Happy #TBT! Here’s an oldie-but-goodie post from Jim: 3 Ways You’re Wrong About Live Entertainment, Part II. (Read Part I.)Beyond the flippant title of this post, there lurks a serious purpose: to dispel some of the most damaging and widely held misconceptions about the business. If you need to catch up, go back and look at Misconception No. 1: New technologies are making actually going out a thing of the past.Now that we’re all together, on to …Misconception No. 2:...

Read More

Editor's Note: Happy #TBT! It’s our one-year anniversary of this announcement. And we are excited to share with you the details of the upcoming Tessitura Learning & Community Conference at the Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego. Make sure you check out our session on August 13 at 1:30pm:Panelists include:Laura Burgos, Director of Audience Research & Analytics at Lyric Opera of Chicago Alexandra Llamas, Associate Director of Marketing at San Francisco Symphony Andrew Moreau, Operations Manager/Systems Administrator at Boston Lyric...

Read More

Happy #TBT! Here’s an oldie-but-goodie post from Jim: 3 Ways You’re Wrong About Live Entertainment, Part I.Personally, you may not be wrong about all three or any of these things, but collectively, these are some of the most widely held misconceptions about the live entertainment business, and it’s time to set the record straight.Below, I’ll dismiss one of these vicious misconceptions and give you the real story, so as to help you avoid tragic perdition on your otherwise uninterrupted path...

Read More

Happy #TBT! Here’s an oldie-but-goodie post from Jim: Are You Really a Permission Marketer?Today, I'd like to introduce you to the High Priest of how to “earn” the loyalty of potential customers versus trying to “own” them.(BTW, during this whole discussion of “owning” customers, all I can hear in my head is Lesley Gore singing “You Don’t Own Me.” Or the Blow Monkeys, if you prefer.)And with no further ado, the man’s name is Seth Godin. Way back in 1999,...

Read More

Happy #TBT! Here’s an oldie-but-goodie post from Jim: Customers Aren’t Slaves -- Stop Trying to “Own” Them.Customers don’t want to be owned.In fact, to the great astonishment of marketers everywhere, customers don’t even think of themselves as customers. They think of themselves as human beings who might (or might not) happen to like what you and your venue have to offer.So, besides the general repulsiveness of the sentiment behind wanting to “own” the customer (gee, how 19th century of you),...

Read More

Happy #TBT! Here’s an oldie-but-goodie post from Jim: How to Drive Young People Away From Your Venue in Droves.I was reading Anne Midgette’s terrific article [2009] about the obsession with the development of young audiences by classical music organizations, and something Anne said led me to take the idea further.Here’s the key tidbit from Anne’s piece:“ … I think the idea of 'a young audience' is one of those fictive Holy Grails that has emerged into the conventional classical-music wisdom...

Read More

Happy #TBT! Here’s an oldie-but-goodie post from Jim: Captured on Film: How to Be a Successful Arts Marketer.If you want to see how good marketing works, read up:First, You Are Your Own Marketing by doing something courageously and consistently that most people think is crazy at first.Second, You Make The Future in a Niche Market because you build a small but motivated and loyal following.Third, You Have a Meaning because instead of just being a weirdo doing something weird, you...

Read More

Happy #TBT! Here’s an oldie-but-goodie post from Jim: The "Great Performance" and the "Better Mousetrap."I'd like to share something that's been on my mind: the idea that the only thing that’s important is a “great performance.”Here’s what I have to say about that:• A "great performance" is a necessary but not sufficient condition. It’s more accurate to say that without a great performance, you’ve got nothing and no chance, but saying that all you need is a “great performance" is...

Read More

Happy #TBT! Here’s an oldie-but-goodie post from Jim: Audience, It’s What You’re There For.I had a really interesting lunch with Terry Teachout of the Wall Street Journal, and the conversation ranges, as always with a person with as big a brain as Terry’s, from topic to topic, but landing on the topic of the role of the audience in creating and managing programming.Somehow, it seems that some people, particularly in the arts, have this idea that the audience is irrelevant...

Read More

Happy #TBT! Here’s an oldie-but-goodie post from Jim: Avoid Extendinitis.This is a malady akin to Pretendinitis but unfortunate in its own way.Extendinitis is the phenomenon where producers of shows believe that people will get more excited and buy more tickets to their show if they believe that the run is short.Not when the run is actually short, but when you’re supposed to believe the run is short.Let’s try a little experiment.Tomorrow at noon, I’m going to stand on the conference...

Read More