My first Music Directorship was with the San Angelo Symphony (TX), and there were a lot of trial by fire moments that one can normally expect first time up at the plate. From the very beginning though I had always thought of an orchestra as a community service organization…..
Plugging Holes
Plugging the Holes before Filling the Barrel (2009) – When Blank Checks Have No Value!
With hand wringing over empty seats and the “papering” arts organizations do to make a hall look respectable, the phrase “not worth the paper it’s written on” comes to mind. There is a golden opportunity to empower the audience to help recruit new audience members with a free ticket and/or referral program…..
Plugging the Holes before Filling the Barrel (2009) – BOGO
Last year I published 5 posts under the Plugging the Holes category dealing with subscriber retention and audience recruitment utilizing the best advocates of all ….our subscribers and our orchestra! Two articles that I read this week have spurred me to continue the category…..
Plugging the Holes before Filling the Barrel – part 5 -“Bordering on the Personal!”
For the final part of this series, I introduce a program we call “Coffee and Classics” and also give a cost summary of each audience initiative program I have outlined in this series. Regarding my criticism in recent posts regarding gimmicks especially of the cupcake variety, for this program we serve coffee……hypocrisy?
Plugging the Holes before Filling the Barrel – part 4 – “Lest We Forget!”
I want to mention a forgotten group of audience members, those who used to subscribe but are now physically unable to attend. Sadly when they stop subscribing, orchestras will eventually end the relationship. It’s not their fault they can’t attend anymore, and it’s time outreach included showing we still care about them by continuing the relationship……..
Plugging the Holes before Filling the Barrel – part 3 – “Real Identity Cards”
In about 45 minutes, we can connect with each of our audience members on a personal level. These programs have had a big impact, not just on the audience members, but on the musicians also….
Plugging the Holes before Filling the Barrel – part 2 – “Boxing with a real Punch!”
The old cliche is that word of mouth is the best form of advertising. I would say that if you add “tickets in hand” , it works even better! Our most successful audience development program so far has been implemented by our audience itself. For the last four seasons some of them have bought tickets to concerts that they already had tickets for, to give away as gifts. Here is the method and the results we know so far…..
Plugging the Holes before Filling the Barrel – part 1- “Re-programming the Audience”
I am sick and tired of hearing that marketing is to blame when subscriptions fall. We need to be honest with ourselves, if someone is already in a seat in our hall, then if they don’t come back it’s not because of the paper thickness of the season brochure! For whatever reason we are not engaging them by what we are doing or not doing on stage. We can’t blame snow or parking either, if we meet someone we are really into, even if they live on Everest, we will find a way to get there! Free valet parking on a clear warm day wont make them come if they are just not into us! One of our strategies here is to turn passive listeners into active participants in the programming process.
We decided to turn audience requests from being a gimmick into being a policy……..