There’s no right answer to the question of how much of your audience should be "new."Let me rephrase. There is a right answer to the question, and it’s this: It depends.I was reading this really interesting summary of a study in the UK about the percentage of audiences that were “new” (hadn’t been in at least three years) and the percentage that were “regular” (had been at least six times in three years). The basic result is that venues...

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For this series, we’ve reached into the vault to share a few pieces that are still relevant today.There’s a phenomenon in live entertainment marketing that’s fundamentally childish, and yet on some level, just about everyone who markets our products falls victim to it.It’s the desire to “sell out.”I put “sell out” in quotes because everyone who markets live entertainment professionally understands that this term can be defined in all kinds of ways and manipulated in even more ways.There was...

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Here's a marketing tip for orchestras from Scott Cantrell, classical music critic at The Dallas Morning News. His article, Toward livelier orchestra programs: Pick a theme," argues that "orchestras need to find a new marketing thrust — to some extent, in fact, new identities. A good place to start is more-imaginative programming."His example of an exciting program:"Consider this triptych, which the Seattle Symphony performed in May at Carnegie Hall’s “Spring for Music” festival: Become Ocean, by contemporary American composer...

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For this series, we’ve reached into the vault to share a few pieces that are still relevant today.I might be the only person who refers to “live entertainment” as an industry. Most people I deal with professionally say that they're in the concert industry, professional sports, theater, arts or something specific like that. So I’m the oddball when I say that live entertainment, meaning all of these diverse things, is an industry that has important shared considerations across all...

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Yes, we know this Variety article, "How Chelsea Handler Changes Our Understanding of Netflix," is about taped programming. But Andrew Wallenstein, editor-in-chief of digital, makes several good points about Netflix's marketing strategy as he questions its future direction and decision to hire Chelsea Handler and give her a talk show. Netflix is taking a risk hiring Handler and, some people would argue, pursuing the diametric opposite of the content Netflix has concentrated on to date, but it could pay off....

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For this series, we've reached into the vault to share a few pieces that are still relevant today.If you have a moment, read the piece from the Los Angeles Times wherein two local L.A. critics talk about the small theater scene. It’s worth reading for its own merits, and it's an interesting discussion with a number of really perceptive insights from the two critics, Charles McNulty and Steven Leigh Morris.But one thing Morris said stood out that I want...

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For this series, we've reached into the vault to share a few pieces that are still relevant today.I once had an interesting discussion with @aaronmandersen on Twitter about supply and demand in the world of theater. His contention, if I’m stating it correctly, is that the market for theater is in equilibrium. Yet many taking part in the discussion felt that surely theater was either oversupplied or underdemanded. I told him I’d think about the topic, and so I...

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The fact is many Americans have never seen (and may never see) a Broadway play. Which makes the televised production of the Tony Awards a bit tricky. How do you engage with an audience that isn't at all familiar with what you're celebrating?Neil Genzlinger at the New York Times pondered this question after this weekend's Tony Awards. The main tactic was to pretend that plays are movies and highlight songs and story lines (think Rocky and Aladdin) that would...

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You’re missing an amazing Stanley Cup Finals.How do I know you’re missing it? Well, I don’t really, but the odds are in my favor. Despite the fact that ticket prices for the event are absolutely off the chart, especially in New York, TV ratings are pretty soft.Saturday’s unbelievable double overtime Game 2 in Los Angeles cost hundreds and hundreds of dollars to get into, but only got a 1.7 rating. True, it was a Saturday night, so it won...

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There’s a song that some kids learn in Sunday School called “The Church Is not a Building” and I thought about it when I read a story about a performing arts venue in the midst of failing.I won’t mention the venue, but I’ll give you a couple facts about the situation. It’s owned by a municipal agency, and it’s used by the community for other purposes, but it also brings in professional shows and sells them. Those shows are...

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