Stephanie Spalding

The Curious Case of Community Curation

Posted by Stephanie Spalding, Nov 22, 2011 0 comments


Stephanie Spalding

Stephanie Spalding

Day One at the National Arts Marketing Project Conference (NAMPC) and I am drinking coffee “for two” in order to keep up with the flurry of questions and concepts oozing out of the mouths of my fellow attendees during the preconference.

This is my first NAMPC, by the way, but who has time for a learning curve? I am barreling through and keeping my ears open. There were inspiring anecdotes, fascinating case studies and fresh ideas coming in rapid fire during the Marketing Masters Think Tank.

In the interest of word count, there is one concept in particular that resonated with me. During a small group discussion about audience development, many in the group agreed that marketing departments often become the curator for an organization’s programming, often the ones taking enrichment to the next level (or any level). Okay, so people have heard this before. It was when the idea that we (read: the organization) curate an audience too. We do? We do.

Audience development comes in many shapes and sizes, and the commitment level from an organization can run the gamut. But if you or someone you love is considering a serious commitment to audience development  beyond the occasional event or focused ticket deal, then it is time to commit to knowing and serving the community.

Success is found by not only taking the community landscape into consideration, but by creating a focused, cohesive effort. Though many arts organizations want to be everything to everyone, if we are to effectively curate from all perspectives, then one-off audience development events/efforts for *a* show that appeals to *a* group should take a back seat.

How can we expect to retain a group of people if we aren’t continuing to cultivate them? Make way for an audience development campaign that identifies specific groups to reach and laces a season with efforts (that carry over for seasons to come??) This is where cohesion can be found, and where we find a targeted audience being moved to return -- because we acted as audience curators. This is where community relations and audience retention exist together. Better than the Matrix, this is NAMP 2011.

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