This Week's Insights: Audiences with no critics... Audience biometric art... All the scientists working on understanding music... Are audiences really interested in watching art being conserved?... Bystanders don't like it when they can't participate. What Happens To The Audience When The Critics Are Gone? Critics were the way we debated art in public. It's how we learned. … [Read more...]
How Opera Theatre Of St. Louis Tackled Its “Leaky Bucket”
Like many performing arts organizations, OTSL realized that it suffered from “leaky bucket” syndrome: As older audience members dropped away, not enough young ones were stepping up to take up the slack, leading to a net loss in patrons. Those losses meant less earned income and more empty seats and could endanger the company’s future. READ MORE: St. Louis Post-Dispatch … [Read more...]
This Week In Audience: Class Issues And A Firm No To Intermission Ads
This Week's Insights: Study points to arts audience class bias... That would be a no to intermission ads in the theatre... Do we need trigger warnings for theatre?... How public libraries are reinventing themselves around their audiences. You Get The Audience You Deserve? We talk a lot about the kinds of audiences the arts attract and the kinds of audiences we'd like them … [Read more...]
This Week In Audience: The Downsides Of Popularity And Feedback Loops
This Week's Insights: How the internet killed a popular restaurant... Why YouTube videos are getting longer... How social media feedback has ruined feedback... How crowdfunding new bathrooms builds audience. When Popularity Becomes Fatal: Everyone likes attention - and customers. But the internet can convey attention at astonishing scale. It's one thing when that attention … [Read more...]
This Week In Audience: Debating Audience Behavior And The Algorithms That Guide Us
This Week's Insights: Algorithmic popularity is increasingly problematic... Are our venues unfriendly to first-time visitors?... Debates over how to behave in the theatre... The problems of too much audience... Subscribers are fleeing traditional cable TV. The Problem When Algorithms Decide Popularity: We still equate popularity with worthiness. If so many people are … [Read more...]