CMU School of Drama


Tuesday, October 21, 2014

The art of upgrading active patrons

ARTSblog: I want to point your attention to the most important patrons in your audience. They’re not necessarily the ones who have given or attended the most over their lifetime. They’re your “right now” patrons—the audiences that are participating and engaging with you for your most current event and could do any number of things in the future.

2 comments:

Asa Gardiner said...

This article elicits no small measure of disgust from the perhaps naive part of myself. I still hold the belief that if the work is good and important and vital, then people will come to see your show. People will see what they need to. They will be transformed, which is the purpose of theatre, and drawn to any place that encourages that metamorphosis. Unfortunately the theatre and it's patrons do not always have this perfect, harmonious relationship. Yes, theatres have a business to run, but in an ideal world this wouldn't be. Ideally, all theatre would be free, and artists and theatre companies as a whole would be supported by donation (it's been done, and is possible).

Evan Smith said...

At some point in time we all get pestered about wanting to buy season tickets or upgrade tickets for an upcoming show or venue. You can find this happening with amusement parks as well. Sometimes it becomes bothersome as to the amount of times it happens, but that’s life. With the amount of visitors that happen over the course of time to a theatre, it’s hard for me to figure out what percentage of those are patrons, and what the ‘right now’ patrons are as the author discusses. Then again it’s not my job to try to calculate those numbers. But I do agree with the article about the ways it suggests to upgrade the patrons. Make it progressive so that it makes the pricing be more reasonable and have selective options to choose from. It’s harder to try to hit the younger patrons, especially I guess those in their mid-20s due to people having a hectic schedule. There have been shows I’ve wanted to see, but looking at the schedule there isn’t enough time to go and see them.