Some Guerilla Marketing

I forgot some notes I had made for today’s entry at work and since I spend far too much time there already, I ain’t going back. If you really wanna know what I had to say, come on back tomorrow. Oh, and by the way, this is the 101st entry since I started. Who knew I could talk so much?

I did want to make an observation about a couple guerilla marketing tactics I observed at the conference to which I have made reference this week. The first instance was with “Phoenix’s hippest dance troupe” Nebellen. The kids who were part of the troupe accosted me as I exited the resource room to encourage me to see one of their showcases. Technically, they weren’t supposed to do that of course. As I moved past them to the cyber cafe to check my email, I noticed they had also changed all the home pages on the computers to go to theirs. Obviously, they weren’t supposed to displace the conference home page, but I had to admire their creativity. (Of course, if everyone got into the act, it would have been annoying.)

The other group was The Carpetbag Brigade which had a showcase one evening at Gonzaga University. I really felt for them because they had stiltwalking as part of their current show so apparently couldn’t do their show at any of the indoor venues. Unfortunately, they were the only showcase at the university and so the likelihood of people going to an unfamiliar locale in an unfamiliar city in the dark of night probably placed many strikes against them.

They may have sensed this so they staged a portion of their piece in a field across the river from the convention center. They hooked up a guitar and keyboard to a speaker and went to town. The music caught the attention of pretty much everyone in the park and those of us sitting at the tables outside the convention center so they had quite an audience. The piece was visually very interesting, especially given their costuming and full body make up. What was particularly impressive was their skill and body control. They were playing on the side of a hill and doing all sorts of flips and acrobatics while on stilts all of which couldn’t have been easy.

I have to say in the interest of full disclosure that I didn’t end up seeing either of their showcases because of conflicts with ones I thought I would be more likely to book. One could argue then that their efforts were not successful, but on the other hand, they have earned potentially greater exposure to all those who read this entry. (And as I think about it, the stilt show in particular might be very interesting to do a few years down the road in one of my quads.)

Little Polish on the Skills

So it has been a busy week already. I have had so many meetings that I got that feeling that I ain’t getting anything done and considering I have a lot to do before going to the WAA Conference next week, that ain’t good.

But I have been learning some new things…

Monday I had a meeting with the head of Human Resources. I am on a committee to hire an assistant for myself. The Human Resource department has to look over the questions we are going to ask and approve of them. This is partially to make sure that we aren’t asking any questions connected with the forbidden topics like race, martial status, creed, political affiliation, religion, etc. We didn’t have any of those type of questions, but the head of HR wouldn’t sign off on them because he didn’t feel they would elicit effective answers.

I have to admit, he did have a point. Some of the questions other committee members had submitted dealt with how a person felt about certain situations like meeting new people or their philosophy on customer service. Part of the problem he had was that none of these things were part of the KSAs (knowledge, skills, abilities) of the job description. He encouraged us to rephrase the questions as situationals–what have you done in such a situation or what would you do?

He said that it doesn’t matter how people feel about a certain job as much as how they would act in a situation. His point was that people often hate to do certain aspects of their jobs, but they recognize the value of doing it and doing it well so dismissing them for how they feel might result in you discarding a valuable person.

On the other hand, if they mention they ignored a customer’s complaint because they were incessant whiners when you ask about their experiences, you know how they feel and how they would act.

I never thought of these issues before. So even though it was rather annoying to have to rewrite the questions and couch them in a manner that would satisfy the head of HR and still serve to get the information about the candidate’s personality, I have to admit his way can prove to be more valuable.

Yesterday I attended a meeting of the Performing Arts Presenters of Hawai’i (earlier mention of what they are all about here). We were discussing what our plans were when we attended the Western Arts Alliance Conference in Spokane next week. Not everyone was going so we were making a list of the groups everyone might be interested in presenting so we could check them out and approach agents, etc.

I had been warned to bring an extra suitcase so I could carry presskits and other materials back from the conference. A few weeks after I return, we will all meet again for a marathon review of videos, etc of likely prospects.

Then today I met with a representative of a local hotel chain with whom I am hoping to house most of my visiting performers. I was really reminded of the power of good customer service. I had contacted representatives of a number of chains, but she was the only one that decided that she could better serve me by having me come out and see her properties and treat me to lunch. Of all the others I contacted, only one other has even responded with the information I requested.

The thing is, none of them need my business, especially the woman who took me out. Right now tourism is excellent and there are hardly any rooms to be had on O’ahu. Even though I am bringing a fair bit of business, the hotels can make better use of their time wooing tour operators and travel agents than me. This is especially true because I am asking for kama aina rates (discounts for locals) in order to help me stay on budget.

This woman spoke to me, assessed my needs and then picked the mix of properties of the 20 or so her company manages on my island that would best suit my needs. She stayed away from the really economical places that might prevent jet lagged artists getting off a 5+ hour flight from getting rest and also avoided the ones that were too upscale. My time wasn’t wasted looking at the wrong places.

Every hotel we went to, the general manager came out and met me like I was an important account. They showed me around the rooms personally, offered me water and wet towels to refresh myself. The woman showing me around took me out to lunch at their flagship property where my car was valet parked and returned to me swiftly with my A/C and radio set to create a welcoming environment in my own vehicle. Now perhaps they do much more for travel agents, but they could have done far less for me.

I still have to be conscious of price, but if they end up being a few bucks more a night than another quote I get, they will certainly be getting my business. They know that good customer service means good service to everyone and they know that it is the little touches like the way the valet delivers your car that matters. They also probably know that good word of mouth is the best advertising. Not only will I speak well of them on my island, but because they have properties on the other islands, I will be saying great things about them to the other members of the consortium.

It just verifies my feelings about the importance of customer service and underscores how important it will be for me to rectify all the impediments to customer service at my theatre.

Musta Been Saving It Up

I was looking over some of my old entries and realized I actually never wrote down some good ideas I had connected with my earlier ideas on Drew McManus’ docent program. I have a vague recollection that I was going to mention my ideas in an interview so perhaps that is why I never wrote it here–I didn’t want provide other interviewees with my good ideas. (Hey, given that one place had 300 applicants for the same job, it isn’t outside the realm of possibility someone who read my blog had applied.)

In any case, it is actually a simple extension of my earlier thoughts and philosophies. I think it would be great to train art/drama/music, etc students in a docent program so they learn how to talk about what they do in an manner that doesn’t alienate audience. You don’t want a student standing in your lobby talking to an audience member saying “Well, clearly the dance was inspired by pointillism.” The implication being–if you don’t know what I am talking about, you are an idiot.

Instead, you might want them to say. “Well, the dance was inspired by pointillism. Are you familiar with that term?” And if the person says they aren’t, perhaps the student whips out the Sunday comics and a magnifying glass to show how the print process and the post-impressionism school of painting are similar. Then they point out how the concept was executed in the dance the person just saw or perhaps will see.

The audience sees your venue as a place they can feel comfortable attending and asking questions and your student base learns how to use language that doesn’t require specialized knowledge or make people uncomfortable.

Trying to establish a program like this is going to be one of my long term goals in my current position. It may be difficult because the campus is 100% commuter and clears out about 4-5 hours before performances begin. But there is a strong continuing ed program on the campus too and this type of examination of the arts might hold an appeal for them.

Outreach to Schools

Looking back to Artsmarketing.com today, I noticed they had a link to a FAQ about marketing outreach programs to schools. It is pretty informative for folks who want to do such things. It talks about who the decision makers and gatekeepers for schools are, what times of the year are bad to contact schools to set up outreach, how high school is different from elementary school.

The FAQ also discusses how to position your outreach so it will be more likely to be viewed as valuable to the educational process. It also directs groups to resources if they want to synch their offerings with teacher’s lesson plans, how to create good study guides and generally strengthen a relationship with the schools.

One of the things I was most impressed about was that the FAQ also addressed the perception by the students that the outreach was a free period where they didn’t have to learn or behave. Having gone on a number of school outreaches, I am familiar with this situation. The article encourages outreach groups to establish a protocol with the teacher prior to their arrival and also suggests finding a way to engage and involve the teacher in the process so they don’t give the impression it is an opportunity for escape themselves.

What It Means to Be Human

Okay, so I am in the middle of writing calendar listings and season brochure material trying to avoid falling into a boring writing style as pointed out by Greg Sandow and which I later commented on

I think I am doing fairly well, but time will tell and I may be too close to my own stuff. One of my other rules besides trying to avoid being boring is to also keep from quoting reviewers. I have seen so many people quoted saying “Fantastic”, “A must see”, “Best show of the season”, etc, etc, that I doubt the persuasive power of such quotes. Besides, it seems like inserting such quotes means you can’t think of enough interesting things to say about it on your own. Since I am trying to get into the practice of generating interesting things out of my own feeble brain, that is just another reason to avoid quoting folks.

On the other hand I was tempted to include a quote from a Pittsburgh paper that called a Dayton Dance Company’s performance “rollicking, lyrical, athletic and emotionally generous quartet of African-American dances” It was the emotionally generous part that caught my eye. I don’t frequently see that applied to people in reviews.

One thing I want to know though–when did being human become a selling point for a show? I constantly see (and I was guilty of it many times myself) people describe shows in terms of things that make us human or remind us of the human condition or celebrate what it is to be human. Andrew Taylor recently commented that people seldom go to the theatre simply because it will raise the SAT scores of kids in the neighborhood. Considering some pregnant women put headphones on their stomachs so that their forming child can be exposed to Mozart, I think there is a greater likelihood of folks deciding to support the arts for that reason than because they have lost touch with what it means to be human.

Now granted there are plenty of people out there who probably need to be reminded what it means to be human. However, I doubt anyone admits they need to be exposed to such stuff.

Again, I think this is a nebulous catch-all term people use out of laziness. It sounds impressive, but it really doesn’t mean much. I have seen it applied to some shows to refer to poignant moments, applied to others in connection with joy and familal bonds of love, and I have seen it applied to shows with incredible violence, hatred, pain and sorrow. You never know what you are going to get if you go to a “what it means to be human” show.

Yes, all these things are part of human existence, but it is much better to say poignant or violent. The problem is, using the term doesn’t help audiences understand art any better than they did when they arrived. It strikes me that this phrase is part of the alienating language the arts tend to use. I am not saying that language should be dumbed down–I am a big believer in people picking up dictionaries and teaching themselves. I am using phrases like “transient state” in my season brochure. Except in this case, the phrase very specifically describes a transformation which is occuring. (and I didn’t want to repeat the word transformation in the description.)

I won’t lie. This is hard. Even with all the practice I have writing about different issues, it is difficult to write something that accurately depicts a performance without falling back on newspaper quotes and important sounding, but empty phrases. This being my first weeks at a new job, there are plenty of other things I could really be spending my time on. But trying to do this well, even if I am not entirely successful, is important to developing my ability to communicate well with audiences.

Marketing by Drucker

To continue the discussion about Peter Drucker’s thoughts on Non-profit management that I started yesterday, I thought I would look at his view of marketing.

There are a number of interviews included in Managing the Nonprofit Organization where Drucker asks different people their views on a set topic. One of the interviews associated with marketing features Philip Kotler who teaches at Northwestern University. One of the things he says is that many people confuse marketing with hard selling and advertising.

He says “The most important tasks in marketing have to do with studying the market, segmenting it, targeting the groups you want to serve, positioning yourself in the market and creating a service that meets the needs out there. Advertising and selling are afterthoughts.” The difference is a function of how you start out. Do you look at who you want to serve or do you start with a product and then look for markets to push it into. The former is marketing, the latter is selling.

I will be the first to admit, I am guilty of selling under the guise of marketing. Part of this is due to pressure from above to fill seats and lacking the time, staff and environment to be asking if my actions properly served a market. Actually, pretty much all of it is due to those influences. I learned what marketing was supposed to be in school, much as Kotler defines. When I got out in the real world, I was never in a position to work under the proper definition.

Still, it is easy to market incorrectly even if you are acting in accordance with the definition. You may be clear about the needs you want to serve, “but don’t understand the needs from the perspective of the customers. They [organizations] make assumptions based on their own interpretation of the needs out there.”

I have been seeing this idea cropping up a lot recently in the articles I am reading. Arts organizations have been accused of not being cognizant of the changing needs and expectations of its audience. One of the things Mr. Kotler says is marketing can “help us understand why customers chose to be with us in the first place and why they’re not choosing to be with us any more.”

A couple ideas I came away from the reading with was that arts organizations could do a better job marketing by assessing their strengths. Even if there are a couple other theatres, orchestras, ballet companies, etc in the area, they can certain examine the market, see what there might be a demand for and fulfill it. This can range from things arts organizations already do like positioning themselves to the Shakespeare or modern dance niche or offering classes to adults and children and providing outreach programs free of charge to underserved schools.

It can also be new programs that recognize the different needs of all the segments you wish to serve. Instead of only having one format for an audience education program, you might pitch different ones for different segments. Older audiences might like a formal lecture/talk back after a Thursday performance that started at 7pm. Younger audiences might prefer a coffee house format discussion after a Saturday night performance that started at 8pm. Churches have different ministries under one roof to suit different segments of their congregations. This is a structure that arts organizations can adapt to their needs.

The methods that Drucker and Kotler discuss for making sure your organization is market rather than selling driven are fairly obvious but perhaps difficult to implement because it can require fighting institutional inertia. The first is to do market research to understand the market and its needs, the second is to develop segmentation and be aware of the different groups you want to serve, the third is to develop policies and programs that are structured to the meet needs of the groups. Everyone in the organization has to be invested in these programs over the long haul because the desired result won’t be attained immediately.

More Drucker to come.

I’m A Guru!

In his entry today, Drew McManus labels me a “theatre management guru” for an entry I made last week. I tell ya, this puts a lot of pressure on me to make today’s entry (which is actually my 50th) significant.

I think I will play it safe and direct my devoted readers to ArtsMarketing.org. I honestly don’t recall how I came across the webpage, but it has some interesting resources. The web page is a project of the New York City based Arts & Business Council, but provides valuable information for people on an international basis. (Some of the questions on their forums are posed by people from Hong Kong and Singapore.)

Some of the sections are a little outdated and the information presented is a little more general than I would have liked. If you are starting out doing arts marketing or are more experienced and seek some new ideas, it is worth a look. If nothing else, it will supplement what one already knows.

One section of the website deals entirely with creating a marketing plan from pre-planning to situational analysis to developing strategies and tactics. There is also a Hot Topics section that features articles on various aspects of marketing like audience development, communication, web marketing and research.

There is also a case study section which unfortunately only contains one study. Despite the note that you will have to pay to view it at this point, it is actually free to read. Perhaps as they build a library they will begin charging.

The portion of the website I found most interesting was their resource link page. Some of the links went to consultants, but others went to information sources of which I was not aware. Among them was BoardSource which deals with non-profit boards. (It seems like it would be a very interesting resource at first look.) Also included as a resource was a link to a Free Management Library which deals with 75 management topics in some depth. For example, it doesn’t only talk about the role of a CEO, but also talks about combating “Founder’s Syndrome” where the identity of an organization is so closely tied to the personality and energy of the founder.

It would be interesting to see if the Arts & Business Council continues to develop the arts marketing page. Since one of my goals for this blog was to eventually become a resource for non-profit organizations, I might defer to them if they do a good job. (They are underwritten by American Express and I ain’t)

Volunteers to the Rescue!

I have been closely watching a series of articles Drew McManus is writing on the topic “How to Save Classical Music.” He is using the docent program at the Denver Zoo as a case study of how to use volunteer labor to aid in the revitalization of orchestras. He begins by defining the problem, then talks about the Denver Zoo program and has most recently written on how to apply these lessons to orchestras. Volunteer programs are of special interest to me so I have already put a fair bit of thought into his entries. I suspect that additional consideration will so occupy me that this entry meant for Friday won’t be posted until Saturday.

Drew starts out with the premise that while most arts organizations inevitably have education as part of their mission, the focus of education departments is typically on school programs rather than on audience education. He suggests training and empowering docents will provide support in the areas of marketing, public relations, education and outreach. Docents are traditionally individuals who do tours and lectures at museums and cathedrals. Mr. McManus’ suggestion is to minimize the teaching posture and position docents more as knowlegeable companions.

He goes on to discuss the similarities between the Denver Zoo and orchestras which make the comparison valid. He also mentions the problems facing orchestras echoing the sentiments of the McPhee Knight Foundation speech I cited last week. The solution, he says, lies in adopting the Denver Zoo’s aims:

They facilitate people in their community with the tools they need to become an integral part of the zoos mission instead of looking at them as merely check writing automatons. The zoo gives up a measure of its own control over the institution, but in turn they create a passionate group of stakeholders that perpetuate ongoing community interest and involvement with the zoo. They enable members of the community to become involved partners as opposed to static participants. In turn, the zoo entrusts these individuals with the important responsibility of communicating with the public the value of their mission and to create an interest in the actual ‘product’.

Personally, I have always been interested in getting volunteers more involved in the organizations for which I have worked. However, I have been concerned about the administration’s commitment and investment in the volunteers. This is why I would be cautious about starting such a program in an arts organization.

The problem I have faced is that administration often looks upon volunteer help as a forgone conclusion. There is a Field of Dreams assumption similar to the one made about audiences–if you are offering the opportunity to volunteer, then certainly people are going to want to do it so they can be associated with the wonderful things the organization does.

One place I worked had often discussed, but never held, a volunteer appreciation event in the 15-20 years of the program. I felt victorious at having been the first to successfully organize one. When it came time to plan for the next one, I was told money wasn’t the issue but in light of the fact that after 20 years without an event, only 40 out of 350 invitees came, maybe it was better to have it every 2-3 years.

I was extremely annoyed. We had started doing performances at a 1000 seat venue that was much more accessible to major roadways than our other performance spaces, but with which our audience base was not familiar. The first show we hardly had 200 people attend. However, we didn’t abandon doing shows there but worked on increasing awareness of the venue. In my mind, we could have done the same thing by noting the party date 6 months out on every piece of correspondence sent to participating volunteers.

As a result of perceiving an exploitative motivation with little thought of appreciation, I have never proposed additional programs in which volunteers could be involved. I do, however, collect ideas such as Drew’s against the day I am in a position to direct policy.

In the second day’s entry, McManus discusses how the program of the Denver Zoo is structured. I was impressed by the amount of training the docents underwent and how much they were invested in the zoo. One of the biggest complaints the volunteers had was that the program became too formalized and that full time employees assumed functions they once performed. It is to the volunteers’ credit that they feel such ownership for the program. The zoo is so happy with the program they intend to double its size to 600 docents in the near future.

In his third entry, Mr. McManus discusses the problems with orchestras and how the docent program can help. One of the biggest problems, he says, is that orchestras devote an increasingly larger portion of their ticket revenue to market to the same, ever decreasing, segment of the public. When they do try to attract more diverse audiences, “it often comes off looking like a tragically unhip old guy trying his best to look young and cool.”

Educational information that is provided is usually in the form of reams of printed material utilizing arcane terminology and might be supplemented by a brief pre-performance lecture. What it lacks, he says, is personal face to face contact with someone who is passionate and knowledgeable, but like you, doesn’t have all the answers. He also suggested essentially gutting the PR department of everyone except an editor and let docents write press releases.

My reservations about the exploitation of volunteers aside, I found his suggestions very exciting. Certainly the training of docents would have to be well planned and executed. I know that some people volunteer for the social prestige association with an organization or art form brings. People who want to impress others with what they know may only compound the intimidation a novice feels. Excluding a volunteer from being a docent can lead to a whole other set of PR problems.

The benefits for this program could be enormous. You could offer any level of interaction from having docents mingling in the lobby answering questions to offering a low intimidation program people register for in advance. In the latter program you might have a docent contact a person on Wednesday saying “Hey, why don’t I meet you for coffee before the show Friday night, my treat. Then I will make sure you get to your seat, we can talk at intermission and after the show. But if you have to get home to your kids, you can always email me with questions.”

If your worst problem is that the new attendee ties up your docent by wanting to meet for coffee before every concert, is that really a problem? You can always introduce new attendees to each other and encourage them to meet for coffee as a group. (Then hit up the coffee shop for a program book ad at the very least since you are sending so many people his way.) You can also direct people to internet tools like meetup.com (which includes classical.meetup.com and theater.meetup.com) and evite.com that make it easy for those who share interests to organize discussions with people they have never met.

The idea about volunteers writing press releases was very intriguing. I am not as confident about the writing skills of volunteers as Drew is, but I have never tried it. This actually may be the answer to the boring press release thread Greg Sandow brought up. If you have docents submit press releases that highlight why they are excited by the piece or person performing, you excise the boring “professionally” written junk. As Drew suggested, all it takes is an editor (who can resist the temptation to insert boring stuff) to polish it up and perhaps reorder some points so the release starts out with the attention grabbing details.

Drew also suggests that docents could be valuable in attracting new audiences from the diverse communities they live in by disseminating information and generally acting as an advocate for the insititution. My thought was that unless people from these communities were already experimenting with attendance and just needed to be empowered by such a program in order to gain the confidence to volunteer as a docent, there wasn’t much chance of achieving diversity.

I mentioned this to Drew and he agreed drawing docents from the current audience would only serve to continue drawing the current audience. He said instead “the trick is to get the program started with a core group that is not entirely representative of the current audience. A few ideas I’ve had is for orchestras to utilize individuals such as private music teachers who have adult students, retired school teachers.” This sounded like the most prudent course to me.

A variation of the Denver Zoo docent program could certainly be worth the effort to implement. I didn’t check out the Denver Zoo marketing budget, but the fact they estimated it only cost them about $25,000 to run a 300 person docent program is probably a miniscule portion of the budget. However, according to Drew’s survey they heavily depend on the program to enhance the visitor’s attending experience, educate visitors about the zoo’s mission, provide staffing for in-school and summer education programs and provide paid staffers with time to attend to zoo operations. The docents are essentially the public face of the zoo.

I took a quick look at Baltimore Symphony’s 2002 990 return. They reported 1.5 million for marketing. Even if Drew is wrong and a docent program only reduces expenses by 10% instead of 25%, $150,000 is still a fairly significant savings. Imagine what sort of docent training program you might have if you added half of that savings to a current volunteer budget?

To make all this work requires the docents to be invested in and well informed about the organization they represent. This level of investment and information can only be achieved if the docents have control of their program. It is straight from Management 101 that when you assign people responsibilities, you need empower them with the authority to act. The program also needs to receive the full support and cooperation of the organization administration. Essentially this ties in with the concept of open source management I wrote on back in February.

Drew doesn’t think this is likely in symphonies due to an insular nature that resists releasing authority and transparency of information. His fear is that “Without their continuous support and involvement, the program will come across as nothing more than another propaganda tool that orchestra’s are already well known for.”

Drawing from my background in theatre and popular music, I would say it depended on the age of the organization and how entrenched current management was in their ways. If it was relatively young in its institutional development, I would say there was a fair chance such a program might be adopted. Otherwise, I would have to agree with Drew that there would be too much inertia in the corporate culture to make progress. It seems that the biggest contributions of innovation and change in areas of business like the tech sector come from people who admit they didn’t know any better. I imagine it change in the arts world would originate in the same place.

Of course, this is not to say that old dogs can’t learn new tricks. Looking to the tech sector again you have IBM who have shown they can do just that. We should always strive to do better at every age.

Misc. Tips

I have assembled a small collection of ideas related to marketing and constituent relations. Thought I would share some of them today. I am not including donor benefits today because they could go on forever.

Volunteer Relations
April is National Volunteer Month so it is always nice to show your volunteers that you appreciate them. Some organizations I have come across have:

-Had volunteer dinners with entertainment and awards.
-Had a Holiday party where the volunteers were invited to bring an ornament to decorate the tree. This publicly exhibited how strong the volunteer corps was and how involved they were since few people ever saw more than a handful of them at one time.
-Annually nominated a volunteer of the year for a United Way recognition dinner and then noted the fact in the volunteer newsletter.
-A couple places I worked required the entire cast and crew to help strike the set at the end of the run. The volunteer guild would make a big pot of spaghetti or chili or bring a 4 foot subs for dinner. This let the volunteers rub elbows with the cast and also allowed the strike to move along on schedule.

Marketing/Public Relations

For Resubscriptions some organizations have:
-Had resubscription dinners with buffet/heavy hors d’oeuvres, sometimes with a concert/one act play as added incentive.
-Taped cards with Hershey Kisses attached the seats of season subscribers. The cards said “X Theatre Loves Their Subscribers! Exclusive Subscriber Ticket Sales End X.” This showed the subscribers they were appreciated and created a buzz among non-subscribers wondering what it was about. A curtain speech explained it all. (Have to credit Lisa Jones at the Carolina Ballet with this one. I adopted it from her. Works fairly well.)

For Public Awareness/Relations Some Organizations Can:
-Do short, pointed curtain speeches and be available at intermission for questions/comments.
-Speak at Chamber of Commerce and Rotary Club meetings. Offer special business packages.
-Hold backstage tours, playtalks and advanced discussions about themes in shows.
-Give discounts on tickets for people who bring food donations for the local Food Bank.
-Have free First Monday play readings taking advantage of the theatre being dark
-Set up special “get you to the theatre on time” seating and menus with restaurants
-Have pre-show orientation talks in a room off a lobby or restaurant (promoting dinner, talk and show packages)
-Approach a local bookstore about having staff do talks about shows, costuming, lighting design, opera, etc or with significance to a best seller. In return, book store will put up window display promoting a performance with props, posters and perhaps a dress form. (Actually started this process with a Barnes and Noble and got agreement but my employment contract ran out before it came to be.)
-Similarly, approach churches (they are groups of people who go to events regularly as a family unit after all) to do talks about topics of interest. (I met an executive director with an art history background who spoke at evening church talks on the fact that some of the implications in The DaVinci Code that famous people belonged to secret societies were based on fabricated forgeries a la The Hitler Diaries)
-Encourage actors/directors/technicians/musicians, etc to blog. I mentioned the benefits and pitfalls of which I discussed at the end of this earlier entry and the beginning of this one. Just today, I came across these guidelines Groove Networks sets for employee blogs.

-One policy I never was in the position to institute once I formulated it–No disparaging remarks about patrons on the job. One place I worked not only discussed the stupid things people said or asked, they posted a running list on the box office door. I believe this type of thing creates a hostile work environment which subtly insinuates itself into customer care.

Customers are indeed idiots. I should know, I am one. Everyone has an off day. When you deal with a couple hundred people each day, there are bound to be a few having their off day (as well as the chronic idiots). One easy solution to this is the old money in a jar routine whenever someone complains about a patron. Then take the jar to a bar after hours and use it to buy beer and pizza and complain your heart out there.

Anyone else have some tips they have found useful? Some of the things I have done and come across have been sort of corny, but they were successful. I would really be interested in knowing what people have done. I will compile a list and post it as a resource people can consult when they need inspiration.
Clicking on “Joe” at the end of the entry will let you email me.

Well Laid Plans

At the risk of being derivative of today’s Artful Manager posting, I too would like to call attention to the Washington Post article on the planning process that went into the Arena Stage’s 2004-05 season. Since some of the themes of my past entries have been to bemoan the lack of space newspapers give arts writing and to champion making people aware of the process that goes into creating art, I was pleased by the article on both counts.

I thought the article did a good job talking about the myriad decisions that factor into season selection. I won’t mention all of them because they are outlined fairly well on The Artful Manager. A couple of things I wanted to note from my own experience though–

First, I was amazed to see the season selection starting so early. They started in September/October. Most places I have worked at have started taking suggestions and reading scripts around December, the holidays put things on hold so nothing happens until January. The whole process of balancing things has to be crammed into February because marketing needs to start printing up brochures for season renewal in the beginning of March. (more on that later)

Why don’t things start earlier? Well typically people are so busy with trying to get the new season started in September and October that they aren’t thinking about what they are going to produce at that time next year. The Arena has a leg up because they have a fairly large Artistic and support staff that provides the decision makers a little more free time to begin contemplating. Most theatres don’t have one dramaturg. Michael Kinghorn is listed as Senior Dramaturg which implies that there is more than one person acting in that capacity. (What is a dramaturg you ask? Glad you did, check here and here)

Don’t get me wrong, the Arena operates at a level where they need this size staff in order to endure the quality that their patrons expect of them. I just wanted to make it clear that the article was not representative of the majority of theatres though pretty much every theatre strives for the balance the Arena reached regardless of staff size.

The other thing I noted about the article was the absence of input from a marketing staff member. Marketing people aren’t always on a selection committee and even if they are, they may not attend every meeting. However, with the amount of time the process takes, (and it doesn’t appear that the Arena is very different), the marketing department is always clamoring for a decision to be made soon because there are brochures to design and mail, press releases to write and a resubscription campaign to launch.

I don’t know what it is like in other art forms, but in theatre if you have a season that only runs part of the year or if there is a portion that you consider your “high” season, you make tremendous efforts to start your resubscription campaign for next season before the last show of the current season starts (sometimes even the second to last show).

The reason is it is easier to get people to resubscribe when they are handed a brochure while watching something they enjoy. (Thus the reason many seasons end with a high energy musical or familiar classic. Arena is ending this year with Tennessee Williams, next year with Eugene O’Neill.) It is difficult enough to get people to subscribe at all these days, trying to start in the summer when they are thinking about things other than a show they saw months ago is insane. The decisionmaking and approval process on the designs and text of a marketing campaign is almost as involved as the selection process and compressed into a tenth of the time. It is no wonder marketing people intone “Are you done yet?” as their personal mantras.

One side observation on this last point-with the exception of one instance, in my experience if a show does well, the credit goes to the artistic choices. If it does poorly, the blame goes to marketing for not pushing it enough. This seemed to be such an undeviating trend that when I experienced the exception, I immediately approached the marketing director. Because it was just an atypical experience, I filed her obvious answer as reinforcing my “When I am In Charge” credo.

She said that while the executive director did tend to micromanage things more than she would like, both he and the artistic director were aware of and approved of all the marketing and advertising decisions and accepted responsibility for the result.

This may seem quite obvious. In most of my experiences, the top leaders would either nod agreeably at the explaination of why more money was being invested in promoting some shows than others or they would say they didn’t want to be bothered with the details. In both cases, the marketing director would be called on the carpet if attendance was disappointing.

This is essentially the main reason I won’t handle marketing anywhere I don’t feel my supervisors comprehend that artistic decisions and social trends can contribute to how well a show succeeds independent of how much effort and money is put into promoting it.

I would be interested in knowing if other arts marketers had similar experiences. Just click on my name at the end of the entry and drop me a line!

Billboards on Fire!

I came across on interesting donor benefit this weekend which seems like something a number of arts organizations could offer their supporters. My brother-in-law’s mother runs a social service agency. As part of a fundraising dinner/auction, she established a tiered system of rewards for donations similar to what an arts organization might offer.

A benefit of donating into the top tier was to have ones name placed on 3 billboards throughout the county, have ones name included in PSAs, in a full page advertisement in the program and on signage at the event. This reminded me of a chapter in The Guerilla Marketing Handbook by Jay Conrad Levinson and Seth Godin. They mentioned that it was possible to get billboard space fairly cheaply if you weren’t picky about where and when your information was displayed by taking advantage of gaps between contracts on a billboard. (Though certainly one could try to get specific periods donated.)

I had never really explored this option when I was doing marketing and pr because the intermittent availability of low cost periods was not conducive to trying to promote performances and seasons. As a benefit of donation, there are better possibilities. The listing on my sister’s mother-in-law’s donor card says the billboard acknowledgment will occur during 2004. At this point, she has 8 months to make good on her promise. Depending on their relationship with the billboard owners, arts organizations could probably publicize a probable period an acknowledgment would appear by getting the owners to review when contracts expired or the times of the year when there are typically few clients looking to advertise.

Something I will certainly explore or suggest for exploration in my next job.

So, Where’s The Fire?

In an earlier entry (see the subheader “Demon Horses Unleashed!”) I had mentioned some blog entries on the artsjournal.com site that discussed why dull press releases were bringing about the downfall of classical music. The discussion was started by Greg Sandow on March 23 and both Andrew Taylor and Drew McManus picked up the discussion in their own blogs.

In his original entry, Mr. Sandow suggested making the headers on press releases more exciting and suggested something along the lines of “Two Headed Cellist Makes Debut”. As a minor tribute to his suggestion, I make the burning billboard reference here. At the time, I thought it was interesting and a lesson for all arts organizations and so referenced it in an entry.

It turns out, it is a topic that won’t die. On Monday, Drew McManus offered an additional entry on it. Mr. Sandow actually hasn’t stopped talking about it and wrote about it Thursday and <a href="Friday of last week.

This additional conversation on the matter gave me pause and caused me to review the press release writing I have done in the past. I certainly thought I wrote a good game in the body of each release, but in light of what Mr. Sandow discusses, I wonder if the titles were boring and if I had included facts that weren’t pertinent.

Honestly, these are considerations that are elementary in any journalism and public relations class. Most marketing and pr departments don’t have the luxury of having a skilled person who can examine releases for these things. They barely have the time to review someone else’s release to make sure nothing is misspelled and the dates are correct. Engaging style often takes a backseat and I think that is what Mr. Sandow’s point is.

In the arts, sometimes our best and only reminder of the basics we are supposed to be following come from independent sources. I appreciate that Mr. Sandow took the time to extend the discussion on this topic. It really didn’t catch me on the first mention, but it certainly has started me thinking now.

Media Mutations

I read a couple articles today about changes in the media. The first was about declining news coverage and the second, about the decline of beauty due to the arrival of HDTV.

The first article, entitled Audiences for US Journalists Decline, appeared in The Guardian.

The article began by saying:


Most American news media are experiencing a steady decline in audiences and are significantly cutting their investment in staff and resources, according to a report issued yesterday.

The study on the state of the US news media by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, which is affiliated to Columbia University’s graduate journalism school, found that only ethnic, alternative and online media were flourishing.

“Trust in journalism has been declining for a generation,” said the project director, Tom Rosenstiel. “This study suggests one reason is that news media are locked in a vicious cycle. As audiences fragment, newsrooms are cut back, which further erodes public trust.”

This isn’t surprising news for many arts organizations who find that their local paper is cutting back on the number of arts reviewers on staff as well as the space devoted to reviews and stories. What this means for arts organizations is that they will need to find alternatives for disseminating information about their offerings.

In addition to reaching patrons directly through emails and websites, arts organizations might also identify individuals in the community who produce well written web based critiques of performances and direct audiences to them as they have referred audiences to newspaper reviews in the past. (The positive and negative implications for the relationships that might develop between a blogging critic and an arts organization are very interesting and one I will explore in a future entry.)

The good news of this study is that arts organizations can achieve the elusive goal of diversifing the ethnic make up of their audiences through newspapers. According to the article “Spanish-language newspaper circulation has nearly quadrupled over the past 13 years and advertising revenues are up sevenfold.” With suitable programming, there exists some opportunities to educate and attract new audiences to an organization through newspapers.

Since an organization is going to be producing press releases in other languages, it would be beneficial to offer a duplicate of the organization’s website in those languages as well. Just because more people are reading newspapers doesn’t mean they are ignoring the web.

The second article was from the Chicago Trib and was listed on Artsjournal.com. It talked about how make-up could no longer hide actor and tv personality’s blemishes from the exacting eye of HDTV.

I had a number of reactions to this. First, I was somewhat optimistic at the idea that audiences might buy HDTV sets to get current with the technology and then out of a longing for the illusion of perfection, would flock to the theatre where they could escape the gritty reality of their idols.

Then I got a little depressed wondering if make-up artists failed to find a way to hide the flaws, would a new, more stringent standard of beauty emerge. Would future movies and tv programs be filled with the very few people who were naturally flawless because it was easier than taking additional hours to make masked flaws look natural. These people would, of course, have extremely brief careers as age quickly began marking them up.

Then I got optimistic again. Perhaps after fruitless attempts to fool the new technology, actors and tv personalities would stop trying so hard and we as audiences would come to accept all the normal picayune things which detract from imagined perfection. Perhaps HDTV will help usher in a more inclusive standard of beauty rather than create a more exclusive one. This seems like one of those battles that you win by losing.

Of A Certain Age

I came across a mention of the Performing Arts Research Coalition (PARC) study, The Value of the Performing Arts in Five Communities. This is an interesting study and will probably fuel a number of future blog posts.

The mention I saw today was in regard to the report’s finding that attendance at performing arts events was not strongly tied to age. The report says:

In contrast to education level and household income, age is not strongly related to attendance levels. This finding is interesting because popular discussions often assume that performing arts audiences are mostly composed of older people – a “graying” of attenders. Our findings, however, indicate that in some communities the 65 and over age category is the one with the greatest percentage of nonattenders. Austin again is an anomaly among the communities in the study. Although the relationship between age and attendance is not strong, it is negative. This indicates that in Austin, performing arts attendance is greatest among young people, with attendance declining among older age cohorts.

That put me in mind of a blog I wrote. I keep a file on my computer called “Good Ideas” where I put copies of articles I find on the web that I think might be of use at some point. (Though many times I find I only realize the value of an article months after it appeared and have a terrible time tracking it down again!) I looked in my file and found the entry I recalled was from Terry Teachout’s blog, About Last Night.

He quoted an article by Eric Felten about why it was pointless for advertisers to focus so much on the 18 to 34 male demographic and quoted a passage directly related to the arts.

A few years ago the Chicago Symphony commissioned a survey that found the average age of its concert-goers to be 55. But the orchestra’s president, Henry Fogel, didn’t fall for the actuarial fallacy. Instead he checked similar research done 30 years earlier and found that the average age at that time was also 55. “There is simply a time in one’s life when subscribing to a symphony orchestra becomes both desirable and possible,” says Mr. Fogel, now president of the American Symphony Orchestra League. Acting on this insight, the Chicago Symphony is wooing boomers who, though they may still enjoy their old Beatles records, long for a new musical experience. The orchestra has targeted new subscribers by advertising on, of all places, a local “classic rock” station.

Mr. Teachout goes on to talk about the fact that he himself didn’t become interested in visual arts until he was 40.

The study and the article gave me some reason for optimism. Certainly my tastes have evolved on many fronts as I have gotten older. As an avid reader, I have noticed that I am now intensely interested in books that bored me at one point. My taste in music has changed as I have gotten older. While I am not terribly interested in ballet and orchestra music, perhaps I will be at one point.

If these things are true for me, then there is a strong possibility that they will be true for many people my age. People may age and become more interested and open to experiences in the arts and resupply the older folks in today’s audiences. (From the study, it doesn’t sound like there are as many older folks as we think there are so that is heartening as well.)

Mr. Teachout points out however that he was already predisposed to find pleasurable experiences in the arts. He questions if it is wise to expect people who have never been exposed to the arts to grow into an appreciation of something that is unfamiliar to them, especially given the increased disappearance of school arts programs.

Indeed, most of Mr. Felten’s examples are about television programs and ads that fail to capture their target demographic and perhaps snag older demographics instead. Cars and television programs aren’t alien to 18-34 year olds. They may not have the means and interest in purchasing Volvos and watching 60 Minutes right now. However, when their interests and bank accounts mature, they won’t perceive too many barriers to their enjoyment and acquisition of things they previously regarded as the province of older folks.

Can the same be said of the arts? If you never laughed at a silly play as a child or were never moved by one of the more familiar classical music or opera piece as a teen ager, how likely are you to make the choice to attend an event when you get older? If you feel intimidated by your ignorance of the etiquette and dress code of an arts event, how willing are you to chance going to one without at least some advice from a friend?

Certainly, there are other elements that contribute to attendance that might influence someone who has never attended to start–friends who patronize an organization or the ability to make social contacts that will advance ones career, for example. But arts organizations can’t afford to depend on people’s friend’s and social/business expectations to drive audiences to their doors.

It seems to me that community outreach becomes more and more important these days. It also would seem that the interests of all arts organizations become more and more intertwined. Not all arts organizations can afford to send programs into schools and community centers. Almost all organizations can eventually benefit from the exposure a community gets to the arts if Mssrs. Teachout and Felten are correct.

It might behoove organizations who can’t afford to do outreach to lend some occasional support to those who can. Perhaps it is administrative support, contributing to study guides, constructing travelling sets, helping to book presentations.

Of course, it would also benefit organizations if they did as the Chicago Symphony did took a look at their audience very closely and determined if there were some untapped channels through which they could reach the non-attendees in their target demographic.

Thinking about what these untapped channels to the right people is going to be one of the things I mull over for awhile. I don’t know of many concrete examples like the one given about the Chicago Symphony and classic rock stations. I would love to hear of any unorthodox approaches other people have taken.

You Are Paying For It After All

I was reading an article recently in the California Aggie that spoke of the trouble attracting UC Davis students to the Mondavi Center (article no longer available). Since student fees underwrite the Center’s programs, the administration would like to see more students attending. Only 13% of students attend performances that include people like Michael Moore, Bill Clinton, Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman. When dance and theatre department shows are in the spaces, attendance jumps to 50% (though ticket prices drop).

Granted, students may be required to see the departmental shows which may boost attendance. That is about the only element besides price I could see given reasons like lack of incentive and interest and difficulty securing good seats. Certainly the same could be said of the department shows.

This is a problem I have been faced with when working at universities and a question people ask if I have a solution to. I don’t really have a solution at all outside of the usual channels of student newspapers, etc. Given how much people use email and instant messaging devices, that would certainly be a direction to explore. It would just be a matter of finding an effective opportunity to get students to provide their addresses so you can send updates. How to make sure your messages don’t get ignored like so much spam is another thing altogether.

Given my philosophy of making it easy for people to make a decision to attend, I was attracted to the Mondavi Center’s tactic of putting daily ads in the student paper that only had the student prices listed rather than a half page ad with all the pricing listed which ran only once. Apparently it has begun to pay off for them as student ticket purchases for the remaining 50 shows of the season (out of a season of about 120 events) has risen to 17.2%.

The Center would also like their audience to reflect the racial diversity of their constituency base, but haven’t found as promising an answer to that as they have with their students.

It strikes me that more and more in the future appeals will be made to audience segments rather than audiences in general. The very fact that people can find programs pitched directly to their interests on the myriad cable channels means people’s vision is becoming increasingly tunneled.

I recently saw a program that pointed out that in the 1970s, a prime time program on one of the 3 available networks was ranked around 40 in the Nielsens and had something in the neighborhood of 17% of the viewers. Today shows like Survivor which are heralded as shows everyone is watching are actually only attracting 17% of the viewers because of all the choices available. The failures of yesteryear are counted as the blockbuster successes of today.

Usually, arts organizations can’t even consider advertising on TV and that is even more of an impediment today if you have to consider that one part of your demographic predominantly watches the Home and Garden channel, another A&E, another the History Channel, Discovery, TLC, etc.

The fact they are catered to changes people’s expectations slowly in other areas as well. They may seek newspapers, social groups, radio stations, etc that cater specifically to them rather than ones that are generally aligned with their interests. Trying to reach people is going to become increasingly difficult as time goes on I believe.

I will try to find some research that supports or refutes this idea, but until then. Anyone have any comments or thoughts?

Return From Detroit

So I am back from my Wayne State interview. It was very exciting and quite a valuable experience in terms of simply having a forum to explain my views on theatre management theory and practice and how to teach it. It certainly sounds different when you are talking about it than when it is part of an internal dialogue.  Honestly, in some cases I was surprised at how intelligent the words coming out of my mouth sounded. Inevitably, some of it didn’t sound as good or I couldn’t explain as clearly as I would have liked.

The program at Wayne State seems to be a very good one and I would certainly like to be affliated with it. Apparently their approach is bucking the current thinking about theatre training and their U/RTA membership is in jeopardy. To me, their program seems like a valid alternative and more valuable to the students than being in a program that does the bare minimum to be in compliance. If nothing else, my visit has provided more subject matter to mull over and present here on the blog.

I apparently hadn’t completely understood a question one of the faculty asked me. Another staff member clarified his intent later and I was a little disappointed because it was in relation to a topic I had given some thought to and could have answered more clearly than I had.

The question was in relation to attracting an audience to the theatre which was better reflective of the population of Detroit which identifies itself as 85% African-American. It is certainly a difficult question and not one I am entirely comfortable about answering given that I am white and discussing the behavior of other races is risky.

Still, it is a valid area of concern and one I have thought about because I believe theatre managers should devote some consideration to solutions in this area regardless of their race. We are among the best educated about an arts organization’s abilities and options. If we don’t think about these things, who will? I believe there is a greater sincerity in the intent of arts organizations to involve and expose diverse audiences to their product than in the motivation of most companies and politicans to attract the same groups to their products and causes.

The following is an excerpt of an email I sent him today. I believe it is a fair assessment of the situation and doesn’t make terribly erroneous or biased statements about the way things stand. I think the biggest argument against it could be is that I (and my questioner) are implying that different races should be valuing/assimilated into the entertainment choices of caucasians. This is certainly a valid point and one could engage in a lengthy debate about the value and validity of European based entertainment for people who come from outside that tradition and the benefits that caucasians can derive from exposure to multicultural arts At the moment I am only trying to find one solution for a small piece of the larger puzzle and debate. It is starting point in terms of pursuing a goal of attracting a more diverse audience for any tradition.

I wrote:

The answer, of course, is not an easy one. It is a matter that I have given some thought to over time. I have perception/theory (you may have actual evidence and feedback as a result of your efforts), that the problem is partly a matter of acculturation. There is the often cited idea that only rich, educated people attend arts events because tickets are more expensive than movies and the arts can be intimidating to understand. However, walking into a theatre, it doesn’t take much effort to conclude that only rich, educated, white people attend arts events.

I think it is easier for a caucasian to one day make the decision to start attending arts events and surmount the intimidation factor because they saw it was something their parents valued (even if they tried to rebel against all their parents stood for) or it allows them to make social contacts that will advance their career or even as a result of some idea that attendance is what one does when one reaches a certain stage in life. Even if it is not an overt influence, there is a subliminal influence of shared cultural values that may not exist as much in other racial communities. If you aren’t white and you walk in to a theatre and see who is on stage and in the audience, it is not hard to imagine there is a subliminal influence against you attending

In addition to all the things I said yesterday, I would add that attracting an audience can be a matter of tapping the resource of opinion leaders, whether it be newspapers and radio stations that serve a racial niche, or actual people. The thing that springs to mind first is churches. This is a good place to look across the board since people who are invested in regularly attending events together can be a desirable group. The fact that presidential candidates are going to churches to woo the black vote is pretty strong evidence that they are places of influence.

Theatres often invite tour operators, critics and other decision makers/people of influence to shows they are trying to promote. It might be useful to invite ministers to shows or rehearsals, have a dinner/reception before hand, provide them with educational and informational packets, talk to them about the shows and answer questions. Essentially make it easy for them to recommend the shows to other people.

Of course, there has to be a commitment to presenting suitable shows across a season. Having a single show that has a particular resonance with a group and expecting people to become enamored of your usual fare is akin to the PGA trying toget more men interested in watching golf by televising women in tight shorts and skimpy tops playing one weekend and then going back to the regular schedule the next.

As I am certain you are aware, there is a fairly limited canon of shows that might be of interest to specific groups, even including shows with universal themes which can be cast using people with a similar racial background as your target audience. And because there are so few shows like this, it is difficult to cast shows with diversity. Therefore, fewer non-whites find satisfaction in being an actor which provides fewer faces audience members can identify with on stage which keeps the audience more homogenous.

It is the old Catch-22. Audiences want to see people/themes they can identify with, actors want to see audiences and perform roles they can identify with, theatres are more willing to produce shows that will have an audience to sustain it, those shows present themes their current audience base can closely identify with. I am sure I am not telling you anything you don’t already know or haven’t considered.

Actually, if any training program has a chance of success in attracting a diverse audience, it is Wayne State. I met/saw more diversity among undergrad and grad actors there than anywhere else I have been. Of course, the truth might be that I met all the actors in both programs. When I was at the X Conservatory in Y, they had a terrible time trying to maintain diversity in their program. Because of the limited role choices, etc. many of the men and women they admitted didn’t feel fulfilled by their experience and left the program in their first or second year in search of another program that might serve them better.

I don’t have any short term solution for the problem. It is all a matter of what I was saying in the meeting yesterday. Repeated exposure to a topic/way of thinking can slowly alter perceptions and plant positive associations about the theatre in people’s minds. There has to be a long term commitment to putting the right combination of people and shows on stage, putting the touring company in front of the right groups, bringing in the right matinee groups. Eventually you hope the message will come across that the theatre is financially, geographically, intellectually, socially, etc accessible to audiences.

I don’t know if this helps at all, but perhaps it will provide some clarity and inspiration that will allow you to arrive at a solution of your own.”

Anyone with other viable solutions? Let me know.