Share your passion. Develop your audience.

The Pub­lic: An Ally first, Then a Consumer

By: Denis J. Bertrand

A few months ago a per­form­ing arts pre­sen­ter was telling me that he was very pleased with the atten­dance rates at his shows which were aver­ag­ing around 80%. I responded that obvi­ously his venue was well known to the pub­lic and that they appre­ci­ated the pro­gram­ming. Then I asked him if he knew his sub­scribers and those that attended fre­quently. He admit­ted igno­rance on who was fre­quent­ing his orga­ni­za­tion. This could present a chal­lenge when the day comes that his atten­dance rates start drop­ping and he needs to renew his audience.

One of the first steps in arts audi­ence devel­op­ment is to take the time to get to know your cur­rent and poten­tial mar­kets. First, spend some time with those who already know you. For exam­ple you could ask them to fill out a short sur­vey online or on paper that will allow you to gather some sociode­mo­graphic infor­ma­tion, your audience’s pref­er­ences in art and cul­ture, as well as their impres­sions of your pro­gram­ming, venue, etc. This sur­vey can be put into cir­cu­la­tion a few times dur­ing the year so that you have access to a large enough sam­ple to draw a fairly accu­rate por­trait of your audi­ence. Announce that those fill­ing out the sur­vey will be eli­gi­ble for a prize draw. It’s always a good idea to offer a reward.

Then, ana­lyze the results. Do they match your expec­ta­tions? Is your audi­ence rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the medium you present? Is there any­one notice­ably miss­ing? The answers to these ques­tions will allow you to deter­mine if you should under­take new approaches to attract these poten­tial audi­ences.  If yes, iden­tify and con­tact mem­bers of these audi­ences to learn more about them and to ini­ti­ate a dia­logue with them. Then you’ll find what you need to do to attract them to your activities.

Whether you are address­ing cur­rent audi­ences or new­com­ers, remem­ber that arts and cul­ture fans nowa­days are not pas­sive con­sumers. Gen­er­ally they con­sist of edu­cated, curi­ous and well informed indi­vid­u­als with suf­fi­cient  income to afford sub­scrip­tions, tick­ets and sus­tain­able cul­tural prod­ucts. Research also shows that women are the pri­mary con­sumers of arts and cul­ture. Accord­ing to Huff­in­g­ton Post Canada 70% of the­atre tick­ets sold in the US are sold to women, while a study from the Cre­ative Trust orga­ni­za­tion in Toronto reveals that they make up 72% of the­atre, 71% of dance, and 66% of opera audiences.

Peo­ple from the arts com­mu­nity who par­tic­i­pated in a con­fer­ence on audi­ence devel­op­ment last year in the US found that “…mod­ern audi­ences want to be more than pas­sive recip­i­ents of art that some­one else has decided is good for them.” A sim­i­lar event, held two years prior, came to a sim­i­lar con­clu­sion. That, “… what today’s poten­tial arts audi­ences most want out of an arts event is the oppor­tu­nity to co-author mean­ing. They don’t want the arts; they want the arts expe­ri­ence. They want the oppor­tu­nity to par­tic­i­pate in an intel­li­gent and respon­si­ble way in telling the mean­ing of an arts event… they want a real forum – or sev­eral forums – for the inter­play of ideas, expe­ri­ence, data and feel­ing that makes up the arts experience.”

What kind of artis­tic expe­ri­ence are you offer­ing to your clients? Is it sim­i­lar to this?

• Peo­ple wait in line, some­times out­side, some­times in a con­fined space to access a box office. They then kill time in a lounge or restau­rant while wait­ing for the venue doors to open. Maybe they could check their coats or have a drink in the mean­time. The doors open and peo­ple are invited to enter. A record­ing wel­comes them and reminds them to turn off their cell phones or other elec­tronic devices. Then, once the pre­sen­ta­tion is over, the spec­ta­tors col­lect their belong­ings and leave.

Or this?

• Vol­un­teers or employ­ees wel­come clients. They direct them to where they can drop off their coats, sit, or get a glass of wine. Appro­pri­ate music is played in the wait­ing area. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the pre­sent­ing or pro­duc­ing orga­ni­za­tion cir­cu­late and talk with peo­ple. The venue doors open. A rep­re­sen­ta­tive from the orga­ni­za­tion appears and wel­comes every­one and passes on instruc­tions (“Please shut off your cell phones”, etc.) They let peo­ple know that a dis­cus­sion or other activ­ity will be tak­ing place after the pre­sen­ta­tion to let peo­ple know more about what they have just seen, dis­cuss and socialize.

Which of these two expe­ri­ences seems more enjoy­able? Which one would encour­age you to return to the venue or to fre­quent this pre­sen­ter of pro­ducer? It’s in tak­ing note of the inter­est of the audi­ence that arts orga­ni­za­tions are most likely to assure loy­alty. Gone are the days when it was directed at arts fol­low­ers to sim­ply get a few bucks out of them. As illus­trated in the sec­ond case, audi­ence devel­op­ment isn’t just the domain of one per­son within your orga­ni­za­tion. Every­one needs to par­tic­i­pate, vol­un­teers and employees.

Nowa­days, you have to tame arts and cul­ture con­sumers, talk to them, lis­ten to them, and when nec­es­sary adapt to them. Then you will deepen you rela­tion­ships with them, and estab­lish a rela­tion­ship based on com­mon inter­ests and mutual respect. In exchange, audi­ence mem­bers will be more dis­posed to talk highly about you to their cir­cles and on social media, a sig­nif­i­cant fac­tor even on Broad­way. It is always the peo­ple who like and appre­ci­ate you who are ready to sup­port you, in the form of buy­ing a sub­scrip­tion, a ticket, or goods. That is an impor­tant asset in this era of eco­nomic uncertainty.

Denis J. Bertrand is a con­sul­tant in audi­ence devel­op­ment for the arts with the 50 Car­leton mar­ket­ing firm. He leads work­shops on the sub­ject and pro­duces strate­gies tai­lored to a vari­ety of arts orga­ni­za­tions located through­out the coun­try. He also dis­cusses the topic on his blog. Denis is a mem­ber of the Arts Con­sul­tants Canada Asso­ci­a­tion. He lives in Sud­bury ‚ON.