Ron Spigelman left a comment about a remark made in a story I linked to in my last entry. I was going to respond in a comment of my own, but the more I thought, the more my thoughts were turning into an entry.

The remark he took exception to was made by an opera student performing for elementary school kids who said “Hopefully, by performing for children, it will be a learning experience and I can take that away to perform for discerning critics.”

When I first read the story, I thought it was an unfortunate thing to say because of what it implied about children and their ability to make judgements about opera. And it played into the sterotype (perhaps deserved) that opera people are snobs. Children are discerning. They just use different criteria than adults. (See telling an important story vs. tattling, 3rd para. last week entry.)

The remark also reminded me immediately of an episode of the Bravo channel’s Top Chef show. One episode the chefs were told that they were going to prepare food for some of the most discerning eaters around–kids at a Boys and Girls Club. (The host used essentially those terms which is why I immediately made the connection with the CNN article.) The chefs were split into two teams and told they would be preparing competing dishes using monkfish.

Monkfish is not the most attractive looking fish as you can see from the preceding link. The producers of the show played on that by bringing one out, showing the kids and telling them this was what they were about to eat. As you might imagine, there was a resounding “EWWWWWWWWWW.”

The chefs thought about what presentation might be most appealing to the children. One team came up with “monkey dogs,” pureed monkfish given hot dog shapes and the other turned the fish into nuggets. As I recall, one of the teams colored their applesauce purple to make it appealing to the kids.

What put one team over the top was that they went out and interacted with the kids while they were eating. Only one member of the other team did while his teammates hung back viewing the interaction as pandering to the kids. One of them even commented something to the effect that she wouldn’t do the monkfish interpretive dance.

I admit there might have been a little pandering and politicking for the votes they needed for the win on the part of the one team. But chatting with the kids also served to help them get past the fact they were eating an ugly looking fish. In the same manner, arts organizations can help patrons get past awkward situations via interactions that answer questions and allay concerns.

Heck, as much as I don’t know about opera, I would rather attend a performance than to be asked to pick out an appropriate wine for a meal. A restaurant with an empathetic and patient sommelier is gonna see a lot of me.

Arts opportunities for school kids isn’t just important because it may create a situation where 30 years down the road they may walk in our doors. Kids are willing to talk a whole lot more about what their experience and what they do and don’t understand than adults are. In 30 years they will not only be comfortable going to events, they will be comfortable asking questions about things they don’t understand–If someone talked to them when they were young and encouraged them to do so.

I don’t remember exactly who the group was, but I once had a touring childrens’ theatre company come through a place I worked that did a great job with the Q & A session after the show. Performers like these folks get the same questions every show they do: “How come he was so mean?,” “I liked the feathers on your costume,” “What’s Your Name?” “How old are you?” “How do you remember all those lines?”

I stepped in during the last performance they were doing and a 10-12 year old girl mentioned she liked that one of the characters showed signs of turning over a new leaf at the end of the show. The company could have thanked her for the comment and moved on. Instead, one of the actors asked her why it was important to her that he looked like he might change after all the terrible things he had done. The discussion between them started to move into the topics of redemption and forgiveness.

The play was about bullying so I can see why the message that bullies can change their behavior and their victims should be forgiving might be important. What really impressed me was that the girl was asked why that bit of the plot was important to her and that she was given the power to direct the dialogue and state her views on how the world should be rather than the actors coming out with a blanket statement that it is important to forgive and bullies should try to change.

Unfortunately, I didn’t realize why I was impressed by the interaction until afer they left so I never got a chance to ask if they always lead discussions in that manner or if it was a happy coincidence. I prefer to think it was planned, of course, and that they would have tackled whatever topic the girl felt was important.

Granted, it takes a skilled person to interact well with young people. While they are willing to discuss their views readily enough, getting them to do so without sounding condescending can be difficult. Just as the chefs had to find a way to prepare monkfish differently for kids than adults, artists have to figure out the best way to approach kids. Revising your approach doesn’t necessarily mean you are pandering or dumbing down your product. You can color applesauce purple and it isn’t any less nutritious and if you leave the cinnamon and sugar out, coloring it purple isn’t going to make it taste any better.

On the flip side, the questions kids and teenagers ask and the comments they make can provide insight into the general areas adults may have difficulty understanding but aren’t asking about.

I read an interesting article from The New Yorker this weekend courtesy of Arts and Letters Daily. At the time it was only of personal interest to me, but as it banged around my brain I realized it obviously had an application to customer and personnel relations as well.

Malcolm Gladwell writes a review of Why? by Charles Tilly which “sets out to make sense of our reasons for giving reasons.” According to the book, much of what we say to others depends on our relationship with them and the intent behind our statement. Many times what harms our relationships with others is the use of formula responses rather than telling our story.

An example Gladwell uses is a child telling his mother that his brother has taken a toy. The mother uses the formula response “Don’t Be A Tattletale.” However, Gladwell points out, mom doesn’t hesitate to “tattle” to dad about their son’s behavior. Nor would she tell her husband not to tattle if he complained about someone at the office. If the son tells his story to a friend, it is accepted and indeed might strengthen his relationship with his friend in their continuing dislike of the evil brother.

Gladwell also cites an example Charles Tilly gives in relation to marriages.

The husband who uses a story to explain his unhappiness to his wife-“Ever since I got my new job, I feel like I’ve just been so busy that I haven’t had time for us”-is attempting to salvage the relationship. But when he wants out of the marriage, he’ll say, “It’s not you, it’s me.” He switches to a convention.

Like the mother who doesn’t deny that her son has been wronged but just wants to bring an end to the interaction, use of convention can erode a relationship with patrons and organization personnel. A box office clerk who tells a ticketholder that they can’t exchange or refund the ticket because “it is policy” is an example of harmful use of rote. Of course an expansive explanation might not be constructive either if your reason for the policy is “if we let you do it, everyone else will want to do it too.” Trying to elicit sympathy by explaining that your poor venue doesn’t have the resources to process both sales and exchanges for everyone will probably just result in a conspiratorial “don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone” or a plea to make a singular exception.

There probably isn’t a generally useful and constructive story to tell customers when refusing to exchange tickets. Tilly’s book points out though that you won’t use the same story or social convention with everyone. We all know the no refunds or exchanges rule isn’t absolute when it comes to long time subscribers or big donors and other people with whom we have established a relationship. In fact, when it comes to ticket refunds, it is the ticket holder, not the organization that is most often using stories to gain empathy from a shared experience– death in the family, mechanical failure or perhaps weather related complications.

The workplace offers even more opportunities for employing harmful conventions. Mantras of there being no budget for a project (often belied by senior people having things implemented), implication that you are a prole and aren’t smart enough to understand and use of buzzwords/phrases like “paradigm,” “synergy” and “work smarter, not harder” can have an alienating effect. These are pretty obvious examples so the challenge is to be aware of what subtler things are creeping into your everyday use.

Though it sounds like it, I am not specifically championing political correctness and being nicer to your audience members. There are plenty of other books and articles you can read on those subjects. In fact, if you read the article, you will note that telling your story can be far more manipulative than spouting stock phrases.

What I am attempting to be a proponent of, (along with using your story powers for good), is showing the sincere attempt to maintain/repair your relationships with your constituents. Practice open book management. Involve staff in decisions and in helping to create the organizational story. Instead of trying to get funding by mentioning how the arts improve math and science scores, find stories that illustrate this fact or other improvements to one’s life that the arts bring. Someone once told me “people don’t give money to organizations, they give money to people.” Yeah, its a rote convention, but it is applicable in this case because donors are more apt to give to people they trust and can believe will use their money well.

Until this moment I failed to make the connection, but a great example of the potency of stories can be found today on Adaptistration. Drew points out that there has been a lot of conversation on some of his recent entries well past the posting date. Two of the entries he cites (and an earlier one here with a long discussion that he didn’t) are all from his Take A Friend to the Orchestra series. I have been reading his blog for a long time and have never seen so many comments on entries, much less on such a concentration of entries as on the TAFTO ones. I really think this is simply because the entries told stories with which people could identify and then spurred discussion and debate. The conversations would have probably been longer if the entry appeared on a discussion board rather than a blog, the format of which is not terribly conducive to prolonged debate.

The third entry Drew cited today was not related to TAFTO but rather executive compensation. Normally, it might not be the topic of lengthy discussion except that it revisited the fairly well-known (among orchestra people and Adaptistration readers), long discussed topic of former Philadelphia Orchestra Executive Director Joe Kluger and his slightly controversial salary along with some contemplation of what his successor will/should be paid. Kluger’s resignation was announced a year ago. Yet, the story is apparently fresh and powerful in people’s minds and will provide a lens through which to view the Philadelphia Orchestra under the tenure of his replacement.

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

I found the link to the story when I came across a debate of the story on Broadsheet. The debate is interesting to read simply because the commenters aren’t necessarily those who visit arts sites and thus offer insight into the minds of potential patrons.

And it turns out that…most of the responses are pretty much what you would find on an arts related site. Generally the responses fall into a handful of categories. Some feel that if you are going to an event costing $75, you should know that audience members will insist on having no potential disturbances at all. There is also the view that exposing babies to loud noises, foul language and adult subject matter is inappropriate.

Some feel that mothers need to escape from home from time to time and should be trusted to handle interruptions are they arise. In opposition to this view were people who said they had never considered even tempting fate and did not ever attempt to bring their children to shows. And there were a couple people who pointed out that parents increasingly seem to show bad/lack of judgement about reining in their children’s behavior.

A couple people suggested that theatres build little baby rooms like churches have. The first thing that came to mind was that I didn’t know too many venues with the flexibility to knock out seats in a place appropriate for new mothers (not up a lot of stairs). They would have to be non-prime seats with fair sightlines where the room wouldn’t obstruct other seats (and was soundproofed like nobody’s business). The second thing that occurred to me was that if you have to watch a show through a window frame with the audio piped in, you might as well be watching television for all the experience of live performance you are getting. Of course, that is a matter of an individual’s perception.

A related thought that came to mind- I was wondering if there were any venues out there that charged people for bringing “babes in arms” for any reason other than to provide an incentive to leave the child home. Other than that and insuring the child that was supposed to occupy a lap doesn’t end up in a seat you sold to someone else, I can’t think of any other reason. I imagine that there might be other reasons so I am curious to hear some.

Finally, for those who hate cell phones going off during performances, Marc-Andre Hamelin has created the “Irritation Waltz” which you can hear here courtesy of NPR. (I believe it requires RealPlayer to play.)

I do a lot of talking about what arts organizations should do and what policies they should adopt. People probably correctly assume the truth of the matter but I want to make it clear that if you were to walk into my theatre after reading my entries, you won’t see half of what I suggest being implemented.

Some of my ideas aren’t appropriate in this situation and others we lack the resources to effect. A few are gradually being developed. This year I managed to grow the volunteer corps large enough that I didn’t have to worry if enough would show up for the performances. Our first volunteer thank you event is this weekend. Next year I start my plan to arm them with info about the performances and instill the confidence to employ the material to answer patron questions.

I am not trying to fool myself or anyone else that I am completely walking the walk that I talk. I was clearly reminded of that this past Friday. As I noted earlier, the weekend before last essentially ended the presenting phase of our season. We spent last week changing the website and box office voicemail to reflect our current state. In the process, I had forgotten to mention the student production in the lab theatre on the ticket line voicemail.

A gentleman called my office to complain that if we had performances in the lab, we should have information about it and not have a message saying the season is over. While I know better, there was something about his tone that put me on the defensive and before I knew it, I was saying “But that show isn’t part of the season.”

While this is technically true, I obviously should have listed the performance and would have had I remembered to. The guy on the other end gave a grunt and was silent. I thought he hung up and as I started to hang up myself, I said damn if he isn’t right and I am a stubborn idiot.

Fortunately this was an inner dialogue because I suddenly heard a voice from the receiver. I raised it to my ear and beg his pardon and the gentleman says he will see us the next night and then actually does hang up.

I know it sounds like a 12 step program to say it is okay to make mistakes and try to do better one day at time, but you know it is true. Better to recognize it, develop a thicker skin and give the right answer the next time.

To give credit where credit is due, I thought that the inspiration for this mea culpa entry came from within as I drove home Friday night. I believe, rather, that it was planted subconsciously in my mind. As I made my daily visit to read The Artful Manager, I noticed last week’s entry on The Power of Flaws staring right at me. I didn’t remember reading it, but apparently something sunk in.

I guess I try to do a little practicing of some of the smart thing other people preach, too.

It has recently come to my attention that there is a college course called Audience Connections at Drury University in which my blog is required weekly reading.

After considering the grave danger inherent in my ramblings being used to shape the nascent minds of artists, I was rather pleased and honored.

Ron Spigelman who teaches the class and is also the music director of the Springfield (MO) Symphony, has graciously granted me permission to post some of his thoughts from correspondence we had following his comments on my blog entry.

The purpose and goals of the Audience Connections Class are:

The Audience Connection:
Music, the organic art form that can give a life purpose and fulfillment for the performer and the listener. Right now, little more than about 1 in 10 people in America listens to Classical music, and even less attend live Classical Music performances. This class is an attempt to address this problem directly.

COURSE GOALS:
1. For students to begin to be able to reach out to audiences of all ages with music in a way that makes the art form accessible, fulfilling, visceral, and most importantly, relevant.

2. To understand and implement advocacy and activism through performance and explanation, to audiences who are on the whole without musical training.

3. To learn skills by which to encourage individuals or groups to attend a fine arts performance who have rarely or never done so.

So how does my blog come in? As you might imagine, it is because blogs like mine deal with current events and influences. (They also apparently read Adaptistration and Greg Sandow’s blogs, but I am sure mine is their favorite since it deals with something more than just classical music. And I am sure this little shout out to them won’t hurt either.)

I heartily approve of his integration of blogs and news from Artsjournal.com into class discussions. Of course, it is easy to admire his technique because it is exactly what I would be doing if I were teaching right now.

The way he is conducting class sounds really productive, if only to get students thinking issues inherent to their art and trying to apply it in a manner that will facilitate a relationship with the audience.

We range from arts funding, politics, the argument over the intrinsic versus the instrumental and thanks to the internet our examples are global and most importantly …are happening now!

The students each perform to the class and are coached on connecting. They have to justify their favorite works of art whether they be Pop songs or Paintings and do it from an audience perspective focusing on the personal rather than the analytical.

After Spring break one of them is actually going to cold call some elementary schools and play to the students and interact before he does his jury performance. I am of the firm belief that if all music students did this…then they would appreciate and learn the art of true communication instead of playing 4 years of juries to professors…

The next big challenge for his students is to practice what they have learned in the real world. It is one thing to discuss these subjects among people with whom you have a shared vocabulary and set of values and another to do it with anxious patrons who may loudly declare that classical music sucks because they resent mom for dragging them along.

Ron didn’t mention it, but I would imagine with all my references to Drew McManus’ docent program, (I mean, I mention it so much do I even have to provide a link anymore?), he may decide to have students gain some real life experience and fill a similar role at some Springfield Symphony or the Springfield-Drury Civic Orchestra performances.

My thanks to Brendan Glynn Marketing and Communication Director of the Broward Center for the Performing Arts for his comments on my affinity entry from last week.

I had emailed a list of questions to the communications coordinator at the center last week. I don’t know if he passed them on to Brendan or if Brendan just happened upon the entry since he says he is jumping in to the conversation. In any case, he answered all my questions an more. His outline of the plans for the new position in affinity marketing are very interesting.

What was really unexpected were his plans to adopt the approach Santa presented Macys in Miracle on 34th Street and send patrons to his competitors.

“If they are lovers of modern dance, traditional thinking would say not to let our patrons know about something going on at another venue. I disagree. We cannot stand in the way of an enthusiast finding out about a performance in another venue, so why don’t we take the high road and be the first to deliver that message to them. If there is a way we can bring value by offering up their interests to the table, it just helps to build our relationship with those patrons even further. Eventually, some can look to us as the source of information for their theater and entertainment interests.”

Is this sort of idealism foolish or is it going to work like it did in the movie and endear the center to the public? If I am a philanthropist living in Miami, I don’t know if I couldn’t help but be impressed by their boldness.

Also, if other performing groups start sending their seasons to the center for dissemination, it gives the center a better sense of what is out there so they can plan their offerings accordingly.

I will try to remember to check back in a year once they have an affinity person in place and see how things turned out and what changes they are planning to effect. It’ll be interesting to see.

As I continue to ponder and decipher what people are really telling me on their audience surveys, I came across this entry on Neill Archer Roan’s blog, How Audiences Use Information to Reduce Risk.

In his entry, Neill says:

An effective info-mediary must anticipate the informational needs their customers require, then provide it: on-demand. Effectiveness in this role requires not only substantive and informational expertise, but also a clear understanding of the form in which consumers want the information delivered and the channels through which the information feels most accessible and credible.

(He also makes a lot of other valuable observations so go read it. I am just focussing on this idea though.)

Neill’s point here cuts right to the heart of a comment I am trying to figure the answer to-“Why Didn’t You Advertise This?” Now given I get this comment most from people who have attended the event for which they are bemoaning the lack of advertising, obviously something worked to get them in the door.

Often they did see/hear an ad or a story or heard about the show from a friend. The problem they have is that they learned about the show close to performance time and had such a great experience, they are concerned that having almost missed it, they will lose out on something equally great in the future.

I usually try to find out what communication channels are best for reaching them. I ask it on the survey and of course also interview the commenter in my lobby. Many times I discover they read the newspaper/listen to the radio station where the ad ran but they missed it amidst all the other ads and stories in the paper or because they were concentrating on driving or talking on their cellphone when the radio spots ran.

What the patron wants is to have known about the show earlier. The problem is, most of my audience doesn’t make a decision until the last minute so it doesn’t make sense to spend money to promote it earlier. (I often suspect that is the method the worried patron uses as well, but if giving the benefit of the doubt will sell tickets earlier, I am all for it!)

The free publicity opportunities, like calendar websites, I take advantage of in July and list my whole season. The information has been available there and in my brochure since then. The newspapers have also had my calendar listings since around then too, but they don’t list the events until closer to the date when it is actually news. Because the information is categorized so well, people often get information there first even if they missed the ad on the page before.

So how do I communicate effectively with the highly interested person who is not on my mailing list? I have no definitive answers.

It appears my efforts at using opinion leaders in the community as word of mouth advertising has been slightly effective since attendance has been nudging up slightly. But I admit, it is a precarious situation. It is the method I can exert the least control over (which means it probably has the highest level of credibility with the public) so I can’t direct who is reached.

My marketing campaign for my last show was almost entirely word of mouth supported by ticket giveaways on radio shows that played the genre of music of the group I was presenting. I figured I would sell it out so I didn’t plan any print advertising.

We were doing a pretty steady business based on the brochure and word of mouth from August to January. Nothing big, but a steady trickle. Things got better in mid-January when the radio giveaways started. Based on this surge, I expected the show to sell out a week or so before the show. A week out we were only half sold and there were days where almost no one was buying.

Now what I think happened was all the folks who planned ahead had gotten their tickets and the procrastinators were holding true to form. I panicked a little and took out a print ad in the free alternative weekly.

As you might imagine, I need not have bothered. In the last couple days we were deluged and then had people turn up early the night of the performance in hopes some seats would open up.

Just as the word of mouth method was precarious, but ultimately rewarding for me, it probably seems even more so for the person who hears about it at the last minute and fears missing out in the future.

It is upon such fears large mailing lists are built. I still don’t have a dependable channel to reach the other heretofore unreached people to let them know what they might be missing. I am pretty sure no one does or they would be trying to sell it to me. I suspect each community is different so the best solution is cobbled together from existing technologies and methods.

One of the primary rules of surveying people is that you shouldn’t ask a question if you have no intention of acting upon the results. With that in mind, one of the questions on our audience survey asks patrons to make suggestions specifically on areas that are within our power to change.

The specificity of the question doesn’t seem to impede suggestions wholly outside the scope of our abilities to address. A recent suggestion in that space was to have an off-ramp added to the interstate near our building.

Another woman commented that she would have liked to have the opportunity to purchase materials from the performers. I am 98% sure this was written by the woman to whom I explained prior to the show that unlike most of our performers, the group had not brought materials to sell.

While my initial reaction is usually exasperation, I try to figure out what the audience member is really trying to tell me. In some cases, the artists people suggest reveal the fact that people don’t quite understand our mission or that we would have to charge $1000/seat to afford performers and their technical requirements in our small theatre.

The interstate off-ramp is understandable because the theatre is 300 yards from the interstate but the exit is a mile away. You would think an institution of higher education would warrant its own exit, but the campus wasn’t set up with one, alas. (What’s worse, because the interstate is lower than the campus, you can’t see the theatre from it. So while 80% of the population is stuck in traffic in front of the theatre every morning, few could tell you where it is.)

I can also understand the impulse of the woman who wanted some merchandise. She had just seen something she had never seen before, (Indian dance-Nrityagram Dance Ensemble- They are really quite above the level of other Indian dance performers), and felt the need to have something to help her continue processing the experience when she went home.

For all the notes in the program book and the research on the dance form that had gone into our informational lobby display, there was probably a great deal she did not know or understand about what she just saw. I had read all that information and more and many of my assumptions about traditional Indian dance were destroyed in a 20 minute conversation with one of the group members.

This woman didn’t have the benefit of any of that so I can understand that she may have felt a little lost at sea and asked for the only thing she could imagine we could provide that might help her out.

I didn’t get to speak with her as she left though. Maybe she was just an idiot and obstinately refused to accept the fact she couldn’t by a souvenir. Making assumptions like that doesn’t drive me to provide a better experience though.

I was looking at Ben Cameron’s Field Letter over on the Theatre Communication Group’s website today. (It may be replaced by a new letter soon so you may have to click on the Archives link, search for field letter and find the one dated Jan 15, 2006). As I read I began to recognize some ideas that have been bandied about blogs recently appearing in practice.

A couple of examples he cited reminded me of Drew McManus’ docent idea.

“Geva Theatre Center’s (Rochester, NY) pre-talk sessions with actors. An actor is paid a stipend to do this before every performance, as I recall, inviting the audience into the creative ideas of production before they see the play, even giving them ‘teaser’ moments to look for in the play.”

I know that I often come back to Drew’s docent program in my posts, but it really seems like good audience relations to offer guidestones to patrons who may might be experimenting with attendance for the first time.

Another good related example Cameron cites had a couple points that really caught my attention. (My emphasis)

Associate artistic director Sean Daniels of California Shakespeare Theatre in the San Francisco Bay Area writes, “I had at one point thought that marketing Shakespeare to 22-year-olds was nearly impossible, but we went from 1,000 to 3,000 ‘under 30’ tickets in our first season.” This was made possible through a multi-tiered strategy:

–the creation of a group of ambassadors, empowering them to speak for the theatre;
-organizing events marketed towards and created for younger people (‘shindigs’), featuring drinks before and dancing afterwards, but with the play always being the centerpiece of the evening, “not a great evening with a play smushed in the middle”;
-using marketing muscle, through blogs for all artists, so people could have personal conversations with them;
-creating a comprehensive intern program to train 18- to 35-year-old administrators;
-recruitment of under-35-year-olds to the board; and finally, and most importantly,
–making sure “that bringing in young people was not a marketing initiative, but an artistic one'”a shift of the conversation from what young people want to ‘how do we create more points of access to the work we’re doing'”a viewpoint that informs the strategic plan, the board work and more

I included the whole quote because many organizations are desperate to attract younger audiences. There are a couple good strategies here for doing so. I wasn’t sure many people were going to click through to Cameron’s letter so I wanted to present them here.

My first emphasis of course links back to Drew’s docent program.

The second emphasis locked right into Andrew Taylor’s entry yesterday where he cites Neill Archer Roan whose study of audience trends shows that nearly half of an organization’s audience is lost every year replaced by new people drawn to performances by good marketing.

Andrew quotes Neill

“the course of our work, our client organizations have discovered that their marketing departments have effectively acquired new accounts (some in the range of 60% to 70% of audiences as new or re-acquired) while the rest of the organization — most of which has held itself harmless in this dynamic — has failed to retain the audience that marketing has acquired.”

It is great that California Shakespeare Theatre gets the concept that everyone has to work to retain the audience because the turnover numbers were a surprise for me. Though as a point of focus for organizational committment, it does make sense to adopt this approach.

One last note from Ben Cameron
“But these articles raised for me an additional question-are we connecting artists and potential audiences outside of the performance event itself? I’d love to know more about what people are doing in this way. If your theatre is undertaking new strategies, please let me know I’ll report back about what folks are doing.”

If you got something to share, let him know-his email is bcameron@tcg.org.

If you aren’t sure you want to bother a man as busy was Ben Cameron must be with your strategies, email me and I will share here. You are actually likely to see your good ideas posted online more quickly with me after all 😉

As promised, I am addressing some comments from my But Do You REALLY.. entry. Actually, it will be one of the comments today, but that should be enough.

Mitch from the McCallum Theatre makes some provocative statements in the comments section.

A couple of things about the business we are in: 1) 90% of everything that is offered at WAA or APAP, in other words, the arts “marketplace” is crap. 2) 90% of arts administrators can’t tell the difference between what is good and what is crap.

While I wouldn’t completely agree with the 90% figures in both cases, I would say that yes, some of the conference offerings are of a poorer quality than I might expect and there are a lot of presenters out there who aren’t as discerning as they should be.

However, I would say that the quality of performer at conferences is largely due to the fact that many big names don’t have to show up–you will solicit them and technology allows smaller names to make an effective pitch to you in your office. DVDs, faster internet connections, streaming audio and video, email, etc. can showcase performers far better than, well, a 20 minute conference showcase where they lack control of most elements.

While a DVD is no substitute for a good live performance, (otherwise, why book the live performance), it may make more sense to people to forego the expense and time of making a trip to a conference and invest in a quality electronic media package.

As for the arts people with poor eyes for talent, well the self-same technology that makes it easy for performers to solicit bookings from presenters also makes it much easier these days for people to set themselves up as presenters.

What is actually dangerous about this situation isn’t so much that they have bad taste as the fact they lack an understanding of the business and the costs involved. In the last few months I noticed that a group I had engaged last season was returning to appear at a place about 12 times the size of my venue with the expensive union crew to match. We easily sold out our performance, but I had my doubts about filling this new place. On the other hand, the concert was capping off a week of festivities so I figured these folks knew what they were doing.

Yeah, not really.

I found out this week that they were bigger on dreams and assumptions than experience. Some of the coordinators at the venue apparently made some attempts to ground the presenters but they went full steam ahead with the confidence born of ignorance and lost a lot of money.

Anyhow, back to the comment section there. What Mitch writes a little later is most interesting.

That said, it is entirely possible to engage the public in intellegently purchasing tickets to arts events they will enjoy and will be happy to pay for. Once you have the ability to determine what is good and what is crap (and remember only 10% of us can do that), then the rest of the job is just marketing.

Know your market and respond to the needs of your market, and you will be successful…Listen to your customers and you will learn what they want. Program the good (not the crap) from the artists your audience wants, and you will be successful.

Without getting into a Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance type discussion of quality, I would argue that good and what your audience wants aren’t necessarily the same thing and many times are mutually exclusive. The aforementioned conferences don’t have to offer good stuff, just what people want to see or can be convinced they want to see.

Just look at Broadway. Most everything there is a retread of an existing story or a revival. Phantom of the Opera just passed Cats as the longest running show earlier this week. I really don’t think the show is all that good. It has its high points, but generally drags through the second act until the sewer scene. The sewer scene itself is only interesting for the spectacle of the fog and rising candles until you get to the confrontations at the end. Yet this is what people will pay to see so that is what is programmed.

I took a look over at the McCallum Theatre to see what constituted good stuff. Right on the home page was Lord of the Dance which has often been the butt of many a joke. Really the strength of that show is mostly the spectacle of seeing 40 people Irish step dance. Having grown up in a highly concentrated Irish community, I can tell you under normal circumstances, watching that sort of dance gets pretty old fast. Honestly, more power to Michael Flatley for finding a way to make it interesting.

It is clearly something people want to see, too. Lord of the Dance and performances of Broadway shows are the only shows scheduled to run five nights. (Correction, I see Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme run longer.)

It may sound elitest and cynical, but I have sometimes despaired the fact that I have been involved with productions that are reinforcing the idea that a particular performer is talented rather than just easily marketable. All arts organizations go through that of course. They present the easily sold performances to help underwrite the better, less likely to be attended shows.

Often people know they are buying tickets to the happy, fluffy show with lots of wow and little substance. However, other times people may not be familiar with an artist but they know that the arts center has offered some truly great people in the past and trust that this performer is of that caliber.

This is the situation I hate because these trusting people come in and see a performer whose draw is more image than ability. They don’t quite like the show, but they figure if X arts center is presenting them, and the show was sold out, they are worthwhile and maybe they should buy the CD, etc. This sort of thing only reinforces the whole idea that mediocrity wears the same face as excellence.

In a couple weeks a beauty pageant is renting my facility. I got a call from a faculty member saying her friend wanted to see the stage. It turned out, the friend was the mother of a contestant who wanted to try out her talent piece on stage. The young woman is a figure skater but lacking ice is doing her routine on inline skates. Given that plastic wheels on wood is different than metal on ice she was wise to want to test the surface. (Especially since the stage is 30 years old, riddled with traps and not as smooth as it was in its youth.)

There are obviously some ice skating techniques you just can’t execute on a stage. However, it was interesting that the contestant’s mother was encouraging her to do certain showy things that she acknowledged would have disqualified her daughter in a skating competition. She then asked me if I knew who the judges would be in the hopes that none of them would know ice skating rules.

The question that came to my mind was–are you honestly exhibiting your skill if you would be disqualified in your arena of expertise for doing something simply as a crowd pleaser and not based on practical safety concerns?

It is a tough question to answer since in the arts breaking rules is known as mapping new ground, collapsing preconcieved notions and engaging in activities that will have people calling for your NEA grant to be revoked. Doing crowd pleasers is referred to as responsibly attending to the financial health of your organization.

Don’t you just hate it when your idealism recoils in revulsion at the same time your heating oil company fills up your tank for the winter?