Is “Digital” Killing the Small Arts Presenter?
A large study was conducted for the National Endowment for the Arts that indicated that the web audience was growing for many arts groups while the live audience, especially for performing arts was dwindling.
I’m aware that many small performing arts presenters are having a hard time in communities throughout my home province of British Columbia, Canada. I know this because I coordinate a program for the BC Arts Council that gives $280,000 to these presenters for artist fees and many of them show in their anecdotal and actual statistics that they are struggling or holding their own, at best.
The question is: would better marketing make a difference or is it time to look at different ways of presenting the performing arts in their communities and if so, what are the things they could do?
There are certainly some doing well (Kicking Horse Culture, Poetry Gabriola, Lakes District Arts Council to name a few), but many are struggling. It seems the ones doing well are connected and more active in their community. They are creative in how they sell their shows but at the same time, they expend much effort to make things happen.
Beyond that however, I wonder if it’s time for presenters to alter what they book and how it is presented? This approach is not promising given the lack of resources and the costs and expertise to try new and different things.
I think we are on a slow, downward slide of touring the arts, and that unless more engagement happens in different ways, it will soon be “over” for most small touring artists in the soft-seater circuit.
Who the hell am I to say this?
I’m no longer a touring artist and I’m not a presenter. It’s almost illegal to utter such words when you work in the non-profit arts world. It just that it seems to me people are so stuck in “this is how we’ve always done it” mode.
Oh, and I don’t think this problem is really a funding one (even though I do believe in increased arts funding). The problem is a changed world.
I don’t know the answers, but in a world of the Internet (Digital), simply doing the same thing—booking a show and hoping people show up—isn’t working very well any more and all the marketing in the world won’t make people buy things they don’t already want.
Any thoughts?
Maybe it has to do with the process of discovering artist and their work. Any artist, play or exposition that uses the traditional means of reaching people just misses me. I don’t read newspapers anymore, I listen to very little radio or TV…Most of my information gathering time is online…I prefer to spend my reading time on blogs with my morning coffee….
This is where I discover and mingle with artists and their creations. If they are not here, they miss out a lot I think as many of the niche audience is exactly where I am…online.
A good example of a guy I discovered online is Kelly Joe Phelps…I subscribed to his fan club on his website and now every time he comes to Montreal (mostly during the Jazz Fest…) he sends me an email…I then simply buy tickets…and voila!…His cost? A little time and an internet connection…he is well organized online and artists today should be too…
The worse part is that its not expensive, it just requires work…It’s not unlike the small businesses that complain about not getting any return on their traditional marketing methods…
Just my 2 cents…
Serge, I think you are onto something with the aspect of how more and more people are discovering artists. I too, do not read paper newspapers any more.
I think for the small town presenters (the organizations that book artists to perform in their theatres) it’s a hard jump to work on the online side of things. Many of these people are volunteers and have jobs and families. In the late 90s many of them were the last to start using email and I think the same is happening now with the new online tools.
Helping them get the word out to their audience and connect their audience with the artists they are booking is the challenge. It’s kind of a circle that has breaks in it that need to be joined.
I don’t know that market John but I do attend some small venues. All of them I discover on blogs, get an email or more and more…Twitter and a link to follow.
It could be a very simple plan though, like not letting any one buy a ticket without asking for their email address then using a service like Mail Chimp to announce their new plays…get a few bloggers on your side and include them in the mailing list but with a special, personalized email tailored at their blogging interest…and a Twitter account you put on all your tickets and publishings…(Follow us on Twitter…)
Its true it requires more work than the good old add in the local paper which you can get done in an hour…the web side requires more engagement…
Maybe its time to get younger volunteers interested!….Maybe the key is recruiting…
I think you’re dead-on with your approach for many reasons, not least of which, is getting the involvement of younger volunteers. Getting younger volunteers would not only get more engagement from the community but also help solve the age-old (pardon the pun) problem of getting newer, younger people involved in these organizations.
I will be attending a marketing conference in late March and will be doing three half-hour sessions on this very topic. I’m looking forward to it.
Thanks again for your input. I wish I could read French because I think I’d like you blog based on your insights here.
I think you are wrong when it comes to larger city centres, where Facebook and other social networking applications have created an online environment where companies can develop a following around the globe – essentially creating a fast and easy way to manage fans and subscribers.
The arts has always been more difficult in smaller communities, especially those where arts education is scarce and a proper marriage of resources between the arts and business is a face to face enterprise.
I’ve designed (and still design and develop) websites for arts companies using a very popular CMS, and regardless of where I am, I am shocked at how often I am told companies don’t want the resources I can provide at a low cost, simply because they don’t want to take the time how to use it. However, more often than not in smaller communities, the major reason why companies don’t want to change how they work is because most of their resources are provided by volunteers. The number of times I have had a company or organization tell me they want to continue with business as usual, simply because the same person has been doing an effective job (but lacking innovation in the last 10 years) and the company doesn’t want to alienate them.
However, I too have worked from province to province, and the number one reason why I don’t do it is this: you arrive in a town where you think you are doing a job, and you get told you have to do work for free because the locals do, or you get shafted on venue rental/booking fees or get your contact violated because they see you as a set of dollar signs and not someone running a small business. They know you are not gonna stick around too long, and they don’t need you for anything but getting bums in their soft seats.
My personal opinion is that the touring arts will eventually die off not because of the artists, or lack of funding, but because of the well meaning presenters that have become unreliable or fraudulent because of the economic pressures facing them, and because of groups like CAEA that make it almost impossible for young groups of artists to work with older groups when funding is unavailable. We’ll see more and more one-man-shows, and then little else before it all goes belly up.
Thanks for all your thoughts on this topic. I guess I’d agree about the larger centres. You’re right there.
Most of the presenters I work with are in the smaller centres and though I don’t find them trying to screw the artists, they are largely volunteer-based and you’ve hit on the problem of one person doing the job for so long that they are burned out and just doing all they can to hang on which stops them from wanting to put in the effort of changing how they do things.
There are times when I think they will just go belly up, but somehow, I remain optimistic that the need for live performance will survive.
Oh I’m not suggesting that all small venues in smaller centres are trying to mess with the artists for profit, but somewhere in my records is a neat stack of letters explaining my complaints about broken contracts and hidden surprise fees. Most of the responses I got emphasized that the staff were volunteers, and that I “got what I deserved” *that last one is a quote from a national fringe festival that also ordered me and my fringe company to perform to empty houses – empty because they got the times wrong in their guide). I generally recommend to other artists – I’m not one any more, because I got out while the going was good – to develop a digital strategy that lets them market themselves independently, focus on the community they live in or move to a big city and find one there, and to only tour if they can get paid for it up-front. And not to get involved in CAEA co-ops – having to change your company name after a couple shows if the income isn’t coming doesn’t help you maintain a clear identity to use on the touring circuit.