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.

Comments

[Simon]

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

Great food for thought Adam, logical as always. I think the question restated for those of us trying to establish a return audience for our theatre is to ask what our responsibility is to that audience, and how can we affect them so that they come back for more? (I quoted Ian Mackenzie on this very subject today on my blog, from a discussion on his about who we choose our material for.)

Are the reasons we love theatre the same that a new, uninitiated audience will? Love them or hate them, we have to connect to them, and to their experience, which means creating new work, which means taking risks. Too many companies do established vanity plays for selfish reasons that were written for an entirely different audience than their own. We have to start looking at our audience as long-term investments.

[Vibrators]

That's a great story! I can't believe no one has posted a comment here about it yet! Keep up the good work!