So begins the summer, the time of the year when many Orchestras will do free and low cost outdoor concerts, 1 rehearsal affairs with a mix of pops, light classics and light shows! With my professed like for Holiday concerts, for me this is the second most wonderful time of the year when an audience connection can be established…..
I wanted to tag onto Holly Mulcahy’s wonderful post When Life Gives You Lemons… Firstly, a concert may be free of charge, but that doesn’t mean those who are attending have not made a financial commitment. Therefore for anyone to attend, it still has to give them value. Think of a family of four deciding to come to an outdoor concert, they have to get there, so there is gas, also sunscreen, bug replant, snacks/food/beverages and above all their time. We might think as an orchestra that we are “donating” our time because we are not charging for tickets, however the audience are also donating their time, that most precious and priceless commodity.
Many will attend to introduce their children to concerts in a setting where often their childhood energy and exuberance is not just tolerated, but is often hopefully celebrated. At a recent concert we had children (including mine) rolling down a hill, pretending to play 76 Trombones and even doing the wave. We can get so hung up on “teaching” children etiquette like they are mini-adults, and yet when you give an 8 year old Oliver Twist to read, it will be the abridged 60 page version with illustrations, not the 400+ page novel! I digress…
There are many traditions in our lives connected to times of the year, but in virtually all communities there are specific events unique to that community that people look forward to every year. If we aspire to be or to at least to be connected to those traditions, then we start to become valuable in a tangible way. We become a circle on a calendar, not our calendar, but the community’s calendar, the calendar on the refrigerator door. We become relevant this way.
Let’s face it, when orchestras get into trouble structurally and financially, our donors and subscribers are already probably giving to their max, so it is improbable to expect them to rescue the situation with an influx of funds. It’s those who haven’t given that can save us, and those are the people who perceive us as an important part of their community’s quality of life and holiday traditions. It’s precisely because many will only see us once a year that it has such a big impact for them. I think it’s a horrible move for any orchestra to cut their summer and/or free performances, because then they become totally insular and irrelevant. I think Columbus canceling their Picnic with the Pops series is a big mistake. Now more than ever they need to be in front of probably their largest audiences to make an appeal to save not just the orchestra, but the traditions and quality of life in and for their community. What, they can’t “afford” to? Well I say they can’t afford not to!
I will never forget when reading about the Mesa Symphony when they canceled a July 4th concert when a $50K grant didn’t come through from the city and so they decided to raise the money privately which made no sense to me. If they canceled the concert anyway, what did they need to raise the money for? It would have been better to keep the concert on the schedule to honor their community and appeal to them as a whole, and the money might have come much more easily. By the way there is no Mesa Symphony now, they have reformed into the Symphony of Southwest. I wish them the best and hope they add a summer concert into their schedule in the future.
Free and lower priced concerts bring to us support, and to a community good feelings, happy times, many celebratory moments with the real potential to create powerful memories and established anticipated traditions. Therefore in my view they are not free concerts, they are free audiences, and I mean “free” because their value is priceless!