The Mission Paradox Blog

Art as the hub

Stay with me . . .

I have a friend, nicknamed "O".  We have been friends for over a decade now, ever since college.  I have some other friends, Chris, Ryan, etc.  But the thing is I really only know them through "O".

So in this situation, my friend "O" is the hub . . . he is the person that connects a group of people together.

I think "O" and I will be friends for a long time, in part because of our relationship and in part because of all the connections I make to other people through him.

So what does this have to do with the arts?

In all this talk about declining audience, diminished subscriptions rates, low paid actors and overpriced tickets . . . I think we may have missed the point of the arts.

We keep talking about finding ways for people to connect with our particular art form.

But people don't want to connect to art . . . they want to connect to other people.

So instead of a theatre company seeing their performance on stage that night as the point of the evening, perhaps they should just see themselves as the hub . . . as the thing that connects all the people in the audience to each other.

Now I know many artists would hate to see it that way.  I mean the arts are about the artists right?  People pay good money to see directors and musicians and dancers!

Right?

I'm not so sure any more.

I think what people are willing to pay for is to be connected to other people.

And maybe one of the reasons that the arts is struggling is because we insist on being the focal point of the whole process.

Think about movies for a second.  Have a look at this.  It is the fan site for the upcoming Indiana Jones movie.

Is the point of the site to glorify Harrison Ford?  Is the point of the site even to sell tickets to the movie?

Nope.

The point is to allow Indiana Jones fans to connect.  Will that help ticket sales?  Of course it will.  But that's not why it is there.

If you run an artistic organization I want you to consider this.  When is the last time you actively tried to connect your audience members?

Not to your actors.

Not to your dancers.

Not to a playwright.

To Each other?

Think of what could happen if, for example, instead of just having ushers leading people to their seats, your dance company had people in the aisle introducing patrons to other patrons?

At that point your company becomes more then a place where people just watch what happens on stage.  It becomes a second home.  It becomes a gathering spot.

It becomes a hub.

Here's what I think . . . in the future the arts organizations that thrive will be the ones most skilled at turning their audience from an unrelated group of people into a community.

People want to connect to each other.

How is your art form helping that to happen?

 

On pricing . . .

Here is a great discussion on what arts organizations should be thinking about as they set the price for their work.  It focus on theatre, but it gives some food for thought for any sector. 

Survey Making for Dummies (like me)

Got a question over the weekend about creating a good audience survey.  Thought I would share some of the thoughts I had with you . . .   

Here are some ideas on how to make an audience survey effective.

1.  Have a purpose.  The road to hell is littered with surveys that artistic organizations wrote that doesn't help them in the slightest once they are completed.  So take some time and figure out what you need to know before you write the survey.

For example, you may decide to do a survey so that you can figure out how to spend your advertising money, or you may do a survey to help determine how much your ticket prices should be.

2.  Don't have too many purposes in a survey.  Yes, I know it is bad english but you get the point.  Don't decide in a survey that you want to see how to spend ad dollars AND set ticket prices AND see where the audiences live, etc. 

The longer a survey is the less likely it is too be answered so limit your purposes and keep it short (ideally no more then 5-7 questions).

3.  Have a plan for what you going to do AFTER you get the info.  Be honest with yourself.  If your organization does not have the time or resources to total up the data after you get it then don't waste your time doing a survey.

Once you do total up the info be sure to share it with everyone in your company and then come up with some tangible things you plan on doing as a result of the survey.

4.  Survey often.  You know those old surveys you have in a box somewhere?  The ones you got from the show you did three years ago.  Throw them out.  They aren't worth much now.  Try to come up with a fresh survey round every year.

A case study in artistic entreprenuership: Hugh MacLeod

Note:  I don't know Hugh personally but my hunch is that he would hate to be featured this way . . . so if you're reading this Hugh . . . sorry. :)

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So let's talk about Hugh MacLeod.  First and foremost he is an artist.  He is a cartoonist.  In addition he is a professional blogger.  He features both his cartoons and blogs here at gapingvoid.com

Now I love Hugh for a ton of reasons.  First he makes it clear that a profession as an artist is something you have to let go once you cross your mid 20's.  He has been making cartoons for years and he just stumbled across an idea that had both commerical and artistic value . . . cartoons written on the back of business cards.

Second, he has that most dreaded of all things . . . a day job.  He is a marketer and from all indications he enjoys his work.  He makes his case about why creative people should keep their day job in this post.

Third, it is clear that Hugh understands the power of multiple streams of revenue. When you add up his day job, the revenue he generates from his art and the visibility his blog creates . . . I'm guessing he is doing ok.  Is he rich?  Maybe not.  But he damn sure isn't a struggling artist.

Hugh reminds us that we can dip into the pool of talent we all have and use it in a variety of ways.  Instead of asking himself how he could make money as an artist, he just kept looking for creative ways to add value to anything he is doing.

So check out his site.  You may learn something from, I know I always do.

How to get paid for your artistic talents in two easy steps. . .

There has been a lot of discussion in the blogging world about the low salaries many artists, in this case stage actors, get paid.  Here's a comment on it from the Theatre Ideas blog and a contrasting viewpoint from Don Hall (read the first paragraph)

So what I'm going to do is give one of your talented artists out there a nearly flawless method to getting paid more for your artistic talents.  I'm going to use the example of a stage actor as an example but it applies to damn near everyone:

1.  Be talented.  Yes, yes, I know we have discussed this before.  And I know you can think of 1,000 talentless hacks that getting paid more then you, but just trust me on this . . . talent counts.

2.  Build Your Own Audience.  Back when he still had some cred, I remember people being so pissed off by a guy like Dane Cook.  I have a friend who is a part time comedian and everytime he saw one of his commericals he damn near passed out from rage.

But here's the thing, ol' Dane spent YEARS building a following.  He used his website, emails and social networking to create a fan base.  So when he went to concert venues and demanded big money to do a show he could promise him the one thing that venues want most . . . a guaranteed audience.

So imagine if you did this Mr or Ms. Stage Actor?  Let's say you spent two or three years building relationships with people, inviting them to see your work, etc.

Then you walk into an audition for a big role.  You rock the audition (because you are talented) and then as you walk out you say "By the way if you cast me in this spot I can promise you somewhere between 300 and 500 paying customers to your show."

Think that may improve your chances to get the part?  Think that it may help you to negotiate a more substantial salary?

With all due respect to my friend Scott at Theatre Ideas, the reason stage actors are paid so poorly isn't just because of the economics of theatre. 

The reason they are paid so poorly is because stage actors are seen as being interchangeable. 

So why should a theatre owner pay Pretty Young Actress A $500 more when he can get Pretty Young Actress B for less? 

Sure, Actress A may be a better performer then Actress B but is she THAT much better?

But if Actress A comes to the table with her talent and a built in audience for her work . . . well that changes things doesn't it?

In any artistic world that is filled with struggling artists (which means just about every industry) being talented is just half the battle.  Knowing how to build your own audience is the other.

Share Some Good Ideas: Session 1

Time to roll out a new feature of this blog, a "good ideas" session.  Here's what we will do.  Every few weeks or so I will leave this space open for all of you to share any good ideas that your arts organization (or you as an individual artist) has had about marketing or fundraising.  For example, here is an interesting fundraising idea from Travis Bedard, the Artistic Director of Cambiare Productions:

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"I ran a show specific fundraiser, for which I sold off my smoking habit. $20 for the first day you buy, $10 for each additional day.

It was honestly [intended to be] a friends and family grab that I anticipated would pay for our posters and postcards.

We have raised almost $1600 to date (on a $4000 total budget).

 

I just got a kick out of the response, even from strangers, and the power of demonstrating personal sacrifice to induce giving."

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Thanks Travis.  If you want to jump into the conversation then leave a comment in this blog post.

Showing the musicians some love

Over the past few weeks the blog has been a bit theatre heavy, so I wanted to spread the love a bit because I know some musicians come through here every once in a while. 

So check out this post from the Brand Autopsy blog.  It talks about how a musician is developing her particular business model for making money from her craft.  See if it gives you some ideas for your own path.

In Defense of the Arts Institution

Another thing that struck me about the Parabasis Blog post on "How Theatre Failed America" is the critcism that many regional theatres are struggling because they have become insitutitions and that this process of institution building forces the theatre to go outside of their mission . . . and ultimately produce subpar work.

These are all all valid criticisms but I think that building an artistic institution has some key advantages that are being ignored.

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Alright, time for some full disclosure.  I do a lot of things to make a living.  I work as a marketing coach for the arts.  I teach.  And, as of this week, I am the Marketing Director for Court Theatre in Chicago, which means I guide the marketing efforts of one of the top 10-12 theatres in Chicago (at least in terms of budget size)

So I have been on both sides of the fence.  I played a part in building an emerging theatre looking to become an institution and I now I work for a large theatre.

Here is the hidden benefit of institution building.  Doing so buys you time.

Yup, good ol' fashioned time.

If you have a quality artistic product and enough marketing skill to get the word out . . . then all you really need is enough time for people to catch on.  Even if that "enough time" is 5, 10 or 15 years.

The process of building organizational infrastructure, getting long term donors, etc. helps to ensure that you will simply SURVIVE long enough to have a shot at success.

In fact, I think most arts organizations fall apart because they ignore the time factor.

They forget that as people get older their needs change, so the organization needs revenue and growth to cover that.

They ignore the fact that (for whatever reason) people quit artistic organizations . . . so it needs to be strong enough and stable enough to bring new people in without the whole thing falling apart.

Once the artistic company realizes this, they try scramble to build a half-assed infrastructure but by that time it is often too late.

Here's the thing about building an arts organization that can survive over the long haul (which is all being an institution really means) . . . it is an attitude that ideally should be in place when the organization first begins.

Or put in another way, emerging arts organizations should be thinking about the long term right at the start.

But many don't do that.  They think about the short term, i.e. "What play should we do NOW?"  "What dance piece should we do NOW?"

They don't think long term.  They don't at least try to build an institution.  The realities of Time and Life hits.  And the organization dies.  We have seen it happen over and over again.

Who do you love? The love/hate relationship between artists and audience

Over the past few days I have been watching some really beautiful conversations happen online.  These conversations cover a lot of issues relating to the arts, theatre in particular and while a full blog posting on all the issues would take days . . . I did want to throw in my two cents on a few of the conversations:

Let's start with How Theatre Failed America from the Parabasis blog.  The post gives some highlights on a new one-man show basically talking about the challenges regional theatres are having.  Here's a key part of the post I want to talk about:

"Part and parcel of [the problem with theatre] is the subscription model, which encourages theaters to embrace very predictable programming. They will always do X number of plays a year, and fill slots for various shows (a spring show, a musical, a "black interest" piece etc.). And so risks don't really get taken because it's not an environment or a business model that supports them.

If the subscription model limits risk . . . it is only because theatres have ALLOWED the subscription model to limit risk, not because of anything the subscribers did or didn't do.

Part of the problem is that most theatres don't sell their subscriptions to customers under the idea of "buy this subscription because by doing so you allow us the freedom to take artistic risk".  They sell subscriptions based on exclusive access to shows, ticket exchanges, free parking and that sort of thing.

If subscriptions were sold based on the idea that subscription = artistic freedom for the theatre . . . then at least you would know that every subscriber left (even if that number was smaller then before) would understand their role in helping the company to do creative and innovative work.

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Putting the subscription issue to the side for a second, reading that blog posts and others like it got me thinking about the really odd love/hate relationship that many artistic companies have with their audience

They love it when their audience is like a small cult full of energy and passion, until they realize that the small cult (and the small dollars they bring) isn't enough to help sustain a theatre full time . . . then they hate them.

They love it when subscribers cough up the cash flow needed to fund their work, until those subscribers actually start demanding say in the artistic content . . . then they hate them.

Theatre's love the sophisticated, smart people that come to their shows . . . but hate the slack jawed yokels that watch "American Idol" (even if sometimes it is the same person watching theatre and Idol)

I wonder sometimes if the reason that regional theatre (and other niche arts forms like dance and opera) are struggling is not because of the business model that supports the arts, or declining subscriptions, or decreased foundation funding  . . .

I wonder if we struggle because, at a core level, we aren't sure how we feel about our audience.

Do we love them or hate them?

Are we doing shows for them, or for ourselves?  And how much does the answer to that question matter?

See, in my life as a marketing coach, I have it pretty easy.  I know that when I work with my audience (my clients), the only thing that matters is whether or not I produced results FOR THEM.

Does my work with my clients produce benefits for me?  Of course.  Satisfication, money, intellectual stimulation . . . but I also know that ALL THAT is secondary to what I have done for them.

Theatres always talk about the importance of taking risk on-stage.  Maybe more of them should take an even bigger risk and fully embrace their audience.

Just my thought.  Comments are appreciated.

(Quick additional thought)  Embracing your audience doesn't mean pandering to them.  It doesn't even mean doing shows that your audience "wants" to see.  Often people don't know what they want until they have it.  For example, did anybody who had a WalkMan or portable CD player WANT an IPOD before Apple made one?

So sometimes embracing your audience means anticipating their desires before they even have them.

All you need to know about Board Fundraising

Courtesy of the Nonprofiteer