Untapped Talent

Over the course of the year, I have been fortunate enough to attend several gatherings of artists and marketers, from the National Arts Marketing Project Conference to the #Newplay Convening at Arena Stage to most recently the Theatre Communications Group's National Conference. From these gatherings, a clear theme has emerged. Many artists feel that institutions do not use them to the best of their abilities, and they question why they are not approached to help with planning, budgeting, marketing or other traditionally "administrative" functions. In fact, as it relates to marketing, many artists went a step further by saying that they feel unwelcome by marketing departments.

At the TCG conference during a session entitled "The State of the Artist," sound designer Cricket Myers questioned why she isn't utilized more to promote productions she is working on. This echoed cries from playwrights that I have heard throughout the year asking why marketers don't seek out a playwright's assistance in the promotion of their work.

I think in some cases there is a serious disconnect between the marketer and the artist, which leads to situations of untapped talent on both sides. Why are artists not sought out during the marketing process, and why are marketers not sought out during the creation process? From the stories I have heard from playwrights, it sounds to me like several of them have legitimate reasons to feel like they are unwelcome when it comes to designing and implementing marketing campaigns. Those of us that spend a significant amount of time marketing new work might not understand the exclusion of artists in the marketing process, as outlined recently by Alli Houseworth's comments in "A Theater Marketer's Rant." Marketers that reject any collaborative environment with artists make it difficult for those that invite collaboration. I fear that some marketers are considered guilty by association.

If involving artists in the marketing process is beneficial (as I believe most of us agree it is), I question if involving marketers in the creation process could be as well? Theater is a collaborative art form, and it seems to me that the highway of collaboration should feature two way traffic. In my career, I have seen marketers locked out of rehearsal halls, denied access to draft scripts, and be uninvited to workshops and readings, yet they were expected to understand and promote the work. To those playwrights who question why marketers never seek their opinion, I would like to ask them if they have ever sought the opinion of a marketer?

Marketers and playwrights are both specialists, highly trained and very experienced in their perspective trades, but they are both creative beings as well. Good ideas come from a variety of sources. To assume that a marketer has no value in an artistic decision, or that playwrights have nothing to contribute to a marketing plan is foolish. Both sides lose, and when paired, they lose together.

What if...We Cast Off our Non-Profit Status?

In honor of Theater Communications Group's 50th Anniversary, the performing arts service organization solicited "what if" manifestos for their upcoming annual conference. In that spirit, I decided to point the "what if" in the direction of the the non-profit business model by asking what would happen if resident theaters abandoned up their non-profit status.

I am by no means the first to address this topic. On Tuesday, May 17, Thomas Cott featured the three great articles addressing this issue in his "You've Cott Mail" that day:

L3C Cha, Cha, Cha by Diane Ragsdale
Questioning Old Dogmas by Colin Tweedy
Revenue Means More Than Business Models by James Undercofler

The Assumed Argument: Mitigating Financial Risk by Relying Less Upon Volatile Funding Sources
I assume that the proponents of reexamining the reliance upon the non-profit business model by our resident theaters comes from those who feel that theaters could mitigate their operating risk by relying less upon volatile funding sources. In a previous post entitled The Funding Conundrum: A Marketer's Response, I discussed tactics an arts marketer could take in light of major government funding cuts. Coming from an advocacy background, my first instinct was to look at ways marketers could become better advocates. In doing so, I was trying to find ways to maintain status quo in a time of dwindling support. However, I now find myself asking what would happen if we found a way to develop an artistically valid and sustainable model that didn't rely upon any government funding? Would that allow us to create our own destiny? Would it eliminate our reliance upon a funding source that at best is dubious these days. We wouldn't have to consult the tea leaves to see if we were going to get our rationing of government funds or face the devastation that comes when those funds are cut at the eleventh hour. I hear many organizations discuss risk management these days. I wonder if eliminating a volatile revenue source and replacing it with revenue that is more dependable could become a very attractive option to companies that want to mitigate financial risk.

The idea of leaving behind the only thing most resident theater administrators have known their entire lives is daunting. In briefly contemplating this issue, a few questions immediately came to mind:

Would we jeopardize the artistic product?
As Ms. Ragsdale pointed out in her well written article on this topic, Arena Stage covered all of its expenses for its first fifteen years from box office revenue. In reading Zelda Fichandler's personal speeches to the original investors of Arena Stage, they don't reveal a particular concern about needing to sacrifice artistic integrity due to the financial pressures of having to meet expenses solely from the box office. However, I do not believe that resident theaters can depend solely on box office revenue if they eliminated their non-profit status, and doing so, would in my belief, inevitably lead to artistic sacrifices. That being said, as contributed revenue sources have declined, many organizations have had to look for new revenue streams so that the box office didn't become the sole method of revenue generation. New sources of revenue are popping up everywhere from real estate ventures, event rentals, restaurants, parking, corporate visibility opportunities, summer camps, bars, consulting services and partnerships with for-profit ventures. As long as there are other substantial revenue streams that prevent the box office from becoming an organization's sole source of revenue, the artistic product should be protected. Check out these articles about popular sources of new earned revenue:

Arts Centers and Real Estate: Sustainable Business Model? Createquity
New Jersey Arts Center Sets Real Estate Venture The New York Times
Lincoln Center to Consult on New Arts Center in China Forbes
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Purchases Telemarketing Firm Artful Manager

Would we have to sacrifice the revenue currently generated by contributed sources?
Most annual fund campaigns track revenue from individuals, board giving, corporations, special events, foundations and government support. This isn't my particular area of expertise so my thoughts might be naive or worse yet, impossible, however below are my guesses at what might happen to these sources if theaters were to drop their non-profit status:

• Individuals: Perhaps the largest loss of contributed revenue could be from major donors, who benefit significantly from the tax breaks received from philanthropic giving, although politicians are debating reducing the tax deductibility of charitable gifts. However, I don't believe that revenue from lower level donors would be significantly impacted. Research indicates that lower level donors primarily give to receive benefits designed to improve their experience while attending the theater, and not due to a value-based philanthropic reason. If theaters were to continue to offer experiential benefits in exchange for an additional fee, regardless if they were a non-profit or not, I believe they could maintain the revenue they receive currently from lower level donors.



• Board Giving: I wonder if non-profit board members could be transitioned into investors in a for-profit model, serving in a similar capacity to a limited partner. That could allow an organization to maintain partial revenues from board members, while offering them an opportunity for investment returns.



• Corporations: Corporate giving via truly philanthropic avenues has steadily decreased in the past decade. Most corporations now have moved their sponsorship dollars out from under philanthropic officers and into the hands of their marketing departments. Corporate sponsorships are primarily about visibility and client entertainment. I would guess that marketing officers aren't going to care if a theater is a non-profit institution or not when deciding where to spend their sponsorship dollars. They care about the value of the opportunities the theater can provide.



• Special Events: Why not look at special events as one night, for-profit productions? By programming in-demand talent, pricing tickets at fair market value and controlling expenses, special events should be able to still generate significant revenue.



• Foundations: Many foundations only give to non-profits because the IRS provides certain tax benefits to those that give 5% of their assets each year to organizations with 501(c)3 tax exempt status. For several theaters, this would be a substantial loss in revenue. I wonder if this could be resolved if the IRS offered to count grants given to LC3s in the same manner as those given to 501(c)3s.



• Government Support: For many organizations, government funding is either non-existent or so volatile that it cannot be included in operating budgets by prudent organizations. Arts organizations close regularly because they lose municipal or federal support. Many well-governed organizations have already learned to treat government support as icing on the cake, and nothing more. Those that haven't, risk total insolvency if the political climate shifts.

So, What's Next?
For now, it seems there is a lot of talk. These days, there is very little certainty in or agreement on anything, including the best business model for a resident theater. I am mindful though that Arena Stage was founded in 1950 as a for-profit entity, and thrived as such for several years. Could it be that to go forward, the field [5/31: replaced the word "we" with "the field"] must go back? It seems fitting to end with a quote featured from Zelda Fichandler in Ms. Ragdale's article: "I bring this up simply to point out that, while we are gathered here in the name of the nonprofit corporation (and, indeed, without the nonprofit income tax code, our American theater would simply not exist), being nonprofit does not really define us—our goals, our aims, our aesthetic, our achievements. What defines us, measures us, is our capacity to produce art.”

It's Time to Pay Your Age

The predominant method of pricing to attract young audiences involves the last minute discounting of available inventory, usually resulting in what is commonly referred to as a "student rush." At Arena Stage, we had a similar system called our "30 and Under Program," which allowed patrons 30 years old and younger to access $15 tickets beginning at 10:00am on Monday for that week's performances. The $15 ticket price represented a 75% off discount from our typical average ticket price, so these tickets were in high demand. With such a popular program, you might be asking why are we trying to fix something that is "working" by launching a "Pay Your Age" program specifically designed to replace the previously popular "30 and Under" program?

Well, if you dig a little deeper, you'd find that it wasn't working because...

We were losing them at 31. Imagine if you had spent ten years paying $15 for a good seat to the theater, and on the day you turned 31, you received a birthday card saying "congratulations, in order to attend your favorite theater from now on, you must now pay 75% more than you have been." As an organization, in some cases, we had spent more than a decade teaching young adults that a ticket to the theater was only worth $15, when in fact we should have been reminding them that they were receiving a $60 ticket on a substantial discount because we recognized they were in school or were just starting their careers. The jump from $15 to $60 overnight was just too steep, and after paying such a substantial discount for so long, the value proposition was completely distorted.

We were encouraging late buying behavior. I have been to countless conferences where experts have blamed decreases in subscriber bases on younger patrons who are not willing to commit in advance. Well why should they? For years, we have been giving them great seats at the best prices at the absolute last minute. If you eventually would like younger patrons to become subscribers, you must develop pricing systems which encourage earlier buying behaviors. They need to be taught early on that in order to get the best deal on the best seats, they need to commit early. I always found it funny that the same theaters that forced younger patrons to purchase via last minute rush systems where the ones that complained they couldn't attract younger subscribers to offset the attrition of their older subscriber base.

We could not fulfill demand. In many ways, our inaugural season at the Mead Center for American Theater has been a banner year for Arena Stage. Performances sold out weeks and months in advance, and when that happened, requests for access to any held inventory and house seats for sold out performances flooded into our Artistic Director's office. By requiring 30 and under patrons to wait until Monday to purchase tickets for that week's performances, we found that in many cases, we had very limited, if any, inventory available for such an important program. That being said, I know how hard it is to tell a major donor or VIP that we can't sell them a seat because the seat in question was being held for our 30 and Under Program. Imagine--"I'm sorry Mr. Ambassador, the performance you would like to attend has been sold out for weeks, except for the tickets we have held for the 30 and Under Program. You aren't by any chance under 30 are you?"

The Fix
So we developed a new system called "Pay Your Age (PYA)." The premise: for our patrons who are 30 years old and younger, they can purchase PYA tickets starting two months in advance of the first public performance by calling the box office and simply paying their age for their ticket. Tickets will be held at will call for pickup, and box office associates will verify age upon check-in. We have guaranteed that 3% of the inventory for each performance will be held specifically for this program. In the case of our upcoming summer revival of Oklahoma!, this means that on Monday, May 9, 1,800 PYA tickets will go on sale in a first come, first served format.

I anticipate that demand for these tickets will be very high, and they will sell out quickly. This in turn will underscore the importance of buying in advance if a 30 and under patron wants to get the available discount. Wait too long, and we'll be sold out. In addition, by paying just $1 more per ticket per year, we hope to gradually adjust each patron year by year, so that when the time comes, there isn't tremendous sticker shock.

The Funding Conundrum: A Marketer's Response

Nothing can take the wind out of your sails and make one reassess current strategies quite like an unexpected and critical loss of funding, which is what happened to 24 major arts organizations in our nation's capital two weeks ago. Shortly after the federal government averted a shut down, it was revealed that a part of the budget compromise was 74% reduction in the allocation to the National Capital Arts and Cultural Affairs Program.

Many do not realize that the District of Columbia is a federal territory under the complete authority of Congress, and as it is not a state, it does not receive voting representation in either the House of Representatives or the Senate. However, DC residents pay some of the highest federal taxes in the nation and their city's budget is established by Congress, leading to a cry of "taxation without representation." At a moment when Congressional representatives were trying to make substantial cuts to the nation's budget without affecting their districts, the District of Columbia became an easy target, the results of which saw a relatively reasonable and proportionate cut of 7.5% to the National Endowment for the Arts and a crippling, disproportionate cut to the National Capital Arts and Cultural Affairs Program.

As a marketing professional working for one of the affected institutions in the District of Columbia, it caused me to think about how marketers view their role, and how a marketer could respond, keeping in mind that John Kennedy reminded us all that there are always moments of opportunity in crisis. I came to the conclusion that marketing professionals are going to need to reexamine traditional beliefs about our job responsibilities.

Arts marketers are very good at audience development, selling tickets and promoting their products, however maybe we should be thinking about the following as well:

Marketers as Advocates
Last weekend, I was listening to Ric Edelman's radio show on WMAL as I was driving. Ric is a very well known local financial advisor, and he sits on the board of Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts. He took about ten minutes to discuss an upcoming proposed Congressional funding cut to Wolf Trap's STEM program, where he described an e-mail he received as a board member asking him to contact Congress to voice his objection to the cut. He shared with his listening audience that he decided not to contact his congressional representative, because he thought given the economic crisis Congress was facing, that he couldn't in good conscious ask them to protect the arts. In defense of Mr. Edelman, he did go on to say that he would increase his personal contribution to Wolf Trap, and then asked his audience to give as well. However, it made me think that here is a very intelligent man who is prone to supporting the arts and who makes his living off of maximizing return on investment for his clients, but he doesn't understand that arts funding fuels the economy and provides one of the best returns on investment of any public funding avenue. In 2007, Americans for the Arts released Arts and Economic Prosperity III, the most comprehensive study of the economic impact of the arts and culture sector. It revealed that the arts industry is responsible for $166 billion in economic activity, almost $30 billion in tax revenue and 5.7 million full time jobs. So why is a financial advisor advocating cutting an investment that has such high returns on investment? My answer -- arts marketing professionals aren't doing enough to educate their boards and audiences. If Mr. Edelman had all the facts, I am sure he would view the arts as a solution to the problem, not a burden on the system.

Marketers as Community Builders
Among arts professionals, there is a very familiar story often told about Sir Winston Churchill's time as Prime Minister of Great Britain. As the story goes, during the height of the second world war, Churchill's finance minister recommended cutting the arts to help support the war effort. Churchill responded with "then what are we fighting for?" Obviously, Mr. Churchill viewed the arts as vital to the daily lives of his constituents. Can the same be said for us? I would argue not. In the past, the arts organized communities. Today, in many of our nation's preeminent arts organizations, they only organize the wealthy and the elderly. As such, it is easy to see why some view the arts as frivolous. Arts organizations should be community centers, and marketers should work to constantly lay out the welcome mat to every member of their community, rich or poor, young or old. As government funding revenues dry up, we have before us even a greater challenge, as many arts organizations look to earned revenue sources (i.e. ticket sales) to make up for lost ground, but in doing so, could be sacrificing accessibility, ensuring that only a slight portion of their community is able to be served. I must commend organizations like Signature Theatre Company in New York, which leveraged a major philanthropic gift to provide $20 tickets to all seats for all performances. They boast sold out houses for every performance, and serve a maximum number of people in their community as ticket price is no longer a barrier. As marketing professionals, in a time where there is more and more pressure on earned revenue, we must work to make sure our organizations are community centers and accessible to all.

Marketers as Educators
I started out my career as a public school teacher. I went to college and received a Bachelor of Science in speech and theater education from Missouri State University. Soon after graduating, I decided to go to graduate school for producing, partially because I saw my peers struggling to find teaching jobs as arts education positions were being eliminated statewide. Today, many states have eliminated the arts in their curriculum entirely, as funding has become closely linked to performance on student achievement exams set forth by No Child Left Behind. As a nation, we are in our second decade in which a majority of public school students will have received no formal arts education. Soon, arts marketing professionals will face situations in which we will become responsible for educating prospective patrons on artistic offerings as even the most famous of artists will be unknown to a large portion of young adults. The time in which a marketer could reasonably expect the general population to know who major artists is coming to an end. We will become the front line educators.

Marketers as Fundraisers
I am continually amazed at the number of large arts organizations that function with marketing and development departments operating as silos. In some instances, the two departments have their own graphic designers, printers, mail houses, event planners and the like. When budgets are tightened, arts administrators must do everything in their power to get the best possible return on each dollar spent. All to often, the artistic product suffers because of the inefficiency of management. Combine resources and as a team, look for ways to reduce expenditures and maximize return. Make judgments together on where resources should be allocated, and eliminate redundancy. Marketers have to reassess their metrics of success. No longer is it good enough to make a sale. We must strive with each and every transaction to secure a sale and a donation. I challenge marketers to view themselves as having as much responsibility for hitting contributed revenue targets as they have with earned revenue targets. Only then will we be looking for the highest return on each dollar spent and on each transaction achieved.

I would like to conclude this post by alerting readers to an excellent blog post entitled "The Top 10 Reasons to Support the Arts" written by Randy Cohen, Vice President of Research and Policy at Americans for the Arts. For those interested in up to the date information on all issues facing the arts, the Americans for the Arts website is an excellent resource.

The Devil (and the Details) are in the Budget

All major decisions that an organization makes are made during the budgeting process. In many cases, the budgeting process is informed by a strategic plan or multi-year proformas. However, the practical and strategic decisions that are necessary to put a strategic plan into play are primarily discussed and decided upon during the budgeting process.

Ideally, an operating budget is created and adopted by an organization’s senior staff, thereby ensuring that each department is represented. For senior managers that represent marketing and are responsible for earned revenue streams, the following are some important questions to ask during the budgeting process:

1) How accessible does your organization desire to be?
• Average Ticket Price and Percent Paid Capacity. In major organizations, earned revenue can come from a myriad of different sources including ticket sales, fees, parking, restaurants, concessions, event rentals, merchandise, advertising, classes and summer camps. However, for most performing arts organizations, the majority of earned revenue comes from ticket sales. When adopting sales figures for tickets, a manager must consider two variables: average ticket price and percent paid capacity. When a budget is being developed, the higher these two variables climb, the less accessible an organization becomes. For example, if an organization adopts a budget with an overall average ticket price of $60 and an average percent paid capacity of 80%, it will be forced to enact pricing and marketing strategies to fulfill its budgetary requirements, meaning that only 20% of its inventory can be sold at less than $60 (and this includes all complimentary tickets).
• Complimentary Tickets. All earned revenue budgets should include a well thought out complimentary ticket budget. In many cases, organizations will find themselves with competing interests. Economic pressures can force an organization to increase its percent paid capacity and average ticket price, but doing so will also force a change to how an organization uses complimentary tickets. Many organizations use complimentary tickets for charitable donations, community outreach, publicity, donor cultivation, staff benefits and artist relations. However, only the budget will determine the amount of tickets available to use in any given year for these purposes. It is the responsibility of marketing representative to remind the budgeting team that no matter what current standard operating procedures are or what the desires are of staff members, the higher the average ticket prices and percent paid capacities go, the fewer tickets, especially for prime seat locations, will be available for complimentary tickets.

2) How much risk are you willing to take? The budgeting process can be pressure filled. After several rounds of budgeting, the pressure mounts on the marketing representative to increase his earned revenue forecasts. In doing so, there is only one question the budgeting team needs to ask—how much risk are we willing to take? A couple of bits of advice:
• Let the Data Do the Talking. A marketing representative should have years of data at his disposable, and he should use that data to produce the most accurate earned revenue projections he can. In projecting ticket sales for individual projections, one needs to do two things: 1) study the micro sales patterns of similar productions in recent history (3-5 years), and 2) study the macro sales patterns of all productions in recent history (5-7 years). The sales patterns of similar productions should give you a good indication of what is both possible and probable. I try to select at least three similar productions: one that under-performed, one that performed as expected and one that over-performed. Using the data from all three gives you a statistically probable figure, with room to do better than your projections. The macro sales patterns gives you an overall sense of standard operating revenues as well as outliers. If you notice during your budgeting process that you are forecasting that each of your productions will perform in the top 10% of all productions in your recent history, you might want to leave a little more room for failure. If the organization you are working for is taking the appropriate amount of artistic risk, you will need it. Final word of advice—no matter how much you are encouraged to do so, never go with your gut or “a feeling.” Decisions like these are should be left to the data.
• If You Are Uncomfortable, Say So. Marketing representatives have one primary responsibility in the budgeting process—they must be honest and transparent. If a budget makes you uncomfortable, voice your opinion. Ultimately, the budgeting team and the executive staff have final authority over the budget, but as part of the budgeting team, you must tell people when you are uncomfortable. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pass a budget that makes you a little nervous. All of us have passed budgets in the past that have kept us up at night, particularly in the past few years during the global economic crisis. However, you should never support, present and defend a budget that is irresponsible and dishonest. I am fortunate that I have never been placed in the position where I have been told I must present a budget that is irresponsible or face the consequences. However, if am ever faced with that position in the future, I would immediately start my search for new employment.
• Tell the Truth No Matter How Uncomfortable. I am fortunate to have a close working relationship with the senior staff at my current position, which allows for open and honest discussion. However, even in the best of environments, it can be uncomfortable to tell the truth. As the marketing representative on the budgeting team, you are in your position because the organization requires your truthful analysis and opinion. To not provide it for any reason is tantamount to dodging your responsibility. That being said, you also must be open to hearing sometimes painful and uncomfortable analysis as well.

3) Do you have the capacity to fulfill the budgeted expectations? My boss at Arena Stage has a great way of phrasing this question during the budgeting process. He diligently asks throughout the process if we have the capacity and resources to match our ambitions. It is a succinct and direct question that focuses the entire budgeting process. I am afraid that too many times arts organizations extend themselves by having unrealistic budgets because this question wasn’t asked. In terms of marketing, even if demand warrants a high budgeted goal, one needs to ask if you have the infrastructure to execute, which can include a multitude of actors such as staffing, technology, and operating procedures.

The final question I like to ask myself in terms of revenue projections is the ultimate litmus test—do we have an equal or better chance of over performing on budgeted revenue goals as we do under performing? If there is evidence that a greater likelihood exists that an organization will under perform rather than over perform, then I encourage you to adjust expectations to mitigate your risk.

Is It Time to Re-Think the Way We Discount?

It seems to me that there are two reasons to provide discounts:

1. To encourage and reward particular behaviors


2. To provide access to targeted demographics

Too many times arts organizations provide discounts that don’t encourage desired behavior, or that benefit patrons outside of targeted demographics. While exercised with good intentions, a quick examination of some common practices reveals that there can be some detrimental unintended consequences:

Rush Tickets. Many organizations have policies that place tickets on sale, sometimes to certain demographics like students, at the last minute at a steep discount. Unless your organization is selling at a high percent capacity, or has thousands of seats, by practice, you are guaranteeing a steep discount to relatively good seats in exchange for people exercising an unwanted behavior (late ticket buying). Many organizations bemoan the deterioration of their subscriber base, but continue to promote their rush ticket policies. Why would patrons buy several shows at once months in advance when they know they can get a better deal on decent seats at the last minute? Instead, I would encourage organizations to develop policies to reward desired behaviors. In order to convert a single ticket buyer to a subscriber, an organization usually must do two things: 1) convert them into multi-buyers so that they are purchasing multiple productions in the same season, 2) incentivize them to purchase their tickets earlier and earlier. By doing both, you establish behaviors that closely mimic a subscription, and therefore your conversion from single ticket buyer to subscriber should be much easier. Recommendation: If you would like to provide discount tickets to targeted populations such as students, then do so in a manner that instills early buying habits. Instead of incentivizing a last minute purchase, incentivize purchases that are done weeks, if not months, ahead of time.

Pay-What-You Can (PWYC) Performances. The intent of a Pay-What-You-Can performance is honorable. Most organizations desire the ability to make their products available to populations that simply cannot afford standard ticket prices. However, in practice, another reality presents itself. I am always amazed by organizations that continue this practice citing accessibility concerns, when all one has to do is stand outside and count the number of patrons who arrive for PWYC performances in expensive luxury sedans and fur coats. If you can afford a Mercedes, I am pretty sure you can cover the price of a regular ticket. What those patrons are doing is taking away inventory from the people you want to serve. They are taking advantage, but only because you are allowing it. Recommendation: Several organizations are now requiring proof of limited income in order to access PWYC performances or substantially reduced price tickets. Much like how students must show IDs, proof such as an EBT card or a tax return can ensure that you are serving the exact populations you have created these programs for.

Complimentary Tickets. A complimentary ticket represents the ultimate discount, yet too many times they are used for the wrong reasons. Consider the following circumstances:

• Potential Donors. Many development officers use complimentary tickets to get donor prospects in the door and into a performance. We all know that first impressions are critically important, so I would ask what message are we sending to someone with obvious means when we have to give them a free ticket to get them in the door? If they are seriously interested in your work, or in becoming a major donor, shouldn’t they want to pay the same ticket price that standard patrons pay in the first place?


• Board Members and Current Major Donors. Giving at certain levels should come with exclusive benefits, such as access to purchase house seats or the ability to purchase tickets before they go on sale to the general public. However, many organizations simply give away tickets to Board Members and Major Donors. In the case of Board Members, they should always be looking for ways to help an organization increase revenue, and by taking complimentary tickets, in many cases they are using inventory that can be sold. Major Donors on the other hand are often gifted tickets at certain levels of giving, however the ideal situation would have them purchasing tickets and giving philanthropically. By providing large amounts of complimentary tickets to Major Donors, all an organization is doing is moving revenue from the earned line to the contributed line. When trying to build revenue, both earned and contributed, an organization cannot rob Peter to pay Paul.


• Media. Many organizations don’t take the time to properly credential media, and by not doing so, they are tempted to provide complimentary tickets to every request that comes into their press department. Professional journalists deserve a complimentary ticket if they can commit to coverage via a properly credentialed media outlet. If journalists request a complimentary ticket, but cannot commit to coverage or they represent an outlet that is less than professional, it is the responsibility of your publicist to decline the request. In many cases as a courtesy, organizations will also provide a second complimentary ticket so a journalist can bring a guest, however this isn’t obligatory. Many Broadway producers and major organizations will only provide a single complimentary ticket for a journalist in circumstances where there is incredibly high demand on inventory.


• Complimentary Standing Room (CSR) or Standby Tickets (CST). Many organizations have very liberal policies for CSRs and CSTs. However, similar to rush tickets, unless you are selling out regularly, you are training those that use CSRs that they are available for virtually any performance, thereby guaranteeing that those who use CSRs will never purchase a ticket in the future. In many cases, CSRs are a self-fulfilling prophesy. The argument being that if an organization has unused inventory immediately before a performance, why not use unfilled seats for CSRs or Rush tickets? Well in many cases, CSRs and Rush Tickets are the reason why organizations have unsold inventory at the last minute. In my opinion, CSRs should only be used for customer service issues for longtime subscribers/donors or for internal artistic staff that need to maintain a production in a long run. Other than that, CSRs should be subject to your standard complimentary ticket policies and tracked as a complimentary tickets.

A final thought on complimentary tickets:
It isn’t uncommon for an arts organization to use 5-10% of its entire inventory for complimentary tickets. Usually these tickets are provided to people that could easily afford the cost of a ticket. At the same time, many organizations are desperately looking for ways to make their work more accessible to populations of people who simply do not have the means to purchase a ticket, even at a discount in some cases. I wonder what would happen if an organization adopted a policy that complimentary tickets would be reserved exclusively for patrons who had no other means to access their work? Hundreds, if not thousands, of complimentary tickets would become available to the people who needed them the most.

Oh, How We Like our Awards

'Tis the season for award shows. Oscars, Emmys, Grammys, Golden Globes and the Tonys. We sure do enjoy our annual award shows. In Washington, DC, we have our own awards for theatrical excellence--the Helen Hayes Awards--which just announced their nominations last night. It reminded me that as marketers, awards present us with a significant question--how aggressively should we use these awards in our marketing campaigns?

You might be thinking that the answer to that question is relatively easy. Why shouldn't you celebrate your nominations and trumpet your awards? A few things to consider:

When you market an award...

• you are willing building the brand of the award. It is said that smart lawyers only ask witnesses the questions they know the answers to. That way, the lawyer is in control of the situation, and there are no surprises. In my relatively short time in the DC market, I have seen numerous companies trumpet their large number of nominations and awards year after year until the inevitable year comes when they are left out in the cold. By building the brand of an award, performing arts organization's leave their perceived success in someone else's hands. They are no longer in control of their own destiny. When you say to a consumer over and over again that an award proves your artistic excellence, what does it prove when you are left out? were you artistically insolvent that year?


• you are publicly endorsing the validity of the award. You should ask yourself if you have any serious misgivings about the awards process. If you do, then you should not prominently market them, as doing so implicitly gives your endorsement of the process. One cannot market the awards, and then second guess the process.


• you are sending a signal to the artists who work at your organization. And what might that signal be? Is an artist's work not as important to the institution if it isn't recognized with a fancy award? Should an artist take less risk knowing that the results of the risk might lessen his chances for public acknowledgement? Is one artist more important to a production than another simply because of a nomination?

Awards are fickle. They will come, and they will go. And most of the time, you'll have no clue as to why. The one thing they are good for is bringing together the artistic community one time a year for a great big party. So if you are a winner this year, enjoy your glass of champagne, because if there is one thing I can guarantee, it will be that you will get screwed in the future.