Is this happening in your neck of the woods?

I will share my thoughts in a future post, but it begs the question--is it really a bad thing that some theatre companies are closing their doors? is this a "market adjustment" to equalize supply and demand?

From this Wednesday's Washington Post:

More Shows, Fewer Showgoers
Helen Hayes Group Cites Increase of 402 Performances, Decrease of 36,000 Patrons
By Jane Horwitz
Special to The Washington Post
Wednesday, April 23, 2008; Page C05

The number of stage performances and theater companies in and around Washington went up last year, while overall attendance dropped 1.9 percent, according to statistics from the Helen Hayes Awards organization.

Despite that dip, 2007 was the busiest year since the first tally in 1985, the Hayes group said, with 67 professional companies presenting 8,050 performances of 454 shows. That is an increase from 2006 of three companies, 402 performances and 20 shows. (These figures represent all area professional theaters, not just those eligible for Hayes Awards, but do not include attendance for the Capital Fringe Festival, which drew 19,000 people.) Metropolitan Washington is a busier theater district than the Chicago area, according to Hayes Executive Director Linda Levy Grossman. Though Chicago has more theater companies, "the D.C. area still does more work," she noted via e-mail.

Even so, derrieres in seats numbered about 36,000 fewer in 2007, the Hayes staff reported, with 1,908,557 people attending shows. The dip in comparison with 2006 adds more weight to the conventional wisdom that the audience isn't quite keeping up with the burgeoning theater community. Attendance also dipped by about 1.2 percent from 2005 to 2006, much less than the 8.5 percent drop the previous year.

The end of the critic?

The Los Angeles Times ran an article on Tuesday, April 8 about the possible demise of the cultural critic. In the article, they cited numerous high profile critics which have recently left their posts, begging the question whether or not they are a dieing breed.

As many major newspapers continue to lose large numbers of readers, the impact of reviews and critics is beginning to shift. I myself blogged about this experience in a previous post. This is the first time that I have read an acknowledgement of this trend in a major daily newspaper. With the rise of many online, "citizen" review sites such as Yelp.com, more and more people are looking to common lay folks for their opinions on cultural attractions. Fewer and fewer people are turning to what Mr. Goldstein refers to as the "arbiters of culture." In fact, Mr. Goldstein's son hits it right on the head when he said "I trust my friends more than I trust that guy writing the review." This highlights the power of social media--it provides a context and an opportunity for friends to share their personal opinions of your product. With this ongoing paradigm shift, we as marketers and publicists are going to need to start paying more and more attention to our online reviews as we do to the major daily writers.

Part of what that means is being consistently on our game. No longer can we invite the major reviewers in for one specific night where we all dress up and put out the good china--we have to constantly have the good china on display because every performance is going to be reviewed by someone.

Just a couple of days ago, Arena Stage hosted a panel of professional theater reviewers who volunteered to speak to the participants of our Young Critics Program (a program that invites students to attend shows and review them). On the panel was Peter Marks (chief theater reviewer for the Washington Post). One particularly smart student asked Peter about how he perceived the power of his positive and negative reviews. And although I am paraphrasing, Peter acknowledged there was a time when a reviewer could make or break a show, but he feels this is no longer the case. I can attest that the Washington Post and Mr. Marks in particular still has a very large following, but I would tend to agree with him.

And let's not forget that even though we might get the occasional bad review (and let's admit, sometimes it is deserved), critics are providing us a service by writing about us. The loss of the critic is tragic. Fewer critics = less coverage. Less coverage = less public knowledge.

Congratulations to...my boss

I promise to have a new post tomorrow, but in the meantime...

Congratulations are in order for my soon to be former boss Maggie Boland, Arena Stage's Director of External Affairs since 2003. Maggie will be leaving Arena Stage at the end of April to join Arlington's Signature Theatre as their new Managing Director. I think many of else felt that she was more than ready to take this step in her career, and I am glad that the DC theatre scene is not going to lose her. Now she is going to go work for a "competing" theater so I might have to Tonya Harding her before she leaves, but until that time, I can be very proud of her. One of her first responsibilities on the job--attend the opening of Signature's GLORY DAYS on Broadway. What a rough way to start.

Check out the article in Variety.

National Arts Marketing Project Conference 2008--Call for Proposals

Americans for the Arts invites you to submit a proposal for the National Arts Marketing Project Conference in Houston, November 10-12, 2008. Priming the Pump: Fueling Integrated Arts Marketing, Fundraising, and Sponsorships to Optimize Revenue will focus on best practices in marketing and audience development in the arts.
New This Year!

For 2008, the NAMP Conference is about fundraising too! In addition to the marketing track, there is now a fundraising track, and a track focusing on where the two areas interact. We encourage you to propose sessions in marketing, fundraising, or the intersection of both. Topics of interest include:

-Branding
-Social networking
-Sponsorships
-Young philanthropists
-Dynamic copywriting
-Loyalty programs
And more!

You can share your experience in any format-choose from three types of sessions. Applications for conference sessions, exemplary practices presentations, and roundtable discussions will be accepted. Americans for the Arts welcomes proposals from: marketers and fundraisers arts and culture organizations marketing and fundraising consultants corporate and foundation funders board members government agencies educators executive and/or artistic directors corporate sponsorship and/or marketing directors communications professionals technology professionals

Each track will be divided into two levels:
101 Level for beginner/intermediate skill level and small organizations
201 Level for intermediate/advanced skill level and larger organizations

Visit the NAMP Conference Website for the session proposal application, instructions, and more information on the conference.

Watch the website for registration and hotel information along with the program.

Tracking the Blogosphere

As many of you know, Arena Stage has made quite a transition in the last couple of months, moving from its DC home of over 50 years to a new temporary performance space in northern Virginia. In doing so, we employed a complex communications plan that involved using some brand new technologies (PURLs) as well as some tried-and-true techniques. When asked about the "success" of our move, it is relatively easy to track in terms of revenue. I am pleased to report that less than 1% of our subscriber base requested a refund, which is a much rosier scenario then the company had planned for.

I also monitor what our customers are saying by reading their e-mails and reviewing reports from our box office. However, I must say that one of the best indications on the success of our move can be found in the blogosphere. The blogosphere now contains 112.8 million blogs according to a recent Technorati report. Arena Stage sees on average 200,000 people per year. Knowing the popularity of blogs these days, and the sheer number of people that visit us, I knew that our transition would be discussed in the blogosphere.

So I set up a Google Alert to notify me when certain key words were discussed in a blog. Initially, I wanted to be able to monitor what was being said about our transition, but after I read several blog postings, I decided to play a more active role in the discussions by answering questions posted on a blog or by providing more information. A great example can be seen on Michael Miyazaki's Cabaret Blog . Michael is a cabaret enthusiast and a great supporter of the local performing arts. When he came to our new venue to see Tina Fabrique in ELLA, he was very disappointed with our lack of signage and wrote a blog about his experience. Unfortunately, Mr. Miyazaki had attended a preview performance at a time when a great deal of our signage had not yet been installed (try coordinating a signage plan with state, county, and local officials--it is a long process). So I emailed him to apologize for his inconvenience and to let him know that all the signs would be in place by opening night. He took the opportunity to cut directly from my e-mail and paste my response into a blog update.

If you want to know what your audience is thinking, it might be wise to monitor the blogosphere. The blogosphere is no longer a collection of incredibly powerful blogs written by a select few professional journalists. It contains many more personal journals from regular joes like you and I who are not shy about discussing their experiences.

We're here...wait, where is here?

It has been a grueling month, and many apologies to those of you who read regularly, however Arena Stage has now officially relocated to its temporary offices in Arlington, VA and the groundbreaking for the Mead Center for American Theater is being held this Wednesday. I think I am finally starting to get a little comfortable, and am ready to start writing again. Thank God I finally figured out how to use our new phone system.

Many of you are probably wondering how our PURL (personalized URL) campaign went. I will go into more details in a later post, but the PURLs worked out great. Each of our subscribers were given a personalized website that they logged into which provided them step-by-step directions from their house to the new theatre, restaurant discounts, interactive seating map showing them the location of their new seats, and other important information. Our subscribers really loved it. However, I do have one word of caution: it seems the rather new technology doesn't seem to play well with Macintosh computers. I am happy to report that we have had less than 1/2 of 1 percent of our subscribers ask for a refund, and that the last two weeks have had the highest grossing sales so far in our fiscal year.

The real story of today's post comes from my friends at the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis (specifically Lory Bowman, Director of Marketing and Brad Graham, Public Relations Manager). I have known Lory for several years, and recently had the pleasure of meeting Brad Graham when I spoke at an event for the St. Louis Regional Arts Commission. Every now and then I take a look at their website to see what they are up to, and this last time I found something really interesting. We all know that word of mouth marketing gets exponentially better if you provide your advocates the right tools to spread the word. Well at the Rep, they have a page that allows you to spread the word about a particular production via Facebook, MySpace, Yahoo!, Google, and email all with just the simple click of your mouse. Check it out here: http://www.repstl.org/season/share/765/.

I promptly emailed Lory and told her that I thought the idea was genius, and asked if I could copy it. Here is our version: http://www.arenastage.org/about/news/ella-friend.shtml.

Thank you to Lory, Brad and the Rep for establishing the page. I am very grateful for the wonderful relationships that I have developed as I have traveled around, and this instance has reminded me of one of my favorite quotes:

"If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." -- Isaac Newton, 1676

Notes from NAMP #3

At the Table: Making Marketing’s Voice Count in Organizational Leadership
Speakers: Jerry Yoshitomi, MeaningMatters, Port Hueneme, CA; Brian Jose and Susie Farr, Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland, College Park, MD

1. At the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, they implemented several organizational changes after their staff turnover got to be really high. First they learned that a director’s loyalty needs to shift to the success of the organization and the leadership team, rather than being with their individual departments. This meant that each director needed to become more expert in other department activities. The director of artistic initiatives and the director of marketing shifted to become joined at the hip. Decisions were made together by those two and the executive director, and the offices of those two staff members were moved to be right next to each other.

2. Always challenge the prevailing organizational wisdom and make improvements because the world is changing quickly and you must adapt. Try to draw attention to issues without drawing attention to specific individuals. Gather the people in the organization who can influence change.

3. As a strong team member, you can’t just be an expert in your discipline—you must now know about other departments. If the finance director wants to know why you aren’t hitting the ticket sales goal, then work with him to develop an understanding of the problem so he/she better understands marketing. Overall knowledge about all departments by the leadership team will promote better understanding and therefore better decision-making. This understanding has to be a two-way street—invite questions. Questioning is liberating and genuine, constructive conflict can be very good. “Artificial Harmony” can destroy an organization.

4. Strive for complete clarity and transparency in the organization.

5. People who get defensive about questioning can inhibit growth and can support a stagnant environment. The idea of running your department as an entity by itself is detrimental—be open about your process, invite questions, work with your peers. They all have different strengths.

6. Maybe some questions we should be asking: What are we doing that is ground-breaking? Are we setting an example for the rest of the country? Are our processes outdated? Are the practices of the American regional theatre outdated? Where are we stagnant? Where are we dynamic?

7. Two to One ratio – you have two ears and one mouth so listen twice as much as you speak.

8. Suggested reading: “Five Dysfunction of Team” and “Death by Meetings” by Patrick Lencioni and “Leading with Limited Authority”