Audience Development

Audience Diversity Is Not A Fad

Published Mon, Feb 26, 18 at 2:00 am | Updated Sun, Feb 25, 18 at 7:33 pm by Ceci Dadisman

Over the course of the year, I will be creating a series of posts on the topic of audience diversity. This incredibly important topic has become more and more important to me over the past few years. With the US population becoming more and more diverse and our “traditional” audiences dwindling, arts organizations simply must make a concerted effort to engage with multicultural populations in the communities they serve. We know from multiple national data sets as well as our own internal data (anecdotal and scientific) that the patrons of most arts … Read more

Yes, We Need To Change The Theater Experience

Published Mon, Feb 27, 17 at 2:00 am | Updated Fri, Feb 24, 17 at 11:37 am by Ceci Dadisman

If you have not yet read Terry Teachout’s recent article in the Wall Street Journal about the California Symphony’s new efforts to bring in millennials, you must read it immediately. Like, right now. Don’t worry, I’ll wait. Ok, now that you’ve read it, let’s talk about two major points that every arts administrator should take to heart: “What the California Symphony discovered, in short, was that “almost every single piece of negative feedback was about something other than the performance.”” “Another important discovery was that it’s single-ticket buyers, not veteran subscribers, who are … Read more

We Say We Want New Patrons…But Do We Really?

Published Wed, Feb 1, 17 at 2:00 am | Updated Thu, Feb 2, 17 at 6:22 am by Ceci Dadisman

All of us folks who work at arts organizations know that we need a steady stream of new people coming in to stay in existence. Right? Right. We, as organizations, repeat the mantra that we want new people to come through our doors. However, we also continually do things that seem to demonstrate the opposite. If we are serious about getting and keeping new patrons, we are going to need to pay more attention to our data and get out of our comfort zone a bit. Let’s start with a few things we … Read more