Time to rethink the importance of ticket buyers?

The increasingly common pre-show appeal.
One of the most annoying things to run into after spending $100 or more on some tickets is to sit down in the theatre and be taken on a guilt trip.

"Your ticket purchase only covers 50% of the cost of this performance." the program insists, so "Contribute now!"

Well, "thank you for thanking me" for my support. For your information, I took the trouble to set an evening aside, arrange a baby sitter, dress up a bit, and drive 45 minutes to your theatre where I can then search for a parking spot, stumble around in the dark for a few minutes, and finally sit down and relax. And after all that I am greeted with a plea for more money.

I look around and see quite a few empty seats, especially if it is not a Saturday night, and wonder at the incongruity of the demand. Gee, maybe if you sold all those seats, you wouldn't have to be badgering me for yet more money. Then there is the increasingly common pre-curtain speech, asking again for money, reminding me of how tough the economy is.

Today, Douglas McLennan, publisher of the Arts Journal addressed this issue in his diacritical blog . He is the go-to person for much of the national arts media, and knows of what he speaks. It isn't that arts supporters are ignorant of the need for funds for our nonprofits, nor that we begrudge them either, but that the ticket buyer is so often treated as just another sheep to be sheared.

They are perhaps an even more valuable resource than most arts organizations realize. They deserve effusive praise, not badgering. Every theatre has a development department, one that specializes in fundraising, but audience development is a neglected art.

A ticket sold isn't just a ticket sold. One audience member isn't the same as another. Communities are hierarchical, and if you can identify the hierarchies and incentivize them you can push people up the ladder. Along the way they'll do things for you (and for themselves). People like to be rewarded for engaging with you.

Sure the performance should be enough reward, I know. But if word-of-mouth is the most powerful way of getting more people into the theatre, how do you promote that word-of-mouth? If you have an audience member who brings five friends, find a way to reward them. If they bring 10 friends, give them something more. - diacritical blog

Those empty seats are revenues lost forever.
When I joined founder E. Virginia Williams at the Boston Ballet a dozen years after it began, the company was generating about half their income through ticket sales and other "earned" income. By focusing on the little appreciated craft of audience development, we upped that to 90% in the space of two years. And drove the box office crazy because most of these were subscriptions, and that did not leave much room for single ticket sales. We lowered the costs of finding new ticket buyers as well, using the same budget that used to fill half a house to fill almost all the seats.

The key to our success was that everyone started thinking about the audience in a different way. It was a complex and often subtle series of changes that were made in the marketing and promotion. Two years later the audience had doubled. The development department was thrilled to have twice as many fundraising prospects, too. When the whole company - audience development and fundraising, artistic and administrative work from the same game plan the synergy is amazing.

Obama and McCain differ greatly on the Arts

Americans for the Arts Action Fund compared the two presidential candidates on policies and funding for the arts. Both candidates met with members of the organization in April.

Since February, Democrat Barack Obama had been publishing what amounts to a comprehensive policy statement on the arts and arts education. Here in PDF form are Obama's arts policies. He also has outlined his position on funding the arts in speeches in Texas and Pennsylvania.
Obama has a clear set of priorities for the arts.

After several requests, Republican John McCain finally did state his position on the arts by publishing a short statement in the Salt Lake City Tribune earlier this month.

There was an even more interesting follow up story also by Julie Checkoway. The story, and embedded video, talks about how important the arts can be to our lives. I give kudos to McCain for recognizing his lack of knowledge in the area.

The Democratic Party platform includes a statement on the arts, but the Republican platform does not.

McCain has no use for the arts, nor any policy to support anything to do with creativity in this competitive world.

Perhaps most telling is the voting record of each of the presidential candidates. Obama sponsored the Artist-Museum Partnership Act. McCain has voted for cutting or terminating funding for the National Endowment for the Arts in several different Senate votes. More information is available at www.artsvote.org.

Nothing on the McCain-Pail website about the arts.

When it comes to the Vice Presidential candidates, Sarah Palin offers an interesting contrast. While Mayor of Wasilla she cut funding for the Dorothy G. Page Museum and summarily fired its director, John Cooper. As governor of Alaska, there was a miniscule increase to the state arts council funding - most likely to continue receiving Federal funds - but somehow it ran out of money before the grants could be adjudicated. This article at artNet pretty well summarizes her actions. If she behaves anything like McCain, she will not be in favor for continued funding of the NEA.

Massachusetts Ballot Question 1

THE MOHAWK THEATRE IN NORTH ADAMS now being restored.



Voters in Massachusetts will have a crucial decision to make at the polls in November - and it's not just the presidential election.

Once again, they'll be faced with a proposal to get rid of the state income tax - an initiative that's getting more attention this time around because of the economic crisis.

It's called Question 1 - a proposed repeal of the state income tax and of course, the capital gains tax. The greedy are never satisfied.

Supporters say it will take money out of the hands of Beacon Hill politicians who have done nothing but waste it for years. Ask someone making minimum wage in North Adams who gets fuel assistance, Or a senior who uses the Spitzer Center. Or any teacher.

We have a bridge to fix, a city that is already running on fumes, and don't need to see local aid take another hit.

I think it's a reckless idea.

"This is throwing a bomb into government," said Peter Meade, head of the Vote No on 1 Committee. "If you vote yes, you're voting to increase the tax on your home."

For more information about how this measure will affect your town or city, check out this interactive map and web site.

Take part in Pangea Day on May 10, 2008

The world will come together again.





Pangea Day is a worldwide celebration of our common humanity, expressed in unique films by people like you and me. It will take place on May 10, 2008, and in the Berkshires the films will be screened at the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield from 2 to 6 pm. It is but one of thousands of venues in more than 60 countries around the world. Admission is free.

Colonial Theatre information



Here is the website for complete information on the event:

http://pangeaday.org/

As many of you know, I am a big fan of the TED program, and here is what curator Chris Anderson wrote me in an email:

"The best way to watch Pangea Day is not just as a normal TV show or web-stream. It should be watched as a community event. We want the sense of the great global village gathering around a campfire. We already know of more than a thousand self-organized screenings taking place in homes, clubs, and movie theaters. We expect thousands more come May 10.

As many of you know, the day is the result of the combined efforts of countless TED supporters around the world, inspired by the TED Prize wish of film-maker Jehane Noujaim. She dreamed of a day when people around the world could share the the same film experience at the same time. The idea has grown into a giant global project... thanks to you. To get a sense of the scale of ambition, please take a minute to watch this beautiful trailer.

Here's the state of play:
- Out of thousands of submissions, we have assembled a fantastic line-up of films. There are about 20 in total, ranging in length from 2 to 15 minutes (most of them around 5). They all tell powerful stories, often without language, of what it is to be human. They are, by turns, funny, touching, dramatic, inspiring.
- But you won't just be watching films. You'll be watching the world watching. We're bringing in live audience images from around the world. Watching a film about reconciliation is one thing. Watching it while simultaneously witnessing the reactions of people who are supposed to hate each other will be something else altogether.
- The day also features a dozen powerful three-minute talks from scientists, film-makers, story-tellers and global visionaries. Just as a session at TED takes us on a journey stimulating every part of our brains, so will Pangea Day. Don't dismiss it as a warm & fuzzy peace-fest. The project builds on the latest ideas in anthropology, psychology and technology. We'll be revealing how.
- The whole program is being broadcast in front of a live audience of 1,000 (from more than 50 countries) at a spectacular set being built at a Sony Studios soundstage in Los Angeles.
- It will look and feel like nothing you've seen before. "

I will post some examples as they become available.

Here is "France sings for the USA":



And Japan sings for Turkey (amazing!):



Larry Murray

Mass MoCA turns to Jenny Holzer's "Projections"

Some of Holzer's earlier work.

By the time it opens on November 17 Jenny Holzer's Gallery 5 Installation Projections will have replaced bad boy Buchel as Topic #1 among Mass MoCA watchers.

For thirty years, Jenny Holzer has used public places and great institutions as the venues for her work, including the Venice Biennale, the Reichstag, and the Guggenheim Museums in New York and Bilbao. Her medium is virtually anything. Her words have been previously cast in bronze, carved in stone, projected on a building and drawn on a T-shirt. It seems that wherever there is a surface, Jenny has words to provoke, prod and fill it. And though the casual observer may see the words as a graphic that fills a void, those who who think about it will enjoy the clever insights they reveal about the human condition.

Projections will use MASS MOCA’s massive Building 5 as a stage for her first interior light projections in the United States. She will also exhibit a new series of paintings shown, in part, at the 2007 Venice Biennale. She has an impressive collection of artistis credentials, but it is her work, and its pollitical, sociological and conceptual content that matters.

In a serendipitous coincidence, this artist who was born in Ohio and trained at RISD, MFA and the Whitney, operated out of New York and travelled the world, finally settling into Hoosick Falls where she continues her pioneering work.

More background is at Wiki Profile

Mass MoCA vs. Christoph Buchel

It's been nine months of uncertainty but finally the spendthrift Christoph Buchel is about to have his garbage dump of an installation hauled off to be disposed of forever. About time. This uber genius is just a hoarder in artist's clothing and gives contemporary artists - already hard pressed for respect - a bad name.

In case you haven't heard, Buchel's "Training Ground for Democracy" was a pretty monumental undertaking, scheduled to have filled the football field sized Gallery 5 at the Massachusetts Museum of Contermporary Art (Mass MoCA) in North Adams, MA where I live. It was to be Buchel's first major American museum work, and by December when he walked off the site, it had already included a two story house, an oil tanker, mobile home, and sixteen truckloads of donations from resideents of North Adams to fill the space.

But Buchel appears to have been stymied by the size of the place, and asked for a full sized and burned out hulk of a 727 plane to fill some of the space. Apparently even adding the defunct North Adams Cinema from Route 8 was not nearly enough to fill the gaping yaw of the gallery. After making many more outrageous demands, the museum said enough and Buchel walked off the job, and conducted negotiations through his lawyers, tying up the site well into its scheduled run. The public never got to see anything.

The exhibition was scheduled to cost $160,000, the artist spent twice that, some $300,000 and Mass MoCA even offered another $100,000 in hopes it might be finished but the artist was adament that there could be no ceiling, no limit to his demands, no discussion, no deal. No shit.

Eventually this all ended up in court, as Rinker Buck from the Hartford Courant so ably reported at:

Rinker's story

Now the museum has announced that the entire mess is to be dismantled over the next five weeks and eventually there will be a forum, seminar, or some such event to discuss everything that happened. I hope Buchel attends.

The Museum has a blog that explains it all (from their perspective, of course.)

MoCA Blog

My own reaction to the unraveling is that the museum should move everything out to the parking lot and have a giant tag sale. They would at least recoup some of the expenses, and maybe the North Adams folks could purchase back their donations.