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

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

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

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.

Seeing Our Stories Told: The Hero At The End of Your Story Is The Victim At The Start of Mine

I saw a movie this weekend which embodied so much of what we talk about when we discuss empowering people to tell their stories and prominently displaying their stories.

In documentary Liyana, South African storyteller Gcina Mhlophe works with orphans in Swaziland to create a story as a way to help them process their trauma. As they go to work on creating the story, it is depicted in a gorgeous storybook illustration/animation. (Much to my surprise, there isn’t a print book. They are working on turning into a graphic novel.)

The film cuts back and forth between the animation, the orphans working with the storyteller, and telling Liyana’s story to interviewers. It is difficult to say which is more animated since the children (looking to be between 6-9 years old) narrate the action of the story with expansive gestures and vocalized sound effects.

The storyteller guides the children through a process that one might use in a U.S. classroom as part of a multi-disciplinary approach to instruction. (Unfortunately, a school in the U.S. would have to use “multi-disciplinary” as a rationale for engaging in such a time intensive project.)

Once they decide to name their hero Liyana, they assemble a picture of her from a collection of magazines. The children create animals out of mud (with much greater skill than I did as a kid) to represent the bull that accompanies Liyana on her quest to retrieve her twin brothers and the hyenas and crocodiles which threaten them on their journey. The illustration of the imaginary final monster closely resembles something they created from discarded metal found near the orphanage.

Unfortunately, Liyana’s life is a reflection of that of the orphans. Her father beats her mother and then both parents die of complications of the HIV virus, leaving her and her twin brothers in the care of their grandmother. We are told that of the 1.2 million people living in Swaziland, 200,000 are infected with HIV. Later we see the orphans being tested for the virus at a clinic.

Near the end, the children talk about how real life does not have a happy ending like many stories do. Part of me was hoping they had been coached to say that or things had been edited in that manner but I suspect that was a lesson they had already learned too well in their young lives.

Earlier in the movie, the storyteller asks them to decide why Liyana must leave her grandmother to make a journey. The first suggestion was that grandmother was sick and Liyana had to get medicine but the vote ultimately favored robbers came and kidnapped her twin brothers. I was wondering why they would choose the more severe of the two options when we learned the orphanage had recently been the target of a violent robbery. There were audible gasps and groans in the theater as the orphans calmly talked about how the robbers came in, held Liyana down and abused her.

It was a beautiful example of storytelling and story making. In addition to the more traumatic elements the process was meant to help the orphans deal with, you could easily identify the association between elements of the story and their lives.

Liyana is accompanied on her quest by a noble bull because the orphans care for cows and chickens. A grove of mango trees represented a life of ease that tempted Liyana from completing her quest because the orphans reveled in climbing mango trees and letting the juice run down their faces. It was the voice of a peacock sounding like Liyana’s grandmother that got her back on task.

I don’t want to give it away, but if there was anything that illustrated the value of people telling and seeing their own stories, it was the ending. For the children and the audience, it was a happy ending because it reflected an idealized vision of lives they could lead.

But in the U.S. the same basic scenario is synonymous with misery and is the starting point of many stories that the hero seeks to overcome. If the same storytelling program was run with orphans in the U.S. there would be a very different ending.