Classical Music meets 2010 Winter Olympics

Washington Performing Arts Society (WPAS) recently launched a new interactive online contest springing off of the excitement from the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver.  

Participants who register can make their predictions on which classical music stars from the 2009-2010 WPAS season will win various Winter Game events.  The winners of each event are randomly selected, and those participants who had the most correct predictions become eligible to win such prizes as tickets to WPAS concerts, meet and greets with artists like Joshua Bell, spa packages and dinners at area restaurants.

Will Gustavo Dudamel one-up Michael Tilson Thomas in the Men’s Giant Slalom category?  Will Wynton Marsalis take the gold in the Snowboarding competition?  Naturally, these aren’t REAL events.  The agent relations alone would be a nightmare, to say the least.

What this contest DOES do, however, is create further awareness of WPAS as a brand. And, it provides an interactive way for WPAS fans to mix interests; sports and music.  Ideally, it will also build new interest and buzz around the WPAS name.

Full disclosure: I currently work for WPAS as a marketing intern.  You have to admit though, it is a pretty cool idea.

Guest Blogging for American University’s Career Resource Center

This semester I have been asked by the Career Resource Center at American University to blog about my current internship experience at Washington Performing Arts Society.  Therefore, if you want to read about my experiences and all the goodies I am bound to learn this semester, check out my posts at the new “AU Intern” blog.  I have also added a new page to Artistic Discourse called AU Intern with links taking you directly to the other blog.  Looks like my writing load just doubled.  Yikes!

Fall 2009 Wrap-Up

Needless to say, I have been neglecting my blog duties.  However, my energy and effort have still been focused on the arts.  I just completed my first semester in the Arts Management Master’s program at American University.  This post is a wrap-up of all things art related from this semester’s classes and activities.

This semester I tackled issues facing the marketing of the arts, specifically the newest trends in online marketing and what, if anything, arts organizations are doing to keep up with the changing leisure culture of Americans. If you’re interested in having your own little arts marketing class at home, below are the books used in class. My favorite, although not an official “textbook” per say, was Here Comes Everybody, by Clay Shirky. If you haven’t already read this, I highly recommend it.  Anyone interested in marketing and how to harness the power of the internet to motivate and mobilize individuals will certainly enjoy.

Here are the other three books for my class in Marketing & PR for the Arts:

The Public Relations Handbook for Nonprofits

Arts Marketing Insights

In my other class, Survey of Arts Management, we had overview discussions regarding various topics and issues within the arts management profession: cultural policy, community artists and union relations to name a few.  I will admit, as a class, I was not thrilled.  That being said, the individual readings I found quite interesting.  My particular favorite was Arts, Inc.: How Greed and Neglect of Destroyed Our Cultural Rights, written by former NEA Chairman, Bill Ivey. Ivey proposes a national Cultural Bill of Rights for every American citizen.  In short, Ivey feels, as do I, that our cultural and artistic heritage is held hostage to the financial interests of giant conglomerate corporations who only care about turning a profit.  Even with the advent of all this new technology allowing individuals to download music and film at the click of a button, it ironically increases the technological divide between the haves and the have-nots.  Accessing culture now is more expensive and requires more equipment than ever before.  Ivey proposes a federal cultural agency, ensuring and protecting the cultural rights of every citizen and not allowing for business practices that will further inhibit the dissemination of cultural and artistic experiences to American citizens.

In addition to reading everyday, I also worked as a development apprentice with The Choral Arts Society of Washington.  This experience taught me what it REALLY means to work in development and fundraising.  Apart from what I could have ever learned in any textbook, my time with Choral Arts opened my eyes to the real grunt work involved with raising money to support a worthy cause.  The two most valuable things I took away from my experience are, 1) relationships are everything, and 2) even when things seem like they won’t workout, you ignore doubt, and make it work.  Thank you to my friends at Choral Arts for showing me this.

As if all this wasn’t already enough on my plate, I thought it might also be nice to sing solos in two separate concerts, two weeks apart.  First weekend, two performances of J.S. Bach’s Magnificat as well as other baroque choral works.  Second weekend, three performances of Carmina Burana where I sang the small, but oddly funny tenor solo part.  I love being a dying swan. Couple this with writing a research paper and preparing a presentation and, well, I guess you can imagine I felt a bit overwhelmed at times.  Yet, I managed to get through it all successfully.

Now I look forward to two weeks in Florida and not going back to school until January 11, 2010!!  Next semester it’s Cultural Policy, Financial Management and interning at Washington Performing Arts Society.  Orlando, HERE I COME!!

Corporate Sponsorship: Where should arts organizations draw the line?

I love it when I get to see theory in practice, especially when it has just been discussed in a classroom setting.  That is exactly what happened Sunday evening when I attended a free performance of Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew”,(thanks Travis for standing in line for the tickets!), as part of the D.C. Shakespeare Theatre Company’s 2009 FREE FOR ALL campaign. I can only assume that this “Free for All” is an attempt by the theater to expose their product, formal theater, to a new audience.  And what better way than a FREE show?!

The theory I speak of is related to marketing and how involved corporate sponsors should or should not be involved in an artistic organization’s product; the art.  This was the lively discussion held in my Marketing for the Arts class last Wednesday evening.  The scenario posited by my impressively erudite and comedically inclined professor, was essentially this:

What if a company, such as an alcohol distributor, offered to fund a woman’s writing group $20,000 for a poetry contest?  The catch being that the poem had to mention the alcohol distributer. Furthermore, a representative from the company would have final say in who wins and who doesn’t.  Do you, as the arts administrator for the group, take the money and possibly save your organization a lot of financial heartache, or do you stick to your artistic principles of unencumbered free artistic expression and turn down the money?

Needless to say, there followed a lively discussion.  There were good arguments for both sides; both taking and turning down the money.  After all, these are tough economic times and nobody wants to be the one to look a gift horse in the mouth and turn down the 20K on a mere ideological whim.  That being said, we’re arts administrators.  We have artistic ideals and values to uphold for our organization.  The general consensus in the end was that it is a matter of clearly defining one’s organization’s mission and values.  If Company X is asking to you do something that goes against these values, then it is not to be seriously considered.

In the case of the Skakespeare Theater Company’s 2009 FREE FOR ALL campaign, sponsored by none other than everyone’s favorite shopping money trap, TARGET, the corporate involvement was evident but not over-bearing.  As you can see by the event’s ad below, the TARGET logo is discretely placed at the bottom and blends in well.  Also, all those working the event wore t-shirts with the TARGET logo.  There were kites hanging in the reception area bearing the TARGET logo.  I didn’t find this interesting until half way through the play when “kites” are mentioned as part of the dialogue. Coincidence?   Of course the programs contained mention of TARGET, although again it wasn’t blatant or in-your-face. To the right is a picture I took from the front of theater showing the kites.

Overall, my experience at the play was amazing.  The show was amazing and funny.  Everyone left in high spirits.  And everyone left with a smile on their face all the while TARGET dotted kites dangling over-head.

“If you build it, they will come” Conventional wisdom at its worst.

I love going to networking events.  Especially when they involve fried food and beer.  I attended another such event this evening, this one put on by Ryan Price, founder of Florida Creatives.  They are a Florida based arts and culture group with essentially the goal of bringing together people of creative minds and artistic backgrounds in order to collaborate and network. While enjoying a savory adult beverage, I met a local actor and arts blogger, Mark Baratelli.  He writes for and is the editor of The Daily City, a blog that focuses primarily on the local happenings of the Orlando/Central Florida arts and culture scene.

We had an interesting discussion, primarily focusing on the Orlando Opera Company’s recent collapse, and the ineffectiveness exhibited by the majority of arts organizations in regards to their online marketing and social media accounts.  Mark made some really good points, and got me thinking about the arts organizations I am familiar with, and how their sites probably could be a lot better than they are.

 Just because you build a website, create a twitter account, and have a Facebook fan page, doesn’t mean you’re actually using it properly.  To take the line from the 1989 movie “Field of Dreams”, starring the “dreamy” Kevin Costner, “If you build it, they will come.”  Unless your audience is coming back from the dead to see a show,(and if going by the majority of classical concerts is any indication, then some of them may be ), this marketing strategy will NOT work.

Furthermore, creating a multimillion dollar performing arts venue, (as is being done in Orlando), will not attract any number of significant new performing arts patrons.  A shiny new building will be a beautiful addition to the Orlando skyline, but will there be any people in it?  I realize they are years away from the grand opening, but if the current marketing strategies are any indication of the future, only the elite and already involved arts crowds will know anything about the concerts, operas and plays being held there.

Listen up arts administrators!  Kudos for getting on facebook and twitter, but you cannot use them as a simple mini press release.  You must engage your fans and your followers alike.  Create contests. Share rehearsal pictures. Have an artist or musician blog for the organization, (it adds the personal touch).  The point is, ENGAGE people.  In this age of shared information and social networking, the more you can make a fan/patron/client feel personally involved with your organization, the better.

So, next time you find yourself thinking, “If you build it, they will come.“, strike it, and create in your mind the revised more realistic version, “If you build it, they may come….but more likely than not, they won’t.“