Share your passion. Develop your audience.

Audi­ence devel­op­ment: a mat­ter of the heart

By Denis J. Bertrand

Hello! It is with great plea­sure that I accepted the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts’ invi­ta­tion to write a monthly col­umn on audi­ence devel­op­ment and reten­tion. I became inter­ested in the sub­ject sev­eral years ago when I was the gen­eral direc­tor of Théâtre Action, a ser­vice orga­ni­za­tion for fran­coph­one the­atre in Ontario. Audi­ence devel­op­ment was a con­cern for the the­atres that we served. I chose to spe­cial­ize in this, dri­ven by my inter­ests in arts and com­mu­ni­ca­tions. In order to do this I reg­u­larly read and did research on the sub­ject and I exchanged ideas with fel­low con­sul­tants around the world.

Through­out this col­umn I will talk about trends I see in the sec­tor, best prac­tices, and news related to audi­ence devel­op­ment. And I wel­come your com­ments and experiences!

***

There are dif­fer­ent def­i­n­i­tions of audi­ence devel­op­ment, but I sub­scribe to the one from the Canada Coun­cil for the Arts that states that it is “the long-term process of encour­ag­ing and assist­ing peo­ple in your com­mu­nity to become engaged in the arts and more deeply involved in the arts.”[1]

I adopted this def­i­n­i­tion for the fol­low­ing reasons:

• We don’t engage in audi­ence devel­op­ment only to sell tick­ets, mem­ber­ships, or prod­ucts in the short term. It is a long term invest­ment to get results. It’s not nec­es­sar­ily a ques­tion of invest­ing more money, but more so time because…
• To bring in audi­ences peo­ple need to “become engaged in the arts and more deeply involved in the arts” there­for you have to estab­lish a rela­tion­ship with them. And when we say “rela­tion­ship” that means the cre­ation of rec­i­p­ro­cal ties built over time which are prof­itable to the artists and the pub­lic.

This rela­tion­ship is based on the fol­low­ing elements:

• First, the per­cep­tion of the pub­lic as an ally rather than a source of addi­tional income;
• A shared mutual pas­sion for the arts com­pris­ing the shar­ing of infor­ma­tion on pro­duc­tions or prod­ucts that are in devel­op­ment, and the oppor­tu­nity for exchanges between the pub­lic, the artists and the arts and cul­tural organizations;
• Patience, deter­mi­na­tion and orga­ni­za­tion. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Just because one devel­op­ment activ­ity doesn’t get the suc­cess that was hoped for isn’t rea­son to com­pletely aban­don it. Learn from your attempts, be cre­ative and adjust your sights! And, audi­ence devel­op­ment is a team sport. The respon­si­bil­ity can’t rest on the shoul­ders of just one per­son. Every­one has to con­tribute to the orga­ni­za­tion, includ­ing your board mem­bers. If you are an artist, your peers, employ­ers, friends and rel­a­tives can help your out­reach efforts.
• Recog­ni­tion. When some­one opens their wal­let to buy a ticket, a book, an art­work, or a CD they are show­ing sup­port for the artist, orga­ni­za­tion, or prod­uct. Take the time to thank them.

Over the course of upcom­ing columns I will dis­cuss these ele­ments further.

***

But why invest in audi­ence devel­op­ment? Recent stats from Hill Strate­gies Research show that in 2010:

• 72.4% of the Cana­dian pop­u­la­tion over 15 attended a live per­for­mance or cul­tural festival;
• 97.5% read a news­pa­per, mag­a­zine or book;
• 87.2% watched a film in the the­atre or on video;
• 86.7% lis­tened to down­loaded music or on CD.

So every­thing is just great, right? No. Accord­ing to the Chair in Arts Man­age­ment at Hautes Études Com­mer­ciales (HEC) of Mon­tréal, François Col­bert, “ The arts sec­tor has not only reached matu­rity, but it is sat­u­rated, the sup­ply is far exceed­ing the demand.”[2] In effect, new the­atre com­pa­nies, pub­lish­ers and venues are being devel­oped reg­u­larly. Not count­ing all of the sources of enter­tain­ment online, at home and else­where (ex.: Sport­ing or com­mu­nity events, etc.). Like all con­sumers we only have so much money to spend on enter­tain­ment. How can arts orga­ni­za­tions and artists access part of the avail­able rev­enues? By dif­fer­en­ti­at­ing them­selves from their com­peti­tors. By devel­op­ing closer rela­tion­ships with the pub­lic. By actively sell­ing their prod­ucts or ser­vices rather than pas­sively offer­ing them.

We will also talk about mod­ern art con­sumers and their expec­ta­tions of the arts in a future column.

À bien­tôt !

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 www.developpezvotreauditoire.com. Denis is a mem­ber of the Arts Con­sul­tants Canada Asso­ci­a­tion. He lives in Sud­bury ‚ON.