ARTSblog

Jeff Scott

As the news cycle has been dominated with concerns over the debt ceiling and the potential dangers associate with default, we are painfully reminded that our economy is far from stable. It seems increasingly likely that the way forward will include some kind of austerity measures, such as spending cuts, downsizing of government agencies, and entitlement reforms.

Many Americans would probably argue that these measures are reflective of what many households have had to do in recent years in order to make ends meet. Such conditions have of course been a severe hit to many arts organizations. Patrons are trimming their entertainment budgets; corporations and foundations are limiting donations, et cetera, et cetera. We all know this story.

In spite of this, we still see major regional theatres mounting massively expensive productions at high ticket prices. What is even more interesting is the growing number of discounted tickets being sold by the theatres via websites such as Groupon and Goldstar, which suggests a difficulty in filling the house at such high prices. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 10%

Robbie Q. Telfer

An important principal to the Encyclopedia Show is diversity. I had mentioned earlier diversity of artistic genre – we try to get not only poets, but solo performance artists, visual artists, creative nonfiction and fiction writers, musicians, comedians, live animals, experts on the topic, jugglers, etc…

Demographic diversity is also extremely important to us. We have youth perform in every show, as well as people coming from as many different communities as possible – and in hyper-segregated Chicago, that might mean more. A larger goal of our show is to replicate all human emotions, so we’re trying to bring in all humans.

The key to diversity, though, is not to tokenize people from outside my demographic (white guy), but to try honestly to understand the values of the different communities I am pulling from and featuring only excellent representatives.

It makes for a bad show if you don’t care how the non-white guy’s pieces turn out just because you feel guilty about institutionalized racism. Also, tokenism is infantilizing and deeply insulting. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 12%

Robbie Q. Telfer

I often encounter so-called “serious” artists who scoff at the idea that what they’re doing is entertaining. Art should raise up its audience, not stoop to meet them.

I certainly agree that art must challenge audiences, but if you’re not considering the entry points for your audience, then you’re not a serious artist at all. You might just be an insecure gatekeeper.

Essentially, entertainment is a contract of considerate communication with strangers. Entertainment is not a distraction or empty goal. Entertainment is noble; it is the way we survive our mortality without slipping into depression.

To produce events with entertainment in mind means you are interested in your audience enjoying and receiving the messages you want to proffer. This is what I’ve learned from the initial concept behind the poetry slam created by Marc Smith, and used as a foundation for the Encyclopedia Show: if you are not creating art to commune with an audience, then you are creating art that you think people should be obligated to digest. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 13%

Patricia Martin

Open talk about new business models in the arts is a cultural signal. It’s a watermark that tells us the tides are shifting. Digital culture is eroding some of art’s traditional value proposition.

That’s not what worries me.

This does: Even if the arts can come to occupy a new role in people’s lives, will they will be able to communicate this role to attract new users—especially younger audiences?

Cultivating younger audiences will be important. They are the future. But using marketing messages and tactics from the past to reach them might mean that your organization—no matter what its business model, will not be around to see them join your ranks.  Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 15%

Every country, society, and culture places a different value on the arts.

It’s no secret that Americans love pop culture.  Meanwhile, our symphonies, orchestras, and ballets are struggling to stay in business.

In Holland, social workers are trained in the arts for the purpose of improving communities and everyday quality of life through arts learning and participation.

Meanwhile, in Bali, gamelan concerts can last for hours and sometimes days.

In Lima, Peru, concerts often start two hours later than scheduled.

No matter where you go, there may be subtle or obvious cultural differences from the way we do things in the United States.

Working in the realm of international arts management means learning to understand and work with those cultural differences.   Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 13%

Randy Cohen

On January 31, National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Rocco Landesman posted a blog about (1) the issue of supply and demand in the arts and (2) the ratio of arts administrators to artists.  I had the opportunity to augment the first point using additional data as well as clarify the second in my posting.  Because these are two issues that may arise for you, we thought it worth posting here so you have the facts at your fingertips.

An examination of years of trend data indicate that demand for the arts is indeed lagging supply. The good news is that it also indicates that audiences are not walking away from the arts, but rather broadening how they choose to engage in the arts.

There is also one noteworthy correction to be made in the Chairman’s numbers and thus, one of his points.

On the supply side:

In our annual National Arts Index report, released just two weeks ago, we track the Urban Institute’s count of registered nonprofit arts organizations as one of our 81 national-level indicators. In the past decade, the number of nonprofit arts organizations in the United States has grown 45 percent (75,000 to 109,000), a greater rate than all nonprofit organizations, which grew 32 percent (1,203,000 to 1,581,000). Or to take the more startling look, between 2003 and 2009, a new nonprofit arts organization was created every three hours in the U.S. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 11%

Does any of the stuff we do all day actually work? Surely much of it does. And some of it surely doesn’t. So, how do we figure out which is which, and do more of what works?

As Director of Marketing and Communications for a small-but-growing Chicago theater company, these were the questions at the top of my mind nearly two years ago when an opportunity arose to attend an education series on the subject of return-on-investment, co-sponsored by Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and the Wallace Foundation. What I learned in that workshop put me on a path to revolutionize several aspects of TimeLine Theatre’s marketing with the goal of measurement. Now I understand in much greater detail what works (and what doesn’t so much). And I am thrilled that I’ll get the chance to share some results and tools as a first-time presenter at this year’s National Arts Marketing Project Conference.

TimeLine Theatre is an Equity theater located on the north side of Chicago (just a few blocks from Wrigley Field, home of the Cubs), dedicated to presenting stories inspired by history that connect with today’s social and political issues. With a budget of about $750,000 and just four full-time staff members, we are — like I’m sure all of you — required to make the most of limited resources. The more I learn about ROI, the more I understand that implementing techniques to measure the actual results of marketing tactics is not a “should do” toward this goal. It is a “must do.” Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 6%

Our society has changed – dramatically – over the past few decades.  We talk about it all the time in the context of business (flattening), government and politics (opening) and community (connecting).

What about arts and culture?

Arts and culture organizations are always hunting for new ways to effectively engage their target audience and to drive the kind of action (donations, sales, and sponsorship) necessary to thrive–especially in challenging economic times.  Today’s organizations have more than enough communication tools to get the job done, yet the combination of rapid technological innovation and continuous social shifts has left many organizations struggling to stay focused and execute their ideas.

To survive, let alone thrive, arts and culture organizations need to understand a few important things.

1) Big things are afoot. The public is more engaged than ever before, more capable of collecting and sharing information with a wider audience–for free–than at any point in our history.  This drives greater interest in arts and culture, and the creation of a more diverse and interesting society.  This isn’t just about having more people sharing stories, showing off their talent, building a following because the barriers to entry are lower.  This isn’t just about finding hidden talent far down the long tail of media and elevating them to the status of super celebrity because the institutional structures that once controlled everything are breaking down.  The impact of technology and the internet on arts and culture is profound.  This is the beginning of a shift that will redefine every aspect of our society. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 8%

Opera companies have often faced the preconceived notion that their art form is both too expensive and too high-brow to reach much of the general public. In recent years though, these same opera companies have been exploring new ways to reach broader audiences, developing newfound interest in opera along the way. Many are familiar with the Met’s (NYC’s Metropolitan Opera) Live in HD broadcasts, which are sent to movie theaters around the country (and even internationally) and sold more than 1 million tickets last season. With its success as an example, some companies are now appealing to even “larger” audiences. On September 12, for the second year in a row, the Washington National Opera will present The Barber of Seville not just inside the confines of The Kennedy Center, but by live simulcast in the Washington Nationals baseball stadium, with admission free and open to the general public. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 1%

On-line events calendars and community arts portals – like those created and run by numerous arts councils, service organizations and other local partnerships – are widely recognized as today’s “state of the art” collaborative strategies for raising visibility and increasing arts and cultural participation.

Today, I’m delighted to share news (and invite participation) in a Mellon Foundation-funded “planning process” – www.ProjectAudience.org – whose aim is to envision the next generation of technology and practices for such collaborative, community-level audience development work. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 2%

In January, the Atlantic posed a scary question: “What if the New York Times goes out of business –like this May?”

The answer is even scarier:

It’s certainly plausible. Earnings reports released by the New York Times Company in October indicate that drastic measures will have to be taken over the next five months or the paper will default on some $400 million in debt. With more than $1billion in debt already on the books, only $46 million in cash reserves as of October, and no clear way to tap into the capital markets (the company’s debt was recently reduced to junk status), the paper’s future doesn’t look good.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 2%

Economic recovery is coming.  Whether it is months or years away we must not lose confidence that recovery is just beyond the horizon.

So let’s focus on on the task at hand.  To our organizations and to our field, our responsibility is to do more than merely survive (though survival itself is surely a significant challenge.)

Our present job is to emerge from these hardships smarter and stronger than we are now.  Let’s focus on “Sur-thrival” – the act of investing today in efforts that will bear abundant fruit in the future.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 1%

Eureka!  I just found an application on the web that is so obvious – and so REVOLUTIONARY – I have to share it with you right away…

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 1%

“If they don’t want to come to the ballpark,” Yogi Berra observed, “nobody is gonna stop them.”

Arts marketing folk are optimists by nature. So while we may occasionally take solace in that observation, it doesn’t take us long to crawl out of that hole, brush the pity from our clothes and ask, “So what do we do now?”

It’s once again one of those times.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 1%

There’s a story of a farmer who wants to teach his horse to give up eating.  “Think of the money I’ll save,” he boasts to his neighbor.  And every day, the farmer teaches his horse a little more, by withholding a little more food.   A couple of weeks later, his neighbor sees the farmer walking to town.  “Where’s your horse?” he asks.  “Bad luck,” replies the farmer, “Just as soon as I taught that horse to eat nothing at all – he died!”

This isn’t a parable about your marketing budget.  Of course it’s been cut.  It SHOULD be cut.  I don’t know an arts organization that doesn’t need to exercise extreme budgetary prudence.

This is a question about your audience.  How well are you feeding your organization the new audiences it needs to survive? Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 2%