Shifting Sands of Demand
Alan Brown identifies the global trends in audience behavior that promise to overturn conventional wisdom about the presentation of
the arts.

July/August 2006

Arts participation occurs against a backdrop of changing leisure patterns and a quicksilver notion in the public psyche of what constitutes an enjoyable evening out. Six interrelated macro trends affecting audience behaviors and demand for arts programming appear to be at the heart of the matter.

Divergence of expectations
The criteria for a successful entertainment experience changes along with values and lifestyles. Some people want to fully engage and learn something every time they go out, while others idealize a more passive, disconnected experience. A precious few seek the challenge of unfamiliar art, while many more prefer the comfort of revisiting familiar works. Very little is known about the hierarchy of decision-making or how satisfaction affects future attendance, except that it does. Strangely, some people will go to arts events that they would never choose for themselves if the right person invites them. In their decision tree, the value of spending time with a friend is more important than the particulars of the program. As the range of sophistication levels in the audience widens over time, so do expectations for fulfillment. And so the ability of an arts organization to satisfy its community with one type of artistic product gets more and more difficult.

The new calculus of risk
Rather than spending $20 for balcony seats at five performances, more people will spend $100 for a great seat to a single must-see show. This is not peculiar to the entertainment sector, but part of a larger trend towards 'trading up' to premium products and experiences. The new calculus goes something like this: as the price of admission goes up, the willingness to risk an unsatisfactory experience goes down. These days, it seems, consumers will pay almost anything to guarantee a home run. On Broadway, producers now charge previously unthinkable prices for priority seating at hot shows. Museums and musical theatre producers, with their blockbuster shows, have traded handsomely on this trend, creating events that tap into a mysterious blend of ritualism, spectacle and the subconscious reinforcement of one's place in the world that comes from doing something with thousands of others.

Diffusion of cultural tastes
More artists are collaborating across disciplines and cultures. The product of this cross-pollinating is often new and exciting art that is difficult to categorize. And in today's digital media environment, new art is disseminated at the speed of light.

Within the realm of music, the download phenomenon represents a critical shift in how people develop preferences for different kinds of music and artists. More people have access to more art. And more people have more highly developed preferences - a better sense of what they like and perhaps a growing awareness of what they're missing.

Demand for more customized experiences
Much of music's allure to consumers derives from the relative ease with which the listener becomes the curator. In focus groups, music lovers describe how they listen to one kind of music for vacuuming, another kind of music for cooking, another kind of music for exercising, and so forth. Consumers derive great satisfaction from arranging art around them to the satisfaction of their own aesthetic, especially music and visual art.

Anyone with TiVo or digital cable service knows about customization of entertainment experiences - you choose what to watch, when you're ready. Netflix, the web-based DVD subscription service, offers consumers a vast library of film on demand. A DVD arrives in the mail; when you're finished, drop it back in the mail and your next movie arrives days later. Against this backdrop, most arts groups offer a pre-set program at a fixed time in a single location, and ask you to buy it six months or more in advance.

Expectation for multi-sensory engagement
The standard for visual enhancement of live performances is high and going higher, with technological advances in lighting and real time digital image reproduction. Scenic artists are beginning to use this expanded toolkit to fundamentally change the visual aspect of theatre productions, especially big budget Broadway shows.

The gap between visual experiences at popular music concerts and traditional arts performances is not lost on audiences, who increasingly attend both types of events. For example, research uncovers a range of consumer opinions about the visual aspect of orchestra concerts. Some music lovers are enthralled with the visual tableau. For them, a great deal of the value of concert going has to do with watching the conductor and the ensemble and the interplay between them. Others find the visual aspect of orchestra concerts boring. They are likely to close their eyes and let their imaginations create a visual counterpoint to the music.

The live performance experience, we have learned, cannot be duplicated. But the standard and expectation for multi-sensory stimulation at all types of live entertainment experiences continues to rise, inescapably.

Desire for More Intense Experiences
The sum of all these trends is higher demand for more intense and more pleasurable leisure and learning experiences. No one who works in the arts and entertainment business should be surprised by any of this. Quite apart from these trends, it must be said, art is as necessary and essential to people as it ever has been, if not more so. Yet accommodating these trends into mission statements and program plans, as inevitable as they may be, sends chills down the spines of artists and board members.

The overarching point is that leisure trends are moving people farther and farther away from fixed, static experiences. Anyone who thinks that their offerings are somehow immune to the shifting sands of demand is sadly mistaken. Consumers will never be able to tell us the future of art - they do not know the possibilities. But we cannot invent a more viable future for our institutions and agencies without a deep understanding of how consumers fit art into their lives.

Alan S. Brown is the principal of Alan S. Brown & Associates, offering management consulting, research and evaluation services to cultural organizations, arts agencies and foundations. The original essay was commissioned by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation as part of its Magic of Music symphony orchestra initiative, www.knightfdn.org. Contact Alan Brown at alan@alansbrown.com