Room for all

Adam Thurman of Mission Paradox gives us perspective on the size of your audience.

Can you handle the fact that you can have a pretty successful career and still be invisible to 99.99999% of the world?

Some say they are ok with that. But they really aren't. Artists (like a lot of folks) have healthy egos and it's natural to want a sizeable and ever growing audience of devoted fans.

The issue is that mass markets have exploded into a million niches. The most watched TV show today would have gotten pulled off the air 20 years ago for miserable ratings.

"Big" is relative.

To be clear, .00001% of the world's population as of 2009 is 67,752 people. For most arts organizations and artists, that would absolutely be a healthy audience, especially the more loyal they became.

Of course, the obvious corollary to Adam's argument is that the mass market is not your audience, you must find and market to your niche. Your marketing, fundraising, box office, front of house, all absolutely must be tailored to your niche. Find your 67,752 people and make them into loyal patrons for your organization.

That takes making some hard choices not just about who you will reach out to, but to whom you won't. Once you make that choice though, what used to be risks might just start to make sense. As James Goggin said at One State for the Arts this year, "Embrace Barriers".

Related: Dare to be different

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Nickels and dimes

We live in a world now where every little thing gets priced and fee'd and surcharged. Bank of America will start charging $5 per month for using their debit card this coming January. Many airlines now charge you for each piece of baggage. Ticketmaster tacks on giant convenience fees to every purchase. Signs everywhere demand you spend X amount to use a credit card. The restaurant you're eating at charges 50 cents more for a little more sauce.

Each and every one of those fees impacts a business's customers. The customers still pay it most of the time or follow whatever instructions are required. But each ding and tally are another barrier between you and your patrons and the exceptional service that will bring them joyously returning.

Simplicity is a boon when it comes to paying the bill. Especially in hard times like these, nickel-and-diming your patrons instead of letting them enjoy a top-notch artistic experience at a reasonable full-package price is just asking for them to decide not to put up with that hassle again soon.

That's not to say that you shouldn't capture all the revenue you reasonably can for your art (you should, you really really should), but that it should be all included in the price of the ticket, not tacked on afterwards. Be daring and raise your prices just a little bit, but advertise your no-hassle box office with no additional fees. One price, up-front, and with exceptional service to boot.

We aren't trying to undercut anyone here in the arts. Price is a factor only in an abstract sense, but no two artistic experiences are ever alike by their very nature. We compete on differentiation. Distinguish yourself by your superior artwork and your ability to craft superlative experiences. Not on how well you can hide all your charges.

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TEDxMichiganAve Video - Fifth House Ensemble

Weren't able to make it to TEDxMichiganAve in May? See what you missed. The videos are all available via the TEDxTalks channel on YouTube. You can check out the TEDxMichiganAve playlist to see all thirteen videos on the Future of the Arts Industry.

Last, but very far from least, Fifth House Ensemble tells us the story of the Great Undateable IT in this heartwarming and innovative take on how to approach music in performance and education. 5HE harnesses the collaborative spirit of chamber music to create transformative cross-media performance experiences that bring together elements as diverse as storytelling, physical theatre, graphic novels, and fashion design. True innovators through and through.

I may also have a very warm spot for Adam's observations about Directors of Experience Design... Just sayin'.



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TEDxMichiganAve Video - David Loehr

Weren't able to make it to TEDxMichiganAve in May? See what you missed. The videos are all available via the TEDxTalks channel on YouTube. You can check out the TEDxMichiganAve playlist to see all thirteen videos on the Future of the Arts Industry.

David Loehr is one of the founders and leaders of the online arts empire, 2amt. He speaks about what he does best, connecting people around the world.



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TEDxMichiganAve Video - Lisa Canning

Weren't able to make it to TEDxMichiganAve in May? See what you missed. The videos are all available via the TEDxTalks channel on YouTube. You can check out the TEDxMichiganAve playlist to see all thirteen videos on the Future of the Arts Industry.

Lisa Canning is a professional clarinetist and serial entrepreneur. The fiery passion that she puts into everything she does is evident as she speaks about her goal of No Staving Artists and how the arts influence innovation.



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TEDxMichiganAve Video - Eric Ziegenhagen

Weren't able to make it to TEDxMichiganAve in May? See what you missed. The videos are all available via the TEDxTalks channel on YouTube. You can check out the TEDxMichiganAve playlist to see all thirteen videos on the Future of the Arts Industry.

Eric Ziegenhagen is an artist and a consultant to the arts community. In his role as a consultant, he sees many of the trends both inside and outside the industry, and he urges us to capture the opportunity in going beyond the performance.



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TEDxMichiganAve Video - David Dombrosky

Weren't able to make it to TEDxMichiganAve in May? See what you missed. The videos are all coming via the TEDxTalks channel on YouTube over the course of the next week or two. You can check out the TEDxMichiganAve playlist as it grows as well.

David Dombrosky is one of the foremost minds in the ways that technology is impacting the arts and audiences. Here, he implores the arts to use their resources to explore the possibilities within participatory culture.



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TEDxMichiganAve Video - Seth Boustead

Weren't able to make it to TEDxMichiganAve in May? See what you missed. The videos are all coming via the TEDxTalks channel on YouTube over the course of the next week or two. You can check out the TEDxMichiganAve playlist as it grows as well.

Seth Boustead is doing for classical music what the storefront theatre community is doing for theatre here in Chicago. This talk started off the morning in a wonderful way and was full of great stories, great ideas, and great passion.



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TEDxMichiganAve Video - Tom Tresser

Weren't able to make it to TEDxMichiganAve in May? See what you missed. The videos are all coming via the TEDxTalks channel on YouTube over the course of the next week or two. You can check out the TEDxMichiganAve playlist as it grows as well.

Tom Tresser has been an artist, an educator, an activist, a politician, and an administrator. His work has allowed him to bring the arts to the business world and use principles he learned as an artist and arts administrator to help the corporate world find a better center in a world of crisis.



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TEDxMichiganAve Video - Julie Ritchey

Weren't able to make it to TEDxMichiganAve in May? See what you missed. The videos are all coming via the TEDxTalks channel on YouTube over the course of the next week or two. You can check out the TEDxMichiganAve playlist as it grows as well.

Julie Ritchey is a brilliant Artistic Director in Chicago that's made a niche for Filament Theatre Ensemble as a company focused on sustainability and community involvement in the creation of theatre. As a result of her talk, she and I recently worked together with Zaarly on a community project in the 45th Ward in Chicago that harnessed community to put on a 36-hour pop-up theatre project for one night that was a smashing success.



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