through imperialism or theft; all historical objects live in institutions near to where they were created

In an interview in another article, the game creator commented:

…if anyone is brought in will likely be to review specific collections for cultural sensitivity issues we might have been oblivious to. For example, someone recently brought up the debates museums have around the subject of human remains when making exhibits about ancient burial practices and so on, which I hadn’t considered before. That kind of insight is really helpful (in our case, this helped me decide to only have mummified animals because a) they’re actually pretty cute while human mummies are pretty gross and b) a human mummy is kind of unnecessary since the real interesting artefact/art is the coffin and sarcophagus).

No video game is going to perfectly replicate all the considerations of running a museum. (I mean what museum can operate entirely on earned revenues, with a well-paid unionized staff,  avoiding grant writing, fund raising galas and thorny ethical questions about accepting large donations?)

As the creator discovered, there aren’t actually any museum management games out there. The fact that the game encourages people to draw thematic connections between seemingly disparate topics in curating displays and requires you to source objects through exchanges with legitimate sources means it introduces people to some good processes and practices.

No One Has Been So Energized About You Visiting The Bathroom Since Your Parents Potty-Trained You

by

If you want to read a great story about taking the initiative to provide great customer service, check out the story about Tonya Heath, head usher at the Forrest Theatre where Hamilton is being performed in Philadelphia.  She has undertaken one of the most important tasks of all — guiding the women’s restroom line at intermission.

After two weeks of porcelain chaos, she knew she had to do something.

So she assigned herself to bathroom duty and now ropes in at least two other ushers to help her. It would be devastating, she says, for someone to miss the beginning of Act Two.

[…]

Heath climbs on top of a piano bench outside the bathroom and makes an announcement:

“Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention please. We are at minute five out of a 20-minute intermission, which means I have 15 minutes to get you into this bathroom. I’ve formed a serpentine line. And it works. It only takes about six minutes from that door to get you in this bathroom.”

“All I need you to do,” Heath tells the crowd, “is trust me and trust your sisters.”

[…]

But then the lights flicker, the ladies in line seem to collectively gasp: “Nooooo,” women say. They don’t want to miss even a minute of Hamilton, a show for which people paid as much as $499 a seat. Should they throw away their spot?

“All right, my loves, we are approaching minute 13. That was a scare tactic,” she says. “That’s how we get people into their seats a little bit faster. We’re only at minute 13. I promised you 20 minutes. We have about seven to eight minutes to get you back upstairs.”

Heath sings her instructions: “Stay in lineeeee.”

The crowd that a few seconds ago seemed terrified is now clapping and cheering.

This is one of the best examples of embodying the ideals of relationship building using the arts’ inherent home field advantage I have come across in a really long time. The only issue with promoting her as a reward is that she might be taken out of direct contact with audiences and her natural talent would be difficult to teach to others. (None of which should used as an excuse for not promoting and paying her more, of course.)

I also have to give some props to Philadelphia Inquirer write Ellie Silverman who put in the effort to add some tips at the end of the article about where to use the restroom in the neighborhood before you get to the theater; how to tell when intermission is arriving so you can be prepared for the mad rush to the restrooms; but also not to assume there are any boring parts you can skip out of to use the restrooms during the show.

Perception Is More Powerful Than Money

by

Today was the big day for our community’s On The Table discussion. If you aren’t familiar with the nationwide program, it is a day different groups in a community host discussions on any topic they feel needs to be addressed–including just leaving things open for whatever comes up. In our community, there were hundreds of tables hosting thousands of people doing everything from having breakfast with the mayor to discussing urban revitalization, homelessness, law enforcement, entrepreneurship, preserving oral history–you name it.

I hosted two separate sessions about Arts Midwest’s Creating Connection initiative. I will probably reflect on that in a future post.  Perhaps the most valuable bit of insight for arts and cultural organizations didn’t emerge from a conversation in my venue, nor do I believe the slated topic of conversation was about the arts.

My marketing director was having a conversation with a woman who is an artist and currently works for a foundation which funds arts initiatives. This woman admitted that she regularly attends performances at a local theater and always see the big sign encouraging her to subscribe. However, she has never subscribed because she perceives that as something old people do. She also admitted she kicks herself later for paying full price when she could be getting a good discount by subscribing.

While this is only a single anecdotal case — notice that she would rather pay full price in order to avoid being associated with her perception of a subscriber. Perception was a much greater motivator than price. That is something to think about when price is cited as the primary impediment to participation.

When she was attending a discussion at my On The Table event, this same woman talked about her previous job working for an organization that had a gallery of work by local artists. Before she started working there, she had never entered the gallery due to concerns about whether she would be allowed to enter and if she was dressed properly.

Looking at the same gallery through the windows from the street, I would describe it as having a welcoming homey quality, but that isn’t what she saw.

Her candid conversations just reinforced for me the research findings that point to just how strong an influence one’s sense of belonging has in whether people participate in an experience or not. It is the invitation to participate, how the invitation is framed, who extends it and what the experience is that matters much more than the sticker price.

Another thing that came to light was just how difficult it is to communicate the existence of opportunities that align with people’s interests. One of our ticket clerks is a law student. Above our lobby are six floors of county offices housing everything from the district attorney, county court officials, and state/local/federal law enforcement.  A number of those offices were hosting On The Table discussions about law enforcement, courts, and sentencing as a resource for the general community.

Not only did the law student not know conversations with people with whom she would be interested in speaking were occurring, she wasn’t aware that the entire On The Table program existed. Other staff felt like we couldn’t escape information about it on social media, television, radio, posters, etc., especially in the last month. Our clerk had no concept such a program existed in the world.

Part of the blame for this falls on our shoulders. Prior to today, we apparently never told one of our most trusted employees in our most public facing office that the events would be occurring across the lobby from where she sat in case anyone asked questions.

Though by the same token, she apparently doesn’t look at the event listings on our Facebook page and website with any frequency to familiarize herself with videos and other content associated with upcoming events. But even that just illustrates how difficult it is to get information in front of people and register with their attention.

The Enduring Power Of Antici……pation

by

From the “I wish we could figure out the formula and bottle this” file, we hosted a showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show on Friday.

The staff at the theater had been advocating for a screening for years before I started working here. I can perhaps understand why it hadn’t been scheduled before. The screening rights are nearly three times any other movie, especially if you want to show it around Halloween, and Fox Pictures apparently also needs to sign off on it. (Rumor has it, Disney is locking down Fox’s movie catalogue so Rocky might even become more difficult to show in the future).

Based on our usual movie attendance, we figured we might have 350 people attend given Rocky Horror’s cult film cachet. We ended up with 900 people attending. We rarely sell even 25 tickets in advance of the date and we had 750 ticket sold prior to opening the ticket office that night.

A number of readers will think to themselves, of course it drew that size an audience, it is a legitimate force of nature unto itself. The movie was a regular midnight show in cinemas across the country throughout the 70s and 80s. Heck, there are still movie houses that continue to host screenings year round. It is the only movie where it is acceptable to shout at the screen. In fact, not knowing the raunchy, off-color ritual call outs marks you as an outsider and subjects you to embarrassing hazing in front of the entire audience.

(And yet apparently, clapping between movements of a symphony causes more anxiety than the prospect of literally being marked as a virgin of the experience and jeered at and pelted by a raucous mob of people, eh? Maybe the expressions of disapproval in an orchestra hall are too polite?)

The simple truth is, a smaller audience wouldn’t be unexpected.  The screenings have become a lot less frequent than they once were. I remember when the movie came out on VHS tape, I thought it would be the death knell for the whole tradition if people could watch the movie in the comfort of their own home. The whole social aspect and “oral tradition” would be lost.

Granted within a decade or so, you could download a script from the internet that prompted you with the correct responses and actions, but that does nothing to prepare you for the experience.

There definitely has been a decline in familiarity with the show and its traditions. The guy playing Rocky in our shadow cast lost his  show virginity a month ago when the cast went to Atlanta to see the shadow cast at a place that runs the show year around.

Having a large audience in our community was by no means a foregone conclusion.

We worked to make the usual experience even more of an experience. We had a shadow cast that really put in a lot of rehearsal to make their presence an asset to the show.We posted interviews with each member on social media in an effort to garner attention and support from their family and friends.

We had karaoke, hosted by a local burlesque troupe, start in one of our bar spaces two hours prior to the screen time to help people get into the mood.

We also created prop bags, both to enhance the experience of people who had never participated, but also as a way to keep the food elements (toast, rice, etc) out of our recently renovated historic venue. There was still A LOT of clean up involved, but we were able to protect the condition of our space.

This is what is looks like before 900 people need to use newspaper to shelter themselves in a squirt gun rainstorm.

Since the Rocky Horror tradition is about 45 years old, the most interesting part of the experience was having 20-30 years accompanied by parents who convinced them to attend based on the experience those parents had when they were in their 20s.

We were really hoping for a swath of 50-60 year olds decked out in costumes, but there weren’t as many as we were praying for. (Barry Bostwick performed here 6 weeks ago. At 74 years old, he could have still rocked the corset and fishnets.)

Only in America can multiple generations strengthen their relationships yelling insults at a 45 year old movie and thunderously stomping their approval at the entrance of a sweet transvestite from transsexual Transylvania.

Continued Anticipation Of The Digital Divide

by

Yesterday I made a post wondering how soon it might be before the digital divide kept people from participating in cultural activities.

At the time, I was trying to think of examples of instances where it might already becoming difficult to gain access to places without access to a phone or computer and couldn’t think of anything specific.

A commenter noted there are some places where you are obliged to access information via a phone app rather than having it accessible on webpages.

This jogged my recollection that I have already run into a couple instances where a phone was necessary to buy tickets in advance. It just wasn’t in the U.S.

In China, there are daily admission caps on a growing number of cultural attractions. The Palace Museum/Forbidden City has been that way for years. The most popular section of The Great Wall, Badaling, just had daily quotas applied this summer. (There are other less crowded sections nearby, but the train runs from Beijing to the Badaling section, making it the most convenient place to visit.)

In order to purchase tickets, you need to use a credit card from a Chinese bank. This isn’t terribly surprising. There is also an option to pay via the WeChat app which is pretty ubiquitous in China.

What is more surprising is that you can’t even get to the payment screen if you don’t have a Chinese cellphone number. You need to enter your cell number in order to receive a code before you can even pick a day to visit in the case of The Great Wall or before you get to the payment screen for The Palace Museum.

So if you are a foreigner, even if you have your credit card loaded into your WeChat app, you still need a friend in China or travel agent to help you arrange for a ticket if you are concerned about gaining admission. If you are someone who lives in China, you need to have a cell phone in addition to your credit card or payment app.

For anyone planning to visit either the Badaling section of The Great Wall or The Palace Museum, the respective webpages tells you how many tickets remain for the next 10 days. Based on that, you can gauge how likely you are to get in if you show up in person to buy a ticket.  (Which is what I did this summer.) Visiting the website on multiple days to watch how quickly the tickets sell is an investment of time and energy that simply being able to purchase them outright doesn’t entail.

I don’t know exactly why the process requires a cell phone to receive the code, but I can easily see how the added step would prevent or at least slow the automation of purchasing for resale.

Since the security features of many social media and financial services corporations in the US already use texted codes, I feel secure in saying there is a strong possibility something similar will be implemented for regular ticket purchasing in the US and elsewhere. When it is, it will represent another place that inhibits the participation of people who lack access to technology.

For your greater edification, here is a screenshot of the Palace Museum website today. You may think 63085 tickets left on 10/26 is a lot, but that means 17000 have already been issued. During National Holidays, it is quite likely the full 80,000 allotment would already be gone.

You may think 63000 tickets left on 10/26 is a lot, but that means 17000 have already been issued. During National Holidays, it might already be at 0

Gradually Finding The Leader Within

by

Long time readers know I am a fan of Peter Drucker’s short piece, Managing Oneself.  It has been awhile since I have sung its praises so it is timely that a TEDx Talk by Lars Sudmann about self-leadership came across my social media feeds recently.

Actually, it was a written summary of the talk on the TED website that initially came to my attention.

One of the first things I appreciated about Sudmann’s talk was that he acknowledged that good leadership is a lot easier in theory than in practice. As a subordinate, we always have ideas running through our heads about how we would do a better job than our bosses if we were in charge. Then when we are actually put in charge, we get bogged down with all the details and demands for our time.

Sudmann talks about walking in to his first staff meeting, resolved to be an inspiring, dynamic and awesome leader only to have the conversation bogged down by a discussion of email signature files.

Where I really agree with Sudmann is his suggestion that self-reflection and introspection is one of the most important traits of a good leader. It isn’t enough to simply make a list of your strengths and weaknesses and acknowledge them, you have to be in the practice of evaluating your daily decisions and activities.

Drucker covers this in his piece too. He urges people to become aware of their strengths and what they need to become better and encourages people to share how they work best with co-workers as a way of enlisting their in providing materials and opportunities in a manner that aids your improvement.

Sudmann cites Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher recognized as one of the better Roman Emperors, who focused much of his time practicing self-leadership versus trying to lead others.

Sudmann suggests that a little self-examination can result in a realization that we share many of the traits we dislike about those we consider bad leaders. You can do the same thing with the traits you admire in others:

Every day, take 5- 10 minutes to think about the challenges you’ve recently handled and the ones you’ll soon face. While Marcus Aurelius was fond of reflecting in the evening, Sudmann likes doing this over morning coffee. Questions to pose include: “How did my leadership go yesterday? How would the leader I’d like to be have faced the challenges I faced? What about my challenges today? What could I do differently?” Write down your thoughts so you can refer back to them and learn from them.

Prioritizing issues is also an important part of leadership. If you hadn’t guessed it already, a discussion about email signatures shouldn’t occupy important staff meetings.

You should engage with 9s and 10s right away, but you’ll find that many things which shatter your calm will be of lesser importance. With anything that’s a 6 or lower, either excuse yourself physically (“I need to take a quick break; be right back”) or figuratively (“Let me take a minute to go over what you’ve said”). Then, give yourself a moment to think: “How would the leader I aspire to be handle this situation?” The answer will come to you.

There are pretty much direct parallels between strategic plans and developing leadership skills. Just as you shouldn’t put a strategic plan on a shelf after investing time in examining the state of your organization and creating a plan to guide the organization into the future, you don’t want to scrutinize your strengths and weaknesses and do nothing to address them until the next crisis or next scheduled board/supervisor evaluation.

I also see parallels between the approach Sudmann  espouses and Arts Midwest’s Creating Connection initiative.  (You knew I was going to tie something back to that sooner or later!)  Just as building public will for arts and culture is a long term plan focused on continuous improvement and consistent messaging, so too is the process of becoming a better leader.

 

Let Me Tell You What You Can Do With That Phone

by

Hat tip to Howard Sherman for calling attention to a New York Times article about cell phone use at live performances that the paper has set up as an study guide/student discussion resource.

The article opens with a video of Joshua Henry taking a phone from an audience member and tossing it under the seating riser (without missing a note in his song), noting that Henry had already been indicating his disapproval with being recorded for three songs.

It also mentions the recent incident in Cincinnati when violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter stopped in the middle of a Beethoven concerto to call out a woman recording her performance.

The New York Times article poses a number of questions for students to consider and discuss.  While I feel the questions are a little leading toward certain answers, they, or questions like them, could prove useful as a starting point for arts & cultural organizations as part of a conversation with younger audiences (or potential audiences) about their expectations.

I will say, of the student responses made in the article comments section, there were more inclined against the use of phones than I had expected. Many of the commenters were from the same school so perhaps they were generated by like-minded friends.

There is also an opportunity to have those participating in a discussion you host do a little more research on whatever scenario is being discussed.

For example, when I first learned about Annie-Sophie Mutter stopping the performance, my impression was that the person in the audience had only just started recording a short snippet. In later interviews, Mutter said the woman recorded the whole first movement and then pulled out another phone and an external power source and started recording the second movement. This adds a little more context for a discussion.

Making audiences of all ages feel welcome at performances and other cultural events will inevitably require addressing the issue of recording. I suspect that other than luck and perceptive ability, the more constructive policies will result from having conversations with audiences rather than by straight fiat or debating about it in the comments section of websites.

Reflections On Experiencing And Expressing Insight

by

This weekend we hosted a performance by the dance company Diavolo.  You may be familiar with them as a finalist on America’s Got Talent, but they have been around since 1993 and have been on my radar since the early 2000s. They have been on my wishlist of groups to present for nearly two decades so I was happy to have the opportunity to do so this weekend.

They bill themselves as “Diavolo: Architecture in Motion” because they utilize some pretty significantly sized objects as part of their performance. I have included their sizzle reel below so you can get a sense of what that means.

I wouldn’t consider myself a dance person really at all. When I was watching the performance, I started thinking that they, moreso than any other dance or cirque type company I had seen, really honored the size, mass and shape of the objects with which they were working.

Instead of deciding what they wanted to do and then building an apparatus to make it happen, I felt like they started with the object as a partner and then created their work, acknowledged the fact the item blocked our sight at different times to hide and reveal things. I had the sense they were following the existing weight and motion of the objects rather than making the objects serve their purpose.

Almost immediately, I questioned whether it was really true they were among a few focused on synchronizing with the objects and honoring their physical properties to create dance vs. bending objects to their needs. I suspected they weren’t the only dance company that started from the physicality of the object and created from there. I figured it was likely I had seen it happen a dozen times before and had finally accumulated enough experience that I recognized what was happening.

I want to resist a simplistic explanation of experience and exposure. Research is showing that people are not “aging into” an appreciation of classical music. I don’t want to credit what I was recognizing this weekend as simply aging into an appreciation of dance.

I am okay with a complicated explanation of experience and exposure. I just resist an explanation that implies a sense of inevitability.

A month ago as I was traveling to a conference, I realized I was making little stutter steps getting on and off of escalators and moving sidewalks even though I have a lifetime of experience with these mechanisms. I was thinking about that Saturday night when one of the dancers sat lightly down on the huge rocking semi-circle and traveled upward without disturbing its motion or evincing any difficulty or hesitation dealing with the change of inertia.

The fact drawing a connection between mounting airport escalators and hopping on oversized playground equipment was a necessary element in my enlightenment this weekend indicates that the factors involved in growing an appreciation of a creative discipline are numerous and complex.

I also quickly recognized that “honoring the size, mass and shape of the objects,” was exactly the dense terminology that turns people new an experience off of it. (I swear, I was paying close attention to the performance. I am capable of simultaneously processing epiphanies and sitting in rapt attention.)

The “honoring…” phrase was legitimately the way I encapsulated what I was experience for myself in the moment but it definitely sounds like something someone would say to make themselves sound authoritative and perhaps stifle contrary views.

Basically what I am trying to say is there is nothing wrong with finding that dense, sophisticated terminology is necessary to distill the fullness of your experience for yourself.  Just realize the weight of those words may feel like a bludgeon to those who hear them. Diluting your impressions with broader, simpler context is probably necessary for people to understand your experience.

I think the issue is that many of us in the arts aren’t very practiced in employing the broader, simpler context familiar to our wider community.

 

We Love Our Shows, And It Shows

by

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about American Theatre’s reporting in May on a Wallace Foundation supported audience building effort at Opera Theatre St. Louis.  American Theatre just published another piece about a different Wallace Foundation supported effort at Portland Center Stage (PCS).

As I wrote in my earlier post, one of the things I value about these Wallace case studies is that they discuss all the unexpected outcomes, both successes and failures.

Among the insights that caught my attention was PCS’s realization that in order to achieve their goal of diversifying their audience, they should target by age rather than some definition of diversity. .

“But it became clearer and clearer to me that we should target age.” At the time, in 2013, Portland had seen a huge influx of transplants between the ages of 25 and 45, and this population was now the most diverse age group in the city. Targeting them, Fuhrman reasoned, was a way to kill two birds with one stone, “tapping the most diverse population of the city while focusing on the age group.”

Most of the efforts discussed in the article are those focused on connecting with this age group. In surveying 25-45 year old current and lapsed audience members as well as non-attendees whom they identified as being inclined to attend, they collected some good information about where and how to advertise shows.

They also made an effort to provide all sorts of pre- and post-show events in an effort to enhance attendee experience in every possible way. Managing Director Cynthia Fuhrman says, “The theory was that the value add would deepen people’s commitment to return.”

However, they ended up discovering that less is more.

But interestingly, feedback from the focus groups actually led PCS to reduce the number of engagement programs in the grant’s second year. “We thought we had to do something every night,” says Furhman, which proved “exhausting on staff. But when we pulled back on programming, the numbers actually went up. It was deeper engagement. Quality of the program was more important than quantity.”

Another discovery they made that ran counter to their expectations was that people didn’t necessarily want to see stories set in the Northwest or written by playwrights in the region, despite the fact these were the best attended shows.

Interestingly, market research from the Wallace Foundation grant found that audiences in Portland were in fact not inherently more interested in plays set in the Northwest or written by Northwest playwrights, despite the fact they brought in larger audiences. Results like this, that disconfirm expectations, call for critical analysis. PCS hypothesized that perhaps the greater turnout had to do with better marketing, which might reflect their own internal investment in these shows more than audiences’ enthusiasm, but there is as yet no solid conclusion about why they outperformed.

Personally, I would credit internal investment in an event as being a stronger factor in the success of shows than we imagine it is. Which is not to say that shows we really adore won’t be flops. The subject matter may not resonate with the community at large or we may speak of the event in terms that aren’t relevant to people outside our profession.

On the other hand, I am sure we can all identify events that suffered due to our lack of enthusiasm or succeeded despite our worst efforts. Love isn’t the only ingredient in the success of a show, but advocacy sounds a lot more organic when there is authentic enthusiasm behind it.

The fate of PCS’s loyalty program provides something of a lesson about making sure technology will be compatible before investing a lot of time and money into development and implementation.

PCS hired a web developer to create an online loyalty portal which would allow members to earn rewards by attending shows and interacting with PCS online. But, while its launch attracted 3,500 sign-ups, PCS recently put the portal on hiatus, as the program did not integrate with the ticketing platform Tessitura. Because the loyalty app and the database couldn’t talk to each other, it became unwieldy for audience members to use and staff to manage. Fuhrman and the portal developers still hope that integration might be possible in the future.

As I have written before, I really appreciate the fact that the Wallace Foundation provided grantees with the funding and permission to try things out and make mistakes that provide valuable insights to both the grantees and the rest of the arts and culture community.

The Hunger That Propels Through Bad Weather And Troubles

by

Last week I was in Minneapolis for the Arts Midwest conference. (Minnesota Orchestra, what was that party at your place Friday night? It looked and sounded awesome.)

The conference was marked by the transition of Arts Midwest’s leadership from David Fraher’s 35+ year tenure to that of Torrie Allen, as the new President and CEO. I was initially worried about how Allen was going to fill David’s shoes, but from the moment he opened his mouth it was apparent he was quite comfortable in his own shoes.

Mary Anne Carter, current chair of the National Endowment of the Arts spoke of David’s career at Arts Midwest which spanned the tenure of nine  National Endowment for the Arts chairpersons. (Former chair Jane Chu sent video congratulations.)

You can read a transcript of his farewell address, but it doesn’t quite capture the emotion in his voice the way the recording does.

The one part that really touched me was when he enjoined the audience to think about a time you passed on the gift of a creative experience to someone and it lit a fire within them. He goes on to relate his own story at a performance of Death of A Salesman in a high school gym.

Nearly 40 years ago, I sat in a high school gymnasium in Pinedale, Wyoming and watched as maybe two hundred people… ranchers and oilmen, their spouses, and their children…arrived out of a cold and storming night. They came into the gym, shook thick snow off their hats and jackets, put blankets and cushions on the bleachers, drank coffee and hot chocolate from thermoses, chatted with their neighbors, and waited.

[…]

And while I was there to gather data for a site visit report, what I realized and understood in the end was much more powerful than any data point.

Those families had driven 50, 75, even 100 miles in a hard, early spring snowstorm. They were likely worried about their cattle and their sheep, their finances and their unavoidable drive back through the valley and the night. But for those two and a half hours, they were mesmerized by a stunning performance, by amazing actors, in a school gymnasium. And at the end of the play, they stood and hollered and clapped. Many…myself included…wept. And then they gathered their blankets and coats and said quick goodbyes to their neighbors and friends and drove home in the dark with the actors’ voices still echoing in their heads

The thing that touched me most about this passage was the acknowledgement of the worries and concerns of the audience members. Often when we talk about how people were affected by seeing a performance, there is a recognition that something has changed for people due to their experience. Seldom is there an acknowledgment of what audiences are bringing with them to a performance.

People these days may have so many options available to them that they aren’t hungry enough for an experience that they will drive 100 miles through a snow storm to see a play. Even if they are coming a shorter distance in better weather, they aren’t arriving as a blank slate upon which the memories of a great experience may be written or even as a jumbled slate which will be straightened by the impact of the experience.  They may forget their worries for a time or may be fortunate enough to have their perspective about their lives changed. The burden they bear may feel lighter for having the experience, especially for having shared the experience with family and friends, but it is still there.

He may not have intended it, but the organization of thoughts in his address resonated with my belief that the value of the arts is not prescriptive. The experience in the high school may have had a lasting impact upon them, one they will recall to this day 40 years later, but there was an underlying sense it didn’t cure the problems of their lives.

Still, even if people aren’t driving 100 miles in a snowstorm, toting their own snacks and seat cushions, to see a performance, the hunger needing to be satiated is still as great.

A World, And Its Participants, Continues To Grow

by

Last year I wrote about a live roleplay drama loosely based on Dungeons and Dragons/Pathfinder roleplaying game mechanics that a guy was experimenting with.  This year he was back at it again. Apparently he felt like it was moving in a good direction and quit his job in order to focus on more fully developing his product with an eye to doing residencies at universities and performing arts centers.

As I mentioned last year, what the creator, Martin Noyes, does is work with a core group of people for about a week developing characters for a story in a fantasy setting. When asked if the story I was seeing was set in the same world as last year, he pulled out a map and pointed out three-four other continents/landmasses where future stories will take place.

They had about 8 performances over two weeks, all improvised based on character goals/motivations and dice rolls. Each performance started where the last one left off, providing some incentive to attend on multiple days. Noyes is adept at gauging how to balance allowing the actors time to develop their character through active interactions and poignant silences against moving the action along with a narrative framework that keeps things from dragging and devolving.

He has done a fair bit of work since last year in terms of streamlining the mechanics to make things move along faster. As a result, he has been able to involve the audience much more than last year both in terms of rolling dice to determine the outcome of encounters and as participants in the action. There were a number of audience members who came in costume and got integrated into the action.

Not only were audiences three times as large as last year, there were a greater number of people returning from performance to performance.

I suspect the fact they offered a discounted pass for multiple performances might have contributed to the repetition. More likely was the fact that you could roll a 10 sided dice at the door to determine what amount between $1 and $10 you would pay for admission.

An important element I didn’t mention last year that I think contributes to the success of the project is the pre- and post-show interactions between the audience and performers. The show is performed in a blackbox space. When you enter, the actors are chatting among themselves and with the audience about everything from other roleplaying games they play; how the foam weapons were constructed; how the weapon or costume piece contributes to the character development; what happened in previous performances; what their character was thinking during a tense moment or what their motivation was at that point.

When the director calls for the show to start, everyone takes their places. When it is over, actors and audience members mingle again on the playing area to discuss whatever interests them at the moment.

Due to the way the event is structured, the quality of performance and storytelling isn’t at a very high level. (Though much better than you might expect.) But the conceptual separation of the audience and performer that results from a more formal format doesn’t manifest either.

I am hoping Noyes has the opportunity to bring us the stories of the other landmasses over the next few years. I am interested to see how this approach continues to evolve. I am just hoping he doesn’t get so many bookings that he debuts new stories from other landmasses in other places first.

Even More Important That Panels & Post-Show Discussions Be About Audience Experience

by

Today I had a post appear on ArtsHacker where I point out some general tips for organizing panel discussions. This covers everything from pre- and post-show chats to conference panels.

Essentially, the tips follow the same philosophy generally espoused for any sort of arts and culture event — make the environment about enriching the attendee experience  rather than celebrating how awesome the people on the panel are. People are intentionally present at this conversation in the hopes of becoming better informed so the goal should be on removing any impediments to that. (And, after all, even those of us that produce and present events are audience members at some point, too. We are seeking the same enrichment.)

For discussions oriented on performances, it is all about facilitating meaningful conversations for the audience and then getting out of the way. One person I cite mentions that having performers present can inhibit a free flow conversation because people tend to censor themselves or focus on the performer rather than the performance. He suggests ways to involve performers so they don’t become the focus.

A dramaturg I quote suggests some questions that focus on the audience experience which can prevent audience members from feeling they are obligated to ask a question and resort to “How do you remember all those lines/notes/movements?”

For discussions that are the event rather than the complement to the event, the concept is very much the same. Don’t spend half the allotted time reading panelist bios and allowing them to make increasingly lengthy opening statements – keep introductions short and get right into a discussion between panelists that have real things to say to one another.

The panelists don’t have to be so diametrically opposed to each other that you need a security guard prepared to tackle them, but no one walks away with something new to consider if everyone is nodding in agreement with everyone else.

By the way, many of the same guidelines for panelists are suggested for questioners from the audience- run a disciplined Q&A with a strict time limit and ground rules stated in advance to prevent an escalating series of lengthy rants.

I am sure frequent conference attendees probably silently pray that most of these guidelines were applied to the sessions they attend.

Panels And Post Show Discussions

A Place That Is Green

by

You may recall that two years ago the number one cultural activity people indicated they engaged in, according to the 2017 Culture Track survey, was going to the park.

Last week the Washington Post discussed a survey conducted by the University of Vermont which suggested that going to the park, and even the anticipation of going to the park, created

“a jolt of euphoria one might get on Christmas morning.

What’s more, they found, people’s moods started to improve just from the anticipation of a park outing, and the afterglow of increased happiness subsisted several hours afterward. They also found that while any sort of outdoor public gathering space boosted people’s happiness, large parks with lots of vegetation seemed to provide the biggest benefit.”

The researchers geo-tagged Twitter posts in San Francisco over the course of three months. This allowed them to figure out where people were posting from. They analyzed the word choice of the tweets by assigning words with emotional values and found the greatest positivity expressed while at the park and increased positivity before and after visits as compared to other places.

The Washington Post article has a lot of disclaimers about the limits of sentiment-analysis tools like the one used by researchers, but apparently the tools are effective when applied to large amounts of text.

Ultimately, the reason I choose to call attention to the article is to provide a bit of support for the performance in the park programs many arts and cultural organizations conduct around this time of year. Since groups are doing it anyway, they probably don’t need rigorous, unimpeachable survey results to convince them to continue.

If you pondering doing events away from your home facility, the combined data of the University of Vermont study and Culture Track survey, make a park with lush greenery a smart choice.

Tonight We Have Paired The Seared Scallops With Wine And An Aria

by

Back in May, American Theatre had an article about audience building efforts Opera Theatre St. Louis (OTSL) undertook with funding from the Wallace Foundation.  In my experience, there is always something to learn from these projects funded by the Wallace Foundation, especially since the case study reports tend to be honest about what things didn’t go well. So it is worth the time to read this short article.

One of OTSL’s efforts that drew my attention was their Opera Tastings project where they would pair tastings of food and wine with short opera performances. What I really appreciated about their effort here was that they took the program a fair distance from their home rather than concentrating on the St. Louis city limits. (my emphasis)

Hosted in a local restaurant or venue, the evening pairs 11 samples of food or drink with 11 operatic excerpts. The evenings have taken place all over St. Louis: in predominantly Black neighborhoods, in Chinatown, in Southern Illinois, or as far away as Columbia and Fayetteville, Mo. (120 miles and 145 miles, respectively).

“If the intent is to draw people in who surround you, then most of our organizations are finding that they have to be more present in the community,” says Ramos. “It’s how you build relevance. It’s how you show the work.”

[…]

Newcomers, in other words, discover what type of opera they enjoy, instead of being told why they should enjoy opera. More than three-quarters of Opera Tasting attendees are new-to-file (i.e., first time patrons), and every attendee gets $10 in “opera bucks” to redeem for a ticket to an upcoming show.

As I mentioned before, an aspect of these programs I have valued is the fact they were open about what went wrong. This type of reflection is a core part of Wallace Foundation’s ethic of “continuous learning” according to the article.

There was enough of an upside, despite the cost, to make the Opera Tastings worth retaining and refining. (my emphasis)

A lot of those opera bucks get redeemed: Right now an average of 42 percent of Opera Tastings attendees go on to buy tickets. What’s more, audience members who come to OTSL through Opera Tastings tend to buy more expensive tickets and become donors at a faster rate than expected.

One caveat: The tastings are costly to produce, costing $7,100 per tasting in 2018. And the true cost of audience recruitment may be obscured by the subsidies covered by opera bucks as well as discounted ticket prices

“It’s an expensive way to acquire new audience members,” admits Timothy O’Leary, general director of Opera Theatre from 2008 to 2018. And the majority of people who attend, 58 percent, never buy a ticket. The challenge now is to see how the tastings might be sustainable without Wallace support.

The article also talks about other programs like their Young Friends program which they estimate has a $16,000-$17,000 impact and their Opera Kids Camp for children to attend while their parents are at the opera. Take a look to learn more.

We Will Accompany Them On The Beaches, On The Playgrounds, In The Parks And At The Opera!

by

After I posted last week about how English towns installation of chat benches aligned with other stories I had covered about organizations trying to create personal connections between strangers, one of my neighbors, Regina Sweeney messaged me on LinkedIn about a study about buddy benches conducted in elementary schools. (I think this is the first time I have had someone I see on a fairly regular basis read my blog and send me a link.)

A number of schools use buddy benches to help kids make connections. If you are lonely at recess, you sit there and other kids are supposed to come over and invite you to play. There hadn’t been a lot of research done on the effectiveness of these benches so a group set out to conduct one at a school in Utah.

They found that introducing the benches reduced the number of solitary students. As part of the study, they removed the benches for a couple weeks and then returned them to the playground. When they were removed, the number of solitary students started to return to the baseline number observed before the benches were introduced. When the benches were reintroduced, the number of solitary students decreased.

While you can’t necessarily make assumptions about adults from the observation of a small group of elementary school kids, this result seemed to point to the usefulness of some sort of mechanism to facilitate connecting people. Providing people with a way to signal their willingness and desire to connect was useful.

There were kids that abused the benches. Some kids would sit on the bench and then rebuff all overtures to play. Teachers observed that kids who were normally very social seemed to sit on the bench to call attention to themselves. There were also those who made fun of those sitting on the bench.

Many students thought the benches were a good idea, but for other people.

“It appears that while students liked the idea of a buddy bench at their school, many may have thought of it as an intervention to help other students and not necessarily themselves.”

Kids in the upper grades (4th-6th) thought it was only useful for kids in the lower grades. Some students felt that they were introduced too late in the school year after cliques had been formed.

I imagine these general perceptions about the utility of benches might be more deeply entrenched in adults. Though I would also say adults might be more apt to resolve to participate in one role or the other if they knew the goal was to reverse a trend toward social isolation.

One take away from the study that I think is applicable for people of any age is the necessity to consistently make people aware of the program. Every teacher prepared their students for the introduction of the buddy benches and the benches were placed outside 100% of the time during the intervention stage. However, the principal reported only encouraging their use in morning announcements 80% of the time and the teachers monitoring the playground were often too preoccupied with other playground activities to seek out solitary students to encourage them to use the benches.

Those conducting the study felt these situations kept the project from being as successful as it might have been.

I would think the necessity of repeatedly communicating the availability of chatting/buddy programs would even be greater for arts organizations given that the attendees change for every event and they aren’t being exposed the availability of these initiatives everyday the way kids at school are.

I had written about the buddy seating program I had created at my previous theater which paired people in the audience chamber. As I read this study, I wondered if it might be good to have “meet someone new” seating in a public place like the lobby as well. People probably aren’t going to arrive alone at an event seeking a companion, but people new to the experience might welcome the opportunity to chat with those who are equally clueless about what to do or with someone who can offer some advice. Having a bench or row of chairs specifically to that purpose might be useful.

While this seems obvious in retrospect, it only occurred to me as I was re-reading the study and saw a line about the buddy benches being useful as”…a reinforcement by giving students a place to gather should they feel intimidated when seeking out play activities on their own.” This resonated with my recollection of a post Holly Mulcahy made yesterday about people who ruin the concert experience for newbies by enforcing a behavioral orthodoxy.

It wouldn’t eliminate the glares at clapping in the wrong place, but a buddy bench would give people a place to ask “Sooooo…I what’s the deal with not clapping at the end of some songs, but jumping to your feet at the end of other songs?”

If you are involved with education and want to bring buddy benches to your school, you need to read the study because I didn’t touch upon even 10% of what was involved and what they felt needed more rigorous study.

Data You Need To Believe Over Your Gut

by

I so frequently tell my readers that Collen Dilenschneider has made an awesome post on her blog that it makes it difficult to convey the increased urgency to read one of her pieces when she has made an even awesomer post.

Despite this impediment, believe me when I say she recently made a post that is even more awesome than her usually awesome posts. Last week she wrote about how research results often contradict our gut feelings about a situation, despite being true. She confesses that as much as she deals with data every day, there are some instances where she asks the experts to revisit it just to be sure.

She goes on to list five data points that even she and her co-workers really wanted to believe were untrue.

Let me just say, I have seen some of this data before but part of what makes her post so great is this “contradicts our gut” framework she employs. As much as I read and write about arts administration, there are a fair number of instances where I raise mental walls against information I come across. It is useful to be constantly reminded that we need to take a deep breath and open our minds.

1) Local audiences have negatively skewed perceptions of the organizations in their area 

IMPACTS tracked 118 visitor-serving organizations and found that on average, people living within 25 miles of the organization indicate value-for-cost perceptions that are 14% less than those of regional visitors living between 25 and 101-150 miles away. In other words, locals believe their experience is less worthy of the admission cost they paid compared to the perceptions of those living further away. Interestingly, locals paid 20% less for admission, on average, than non-local visitors thanks to local discounts and promotions! They are also much less satisfied with their experiences than non-local visitors.

Even if this is influenced by a sense of sunk cost where long distance visitors arrive with a firmer conviction than local residents they will enjoy an experience given that they have already invested so much more time and money in planning and execution, it is important to recognize this dynamic is operating for different visitor segments.

2) An average visitor attends a cultural organization type only once every 27 months – and the average member returns to take advantage of free admission only once per year.

The average person who visits an art museum will not visit another for 28 months, on average. The average person who visits a history museum will not visit another for 32 months, on average. In total, the average visitation cycle for organization types that we monitor is 27 months. Here’s more on that data and what it means.

[…]

Subscription-based organizations such as theaters and symphonies: You’ve got it a bit better. Your members visit twice each year, on average.

I had actually written about this idea around 8 years ago. In the research presented at that time, it wasn’t that people felt they had enough of the organization and were going to wait a few years to go again, it was that people were so emotionally connected with the organization, they would swear they had just been there within the last year when it had been about two or more years.

Don’t immediately delete people from your mailing list if they don’t buy tickets to return, give it 3-5 years before you decide they are disengaged. (This assumes annual/semi-annual mailings vs. more frequent ones.)

3) Millennials are not “aging into” caring about arts and culture

Oooh, pay attention to this one!

This isn’t surprising to me and we have so much on this we’re getting into a “ridiculous” data volume category here, but this shocks other folks, so it’s making this list!

Millennials are not “aging into” caring about arts and culture as a natural function of getting older. Millennials also are not “aging into” other things some entities are banking on, like the belief that dolphins should be kept in captivity.

[…]

Millennials are a very important group for cultural organizations to engage. The take-away of these findings is critical: “Let’s just wait for people to think we’re important” is a failing engagement strategy.

Here is another point to be particularly mindful of–

4) On average, attendance goes back to baseline 5 years after a major expansion (but operation costs tend to be increased forever).

In a nutshell, attendance decreases in the years prior to a major building project as folks defer their visits until after the expansion opens. When an expansion opens, attendance certainly increases – 19.6% compared to the ten years prior! But that increase gradually decreases until attendance levels retreat to the baseline of the ten years prior after only 5 years. And the increased building space also means more staff members, more programming, more electricity, and more ongoing maintenance.

[…]

If you’re fundraising for or undertaking a major building expansion, make sure that you are clear on your goals and objectives – and that your expectations for long-term attendance and ongoing maintenance are grounded in reality.

And finally… (note the distinction she makes between mobile web and mobile apps)

5) Mobile applications do not significantly increase visitor satisfaction

Interestingly, people who use social media onsite in a way that relates to their visit report 7% greater visitor satisfaction scores than people who do not use social media in relation to their visit. Mobile web users experience a 6% bump in satisfaction. Even though all three of these methods (mobile applications, social media, and mobile web) take place on a mobile phone during a cultural organization visit, social media and the web significantly contribute to the visitor experience. Mobile applications do not reliably do this. One explanation for this may be that social media and mobile web “meet audiences where they are” and are examples of onsite technology facilitating the experience. Mobile applications, on the other hand, can be examples of technological intervention in which a visitor must interrupt the experience to figure out how to engage with the technology, or download it in the first place.

As much as I have quoted here, it is only about 1/3 of the data and rationale she presents in her post so check it out in order to get a more complete picture of things.

I Don’t Know, The DMV Line Is Usually At Least Novella

by

I saw a really cool story via Americans for the Arts in May about a partnership between the Maryland Department of Motor Vehicles and the Prince George’s County Memorial Library System. They worked together to place kiosks that delivered short stories in a motor vehicles branch. People standing on line to conduct business can select, print out and read one of the short stories.  The library sees this as an opportunity to serve their community outside of their branches.

The stories are printed on demand and scroll out of the kiosk somewhat like a register receipt.

The story kiosk has a library of more than 8,500 short stories, varying in length. Stories are free, and readers can choose between selections for kids or content for all ages. Short Edition has also made the machine earth-friendly with eco-friendly paper that is FSC- and BPA-free.

I took a look at the website of the French company that makes the kiosks. Even though they talk about the printers being useful for business where people have to wait for service, I noticed some of the accompany pictures depict the stories being read at leisure in uncrowded cafes.

This made me wonder if there might be a use for the technology to deliver supplementary material at performances or perhaps only the parts of the playbill you are interested in. If you don’t care about the bios but want the program notes, you might choose to only print those and save on paper. Granted, this may not please those who paid to have their logos placed in the program, but perhaps they can be included on the print out on an ongoing basis.

Being able to see what types of material people are printing on demand might provide the organization with a better sense of what information to provide people in promotional materials to help them make the decision to attend. Likewise, it could be used to shape the programming and attendance experience to reflect these interests/needs.

Ripples Moving Fish In Other Ponds

by

When I caught the name, “Penis Monologues” out of the corner of my eye, I felt a moment of trepidation that some men’s rights group was mounting a show as an aggressive counter to the Vagina Monologues. However, it turned out that the show is actually an attempt to combat the culture of “dominant male temperament” in China, a  term which is somewhat analogous to the English term, “toxic masculinity.” The show was created by a noted sexologist in China, Fang Gang.  (It should be noted that the title in Chinese doesn’t use the word “penis.” The articles doesn’t indicate what the actual title is.)

It was interesting to read how other cultures are experiencing the global conversations about gender roles. (China has had its own spate of #MeToo stories.) Many male participants in Fang’s project really had to overcome their reticence. Given that a number had never performed before, and unlike the generally empowering tone of the Vagina Monologues, the show dealt with some pretty negative subject matter, their reluctance is understandable.

But the play’s subject matter hasn’t made it easy for Tao to find willing actors. Most men she approached declined after reading monologue titles like “Penis Size,” “Domestic Abuser,” and “Erectile Dysfunction.” “They are afraid of being mocked or judged by the public,” she tells Sixth Tone.

When 42-year-old business owner Yu Lei read the play for the first time, he was shocked that it so boldly addressed taboo subjects. But after attending one of Fang’s sex-ed public lectures and seeing members of the audience calmly taking notes, he decided to join the troupe, despite never having acted before.

Tao assigned Yu to the play’s first monologue, “Date Rape,” which tells the story of a male college student forcing his girlfriend to have sex with him in a hotel room. Yu was so nervous about performing that he told his wife he was taking part in a charity event organized by White Ribbon, the advocacy organization launched by Fang in 2013 to end violence perpetrated by men against women. But he needn’t have worried: His performance wins thunderous applause from the 90 or so people in the audience, though Yu later confesses to Sixth Tone that he slightly regrets doing it. “I’m afraid people might think it was my own story,” he says.

According to article, in addition to challenging audiences to question the societal norms that men need to be dominant in their careers and relationships with women, the show also addresses some pretty ingrained binary definitions of gender.

That pain is familiar to Ye Chuyang, a queer actor portraying their own experiences in the monologue “Gender Queer.” “I don’t agree with binary gender divisions, because it limits people’s possibilities,” Ye tells Sixth Tone. “Most people think men are supposed to be macho, decisive, and strong. They don’t appreciate feminine or delicate men. Though my parents appreciate the sensitive and gentle side of me, they prefer me to be strong and tough just like other boys.”

Ye thinks the play is a chance to both educate people about sexual diversity and help more men understand the experiences of women. “If men could break the rules and speak out, women would feel encouraged and less lonely in this battle,” he says.

In addition to illustrating the power of arts and culture to facilitate conversations on difficult topics, for me this story represents the degree to which the world is becoming metaphorically smaller. We may be frustrated by lack of progress in our own local spheres, but the motion of a movement can create ripples that begins to bring resonant changes in other parts of the world.

Bring Your Trash To My Open House

by

This will be the last retrospective post of the series covering the time I am on vacation. I should be back at the helm Monday, hopefully with pictures and thoughts to share.

I am writing this post two days before I go on vacation but I am wishing I saw this old entry sooner.

The day before I am going on vacation, we are having an open house at my theater. A number of people haven’t seen the space since the most recent renovation in the Fall so we want to provide an opportunity to get in and look around. For those that have been to a show since then, we wanted to provide an opportunity to look around and ask questions without the pressure of getting to your seat in time for a performance.

We will be offering snacks, refreshments and such. However, I just came across an old post I made that suggested we encourage people to bring stuff to us, too.

In a post titled, Destroy Your Way To New Audiences, I had a brief moment of inspiration where I suggested renting a mobile paper shredder and inviting people to check out your organization and bring their boxes of documents that were too sensitive to just throw away.

Nowadays, another option might be to bring computers and phones to be recycled.

It struck me that this is the type of community service an organization could offer that will NEVER in a million years show up on a survey as something you could do to help the community. It is one of those things people need but don’t realize they need when asked.

This is also the sort of thing that breaks down barriers to attendance. You advertise an open house barbecue picnic at your organization and as someone who has never been to an arts organization, I might figure the only difference between the picnic and attending a performance is good ribs. Faced with the prospect of being the only person there who doesn’t know how to speak theatre/ballet/classical music/visual art, there may still be a high anxiety factor even if I don’t have to go into the building.

A shredder truck in the parking lot on the other hand is a service I can actually use. While I am there, maybe I grab some hamburgers and look around a little. If things get a little uncomfortable, the shredder provides my excuse as I notice the line is getting shorter, excuse myself and go over there. Heck, there isn’t much danger in bringing the kids either. Even if the arts stuff doesn’t appeal to them, watching papers get consumed by a giant machine is always interesting.

Wow, “Run Arts Like A Business” Has Been A Thing For Awhile

by

As I was looking back in the archives for content to post on while on vacation, I was surprised to see that I was writing back the dangers of the sentiment that “arts organizations should be run like a business” a decade ago.

I cited a piece in The New Republic discussing that manufacturing in the US began to decline when leadership started to be drawn from people focused on finance rather than operations.

“Harvard business professor Rakesh Khurana, with whom I discussed these questions at length, observes that most of GM’s top executives in recent decades hailed from a finance rather than an operations background….But these executives were frequently numb to the sorts of innovations that enable high-quality production at low cost. As Khurana quips, “That’s how you end up with GM rather than Toyota.”

At the time, I expressed my concerns that leadership of arts organizations might become increasingly divorced from the metaphorical manufacturing process if those making decisions had never deeply engaged in creative pursuits.

I linked to a post I made in 2004 about observations that the back office at an orchestra was seemingly disassociated from the performances.

Thoughts on whether this situation has gotten better or worse in the last 10-15 years?

Is it a good sign that in the last couple months, you can’t turn around without seeing an article praising what California Symphony Executive Director, Aubrey Bergauer, a tuba player, has accomplished? Or is she just an outlier?

It’s Still Not Ann Margaret

by

I am going on vacation for a couple weeks so the blog will be featuring some interesting posts from the archives.

Back in 2009 I wrote a lengthy article about a Mad Men episode where the ad agency reproduced the opening of Ann Margaret singing Bye, Bye Birdie, in order to sell Pepsi’s new Patio diet soda. Even though it was exactly what they asked for, the client felt there was something wrong. When they leave, one of the ad men points out what was wrong was that it wasn’t Ann Margaret singing the song.

One of the points I made at the time was that people often try to copy or adopt something that has emerged as wildly successful in the assumption that they will be able to cash in on that popularity. The problem is that they don’t comprehend the nuanced elements that made the original so successful.

What made this old post more timely is that last week, there was a similar illustration of the “its not Ann Margaret” effect. The recent release of a video game based on the Avengers: Endgame movie was widely panned because few of the characters in the video resembled the actors who had portrayed the heroes in movies over the last decade or so.

A somewhat different perspective on anticipating and managing expectations.

Many have pointed out that the console versions of their favourite characters do not resemble the Marvel Cinematic Universe superheroes. Custom playable identities have instead been created, meaning Robert Downey Jr’s Tony Stark, Chris Evans’ Captain America and more are nowhere to be seen.

“Wow, the new Avengers game looks… really bad,” wrote one fan on Twitter. Another said: “They can’t even use the Avenger’s theme song? Like WTF.”

15 Years Later, An Arts Criticism Model Where Open Access Is Assumed

by

If you didn’t happen to see it rolling around social media or on Artsjournal.com last week, Carolina Performing Arts’ festival, The Commons, experimented with a new model of criticism.  Their reflections on the process appeared under the attention getting title of, “Uh, We Sort of Made an Arts-Criticism Utopia? Here’s What We Learned.”

What they did was pretty simple, but more resource and labor intensive than most media outlets have invested. They assigned two critics to a show, one who was embedded for the entire creation process, and another who only saw the final product.

The premise was that critical documentation is at once changing in form, diminishing in frequency, and urgently needed. And it’s not just documentation of performances that is needed, but also of the work and conversation that surrounds and sustains them.

My read on their process was that since the traditional media sources for arts criticism were divesting themselves of the practice, there is room to re-imagine what it means to discuss the merits of an event/performance/work. Part of the re-imagining seems to be examining what the critic, artists, and readership are really looking for from a critique. In the process, a lot of old rules are ripe for being broken.

The Commons Crit was designed to test several hypotheses, which we raised again at the start of the roundtable: that criticism should not always be beholden to a coverage model; that critics should have the space and freedom to experiment; that critics and artists are allies, not adversaries; that artistic process deserves as much attention as the final product; and that artists have legitimate ideas about who can authentically represent the cultural perspective of their work.

[…]

In journalism, it’s a no-no to let an artist pick their reviewer, but in The Commons, to a large extent, we did. At least, we consulted the writers about what sort of person would be an apt conduit for their cultural perspective. For example, Victoria and Stephanie—accomplished writers, but not performance critics—were selected for their fluency in Spanish and border issues, while Chris and Michaela built upon longstanding relationships with Justin. For Eb. Brown, a male African-American embedded writer was essential, but it would take the perspective of a female African-American writer (Danielle Purifoy) to round out the performance’s meaning.

The thing is, in my very first blog post over 15 years ago I linked to an opinion piece by Chris Lavin, “Why Arts Coverage Should Be More Like Sports,”  where he basically calls for exactly the rule breaking relationship the Carolina Performing Arts Festival has engaged in.

And, in my experience, many arts critics see themselves as critics first, story-tellers second. Some actually keep a distance from the performers, directors and theater executives to “”preserve their objectivity.” Getting the full range of stories that capture the drama of making art is difficult even if the arts organizations were interested in seeing that full-range of stories. I’m not sure they really are.

When compared to the open access a sports franchise allows, most arts organizations look like a cross between the Kremlin and the Vatican. Casting is closed. Practices closed. Interviews with actors and actresses limited and guarded. An athlete who refuses to do interviews can get fined. An actor or actress or director or composer who can’t find time for the media is not uncommon. How would a director take to a theater critic watching practice and asking for his/her early analysis of the challenges this cast faces with the material — the relatively strengths and weaknesses of the lead actor, the tendencies of the play write to resist rewriting?

I will confess that one of my first thoughts was whether this model could be sustainable –until, of course, I remembered this was one of the very first topics I wrote about on the blog and many places have found a way to sustain their sports reporting.

I think what would help make it sustainable is writers who are adept at the storytelling aspect of the job. Audiences are ready to accept the opinions of people on social media whom they have never met so the value of a certified objective opinion has greatly diminished.

When it comes to sports, people are more than ready to identify with a good story and argue its merits with their neighbors without worrying overly much about the objective truths of the matter. The arts are much more about storytelling than sports. There are no statistics about a dancer’s range of motion at the matinee versus the evening performance to bog the conversation down.

You can read the reviews on The Commons Crit page. One of the things that is somewhat confusing for the first time visitor is that there is no clear delineation between what appears to be preview pieces and the the reviews. The reviews have both the thoughts of the embedded writer and one-time writer in one place, but there are also other stories by the embedded writer about that same event. (Here is another such pairing.) If you are coming to the site to figure out what your experience might be, it can be difficult to determine, but that is an easy matter of labeling.

 

When Ignoring “Show, Don’t Tell” Is The Best Option

by

Hat tip to Artsjournal.com who listed an article from The Conversation about how your phone can interrupt a concert experience. Author Christine Van Winkle discusses research she and her team conducted at outdoor summer music festivals over the course of five years.

Because the research was conducted at festivals, the detrimental effects of using a phone at a concert was more focused on the quality of the user experience rather than the impact on those around the person. With factors like heat, cold, rain, bugs and people bumping into you, the glow of a phone screen isn’t as big a distraction to others as it can be in a concert hall.

As a result, the research is potentially more effective at persuading people not to use phones because the message is about why they aren’t having the best experience rather than that they are causing others to have a poor experience.

As you might imagine, some of those participating in the study intentionally left their phones at home and didn’t miss them. Others were discomforted without their phones or by the failure of the phone battery.

It is interesting to note that the anti-social behavior of peering over your phone in a group can create social pressure on others to use their phone in a similar manner:

Festival goers described sitting with friends who were texting or searching on their phones and suddenly they felt compelled to use their phone as well. This mirroring behaviour is a well known response people have in social situations.

The idea that phone use is “infectious” may provide some incentive to arts entities to prohibit the use of phone. But it isn’t just the performers and venues which may be dissatisfied with this type of phone use, the practice can lead to disappointment for the phone user as well.

The research shows that when we decide to use our phones to check work email, to check up on the kids or any other activities that have nothing to do with the festival, our satisfaction with the experience goes down.

However, Van Winkle’s research shows using the phone for activities related to the experience doesn’t impact satisfaction either positively or negatively. While the outcome is currently neutral, it may be worthwhile for artists and organizations to think about creating content that augments the experience. The lack of a positive sense of satisfaction may just reflect the fact that most activity related content mentioned in the study is of neutral value like schedules and maps.

When we do use our devices at festivals it doesn’t affect our satisfaction with the event if we are using our phones for festival-related activities like looking at the festival schedule, the venue map or even texting to meet up with friends who are joining us.

Van Winkle offers some tips for phone use, most of which involve limiting your interactions with the phone and the amount of content you receive from others. What was most interesting to me was her suggestion that offering too much information can actually diminish the number of opportunities you have to relate your experience to others. Essentially, contrary to all prior storytelling advice, this would be the one time to tell, don’t show. (my emphasis)

Wait to post. It’s fun to share your experience with your extended network but consider waiting until you return home. Sharing the memories captured on your phone after the experience gives you an opportunity to reflect on the day and prevents you from being distracted by other people’s posts while you are at the event.

Consider not posting any images of your experience to social media at all — you might find it leads to more conversations with people when they ask about your weekend or summer. Often, once people have seen your post they assume they already know how your weekend was, robbing you of the opportunity to share your experience with them.

Joe Patti's Musings on practical solutions for Arts Management

/ Find It!

/ Recent Comments

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