Does growing audiences require change from inside?
Performing arts organisations need to form symbiotic relations with their audiences in order to thrive, argues Alan Harrison.
You had a nifty idea. Combine hip-hop with one show this season. Then they’ll subscribe to your theatre, symphony, or ballet forever more. Neato. Nifty ideas that come from a place of desperation and vainglory never turn out very well.
I know. People aren’t coming back. Or, to be fair, they’re not coming back to your large, we-do-everything, nonprofit arts institution in that great big building where, at the groundbreaking, Governor Whatshisname and Big Donor Whoozi Whatztit lined up with the then-artistic director, the then-managing director, the then-board chair, and a few other then-leaders who smiled awkwardly toward the then-photographer as they dug their then-silver shovels into a patch of then-ground.
They’re not coming back to your we-do-performance, art-for-art’s-sake, and we-have-a-groovy-education-and-outreach-program-on-the-side company. You’re not devoid of an audience, but the ones who are there are clamouring for the wheelchair seats and the earphones... Keep reading on... Arts Journal
You had a nifty idea. Combine hip-hop with one show this season. Then they’ll subscribe to your theatre, symphony, or ballet forever more. Neato. Nifty ideas that come from a place of desperation and vainglory never turn out very well.
I know. People aren’t coming back. Or, to be fair, they’re not coming back to your large, we-do-everything, nonprofit arts institution in that great big building where, at the groundbreaking, Governor Whatshisname and Big Donor Whoozi Whatztit lined up with the then-artistic director, the then-managing director, the then-board chair, and a few other then-leaders who smiled awkwardly toward the then-photographer as they dug their then-silver shovels into a patch of then-ground.
They’re not coming back to your we-do-performance, art-for-art’s-sake, and we-have-a-groovy-education-and-outreach-program-on-the-side company. You’re not devoid of an audience, but the ones who are there are clamouring for the wheelchair seats and the earphones... Keep reading on... Arts Journal