The sales pitch: "Come watch ballet. We'll give you a beer."
Too obvious?
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Oregon Ballet Theatre partners with Pabst Blue Ribbon (yep, PBR) to draw more millennials
The sales pitch: "Come watch ballet. We'll give you a beer."
Too obvious?
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I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this. I do agree that ballet is still seen as stuffy and aristocratic and old. We do need to get younger generations out to see ballet (and opera). I’m glad that the article refers to the dancers as athletes because they are. Having worked with a number of ballet dancers over the years, I can attest to their athleticism, strength, and flexibility. I think that one of the problems with this arrangement could be the lack of understanding how to behave as a part of the ballet audience. The audience that this is marketed towards may not have been to any king of live art before (I am not including rock or pop music concerts) and thus may not know how to behave. If this helps to bring an audience to ballet and, more importantly, an appreciation to the art form, I’m all for it. Except, I’d have to drink PBR.
So there's a lot of things to talk about in this article. The first, which I haven't completely chosen how I feel, is that they chose beer to bring people to theatre. Now, I understand the economics of the situation, but form an artistic standpoint I feel as though it may bother some people, even though if I showed up to the ballet, it would not offend me. Second, at the end of the article there was a survey asking if readers though teaming up with PBR was a "good way for Portland's traditional performing-art institutions to draw younger audiences?" After answering yes to this question, the results came up and showed that I agreed with seventy percent of readers so obviously others are game to this idea. Finally, the aging subscriber population is a serious problem for many theaters, so I think it is important for other performing arts organizations to take note of this, although maybe not use exactly "come to ballet, we'll give you beer."
In some ways, I love this, and in some ways, this makes me cringe all over. I think that the idea is a somewhat genius approach to attract millennials who are always looking for an excuse to be drinking. At the same time however, it feels a bit like a desperate plea for the survival of Oregon Ballet Theatre. Some significant negotiation and brainstorming seem to have gone into planning something of this scale, considering they did not just decide to serve beer, they decided that they needed to PARTNER with a beer company, which makes me wonder what their profits were looking like to have to sit down and plan something like this. This is also a curious issue that I'm wondering about in terms of all regional theatre's who general subscribers are older. What happens when they die? Will there be new older people subscribing? Is this simply a generational issue?
“Come Watch Ballet, we’ll give you a beer.”
Seriously? That’s what it takes to get millennials involved in the performing arts? Great! Because that’s what we want. It becomes unfortunate when people are going just for the beer, but whatever puts butts in the seats.
So what are the challenges for a prospective theatre to implement this?
Licensure – The theatre has to have the appropriate license.
Access Control – If the theatre is handing out beers, it has to be carding people. What keeps people from getting underage patrons drunk? There has to be a certain amount of “best effort” to prevent underage drinking.
Clean Up – The house staff will hate you. Beer cans everywhere, not to mention the potential for spills.
Protocol for Drunk Patrons – The theatre has to have a protocol for dealing with drunk patrons. This probably means that persons other than the house staff will have to be around to throw the drunks out.
I have often been one to criticize ballet as an art form and ballet companies for becoming too complacent and set in tradition. With many companies still putting up choreography that was devised over a hundred years ago, ballet can begin to feel stale to much of its potential audience. This partnership between PBR and Oregon Ballet is risky to say the least. Some might view this as a cheapening of the art form, or as a campy gimmick, or perhaps even a total sellout. Though I applaud this bold move and attempt to gain accessibility, the impetus for these two particular companies to join in the manner does not seem altogether there. There is little justification - beyond some conjectured relationship between PBR and the "artistic" demographic - for PBR in particular to usher the Oregon Ballet into a new era of relevancy to young audiences. PBR itself is in no way intrinsic, which on the whole reduces the effectiveness of this campaign, and perhaps could even repulse some loyal audience members.
I had a whole emotional and intellectual journey while reading this article. I started with a rather visceral "Really? Ballet and beer?? And of all things... PBR??? Dirty Northwestern hipsters." But then I took my intrinsic disdain for the hipster movement out of the equation and looked at what OBT is trying to do. Ballet does still suffer from an image problem and seem "stuffy", and at this point it's not because their programming is only old chestnuts like Swan Lake or because their audiences are exclusively the top hat and white gloves set. So, if beer and ballet gets less geriatric butts in the seats, then I'll hold my nose, put on some flannel and do my best not to roll my eyes at all the #feelingsofbern. My fear is more that this isn't as well thought out a marketing scheme as OBT hopes and that it will come across as pandering to the very generation of people who feel most misunderstood by the establishment.
Okay so, I really don’t understand business things. Business things are weird. I lay awake and ponder (yes, ponder) how business things market themselves to synergized backwards overflow jargon. So reading this, I just kind of went along with the idea. Sure, it’s trying really hard (they’re trying so hard, in fact, that hipsters might just run away completely) but I feel like most marketing campaigns are trying really hard, because they are, that’s the point. And honestly, hipsters might love ballet, if it really is being done in an evolved manner. It could be the perfect combination of high brow art culture and low pressure hang out, hipsters try to perform this balancing act every night that they go out. But I’m not sure the OBT is doing enough to make the art itself worth watching. They never really go into specifics about what the show really is. If they really want a younger crowd, they need to do something fresh with ballet. In my opinion, they should be experimental with their ideas and move towards something nobody has ever seen before, that would be a fool-proof way to draw in an audience.
At first, having only read the title of this article, I thought to myself- ‘This is entirely too Hipster, of course it’s happening in Oregon!’ Yet, in reality, this an absolute genius marketing campaign. Pabst Blue Ribbon, is certainly the acceptable cheap alternative to my generation, it does not come with the same connotation as Natural Light or Budweiser. Which is an intriguing point of Brand identity in and of itself. Back to the Ballet/PBR duo… Millennials love to feel special, and they love to be around friends when they feel like they are getting something exclusive. Having an intermission party is the exact type of exclusivity that Millennials are so readily drawn to. Add in a beer and an affordable outing event with friends, this has ‘20-something night out’ written all over it. I wish this event all of the success, and hope that PBR seeks to make more arts partnerships after what I expect to be a fruitful night at the Oregon Ballet!
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