Fire Your Audience

Let me just put this out there . . .

Some of you have audiences that are holding you back from reaching your full artistic potential.

And because they are holding you back from reaching your full artistic potential, they are probably holding you back from reaching your full financial potential.

You would love to do that new play from that edgy playwright but your audience likes their subject manner a little less risque.

And sure, commissioning that dance choreographer to do a piece for your group would probably raise your artistic profile but your audience likes more well known works.

Or maybe you have an audience that loves that edgy, out there stuff, but when you decide to do something a bit more mainstream (for whatever reason), they freak out on you.

Look at the history of every enduring artist or artistic org and you will see that they come to a point where they needed to lose a significant portion of the audience they had in order to gain the audience they needed to thrive long term.

Are you at that point now?

Do you feel that point coming?

 

Comments

[Tony]

If the edgy/risque/less well known work is good enough, will everyone really leave. Or do more people simply stay away because of the boring programming. (Not to say that chestnuts have to be boring, but "safe" ones usually are.)

I think many producers underestimate their audiences, especially older audiences.

[Adam]

Tony,

I tend to to think of it as producers listening (and reacting to) a vocal minority of audiences.

Since a lot of arts orgs tend to have older audiences that vocal minority tends to be older.

So when they do an "edgy" season and their revenue drops a few percentage points (and they get some nasty letters/emails) they immediately try to create a new season that will make that vocal minority happy instead of weathering the storms that always come when you are building a new audience.

[RLewis]

if your seasons fluctuate from an edgy one to one that makes folks happy, then maybe it's time to look at the specificity of your org's mission and whether you're sticking to it.

[Tony]

I'd agree with both of you. I think both would be signs of a greater lack of vision and leadership at a lot of organizations.

Or maybe it's just a symptom of the pervasive thinking that stage directing skills equip someone for running an institution.

Adam, I think it's kind of like the frog and boiling water story. If a frog is dropped into a pot of hot water, it'll jump out. If one is put in a pot that is slowly brought to a boil, it'll stay in the water until it's way too late.

A lot of institutions have been in that same pot for a long time.

[Tony]

I'd agree with both of you. I think both would be signs of a greater lack of vision and leadership at a lot of organizations.

Or maybe it's just a symptom of the pervasive thinking that stage directing skills equip someone for running an institution.

Adam, I think it's kind of like the frog and boiling water story. If a frog is dropped into a pot of hot water, it'll jump out. If one is put in a pot that is slowly brought to a boil, it'll stay in the water until it's way too late.

A lot of institutions have been in that same pot for a long time.

[Adam]

RL,

Let's be honest, a lot of arts institutions have mission statements that are broad enough to include almost anything they want to do. So for many, looking to their mission statement for "guidance" is of little use.

But you are absolutely right that someone in an arts org needs to be constantly asking the question "why are we doing this?"

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Tony,

Yeah, the boiling pot can be a bitch. Even harder is trying to get some arts org to see the challenge they are facing. Successful organizations tend to be just a little bit paranoid, so they look for, find and often fix problems while they are still small enough to handle.

I'm thinking about the Obama campaign. They are way ahead in the polls, but internally they are trying to disable in barriers between them and victory.