I think I am the only member of The League of American Orchestras who joined solely so I could receive their daily In the News e mails. They’re somehow comforting to me, even though some of the headlines are ripe for parody (there was one about classical music and improvising once that was a real gem).
Yesterday, In the News alerted me to this initiative by The Philadelphia Orchestra. Here is the blurb:
In today’s (7/30) Philadelphia Inquirer, Peter Dobrin writes about the ways the Philadelphia Orchestra is trying to deal with “subscriber drain.” “This fall it will unveil its most radical change yet: a membership program that combines PhillyCarShare’s last-minute flexibility with amazon.com’s marketing acumen and maybe some of Starbucks’ get-it-anyway-you-want-it solicitousness. The new program is called eZseat. Once you’re a member, you can buy a ticket at a 25 percent discount at almost any time–from an hour before a concert to nine months before curtain. Different membership levels carry different benefits. A $50 annual membership allows access to orchestra-level seats in Verizon Hall; $75 for both first-tier box and orchestra-level seats. The program, whose research and development was funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts and Neubauer Family Foundation, will exist solely online. Members can print out their tickets, whose bar codes will be scanned at concerts by ushers.” J. Edward Cambron, the orchestra’s vice president for marketing and public relations, helped create eZseat “as a response to increasing resistance to the old subscription model. … eZseat, he says, provides the ‘ownership’ factor of subscriptions, the benefits, but more flexibility.
Did they have to call it eZseat? Really? Really?
I appreciate 1. their admission that the subscription model is dying a slow and painful death and 2. the decision to actually do something about it, rather than complain to management that “the artists aren’t selling”, etc.. That said, what’s most interesting to me, here – and what the Inquirer piece didn’t cover, unfortunately – is how the orchestra will actually market their marketing scheme. I’ve found more and more that even when organizations have great marketing initiatives, they don’t spend the time or money to market them to the right people, which is almost, but not quite, as bad as not creating the new programs in the first place.
I agree with everything you say but can’t help but feel you are guilty of the same thing somehow – not quite finishing the job. Just as the Phil Orch initiative is incomplete without a marketing strategy for its new ticketing methods, so your critique is incomplete without at least one example or suggestion for how they could do so. If the orchestra is to be commended for “actually doing something about it, rather than complaining”, surely you are guilty of the opposite – complaining, or criticising, without actually doing, or saying, something substantive. Maybe access to your ideas is only available to your clients, which is fair enough, but it isn’t quite a level playing field is it?
Whoops, I hope my tone here didn’t come across as complaining. There’s plenty to lament, and this eZseat initiative is certainly not it. [Except the name…come on. For that I would suggest, oh, anything else, but it’s too late. Something that drives home the points that it’s all online and always 25% off.] I think the actual plan is great, I’m just curious what they’re going to do with it now. The fact that The Inquirer didn’t mention a marketing plan certainly doesn’t mean the orchestra doesn’t have one – I’m sure the writer only got 800 words, or whatever – I just hope, sincerely hope, they don’t fall victim to patting themselves on the backs and waiting for The People to come to them, simply because they started this new thing. If you e mail the details of your new system out to the same mailing list, the same people are buying tickets, just in a different way. But let’s wait and see. I will do some reconnaissance when I’m down in Philly in a couple weeks! More than happy to be proven wrong, here. Side note: I wonder why the piece was written by a classical critic an not a business writer? I’m always interested in the perspective of folks who don’t work in The Industry on the business side of things. Thanks for commenting! -AA