The (now not so) new Carnegie Hall programs are fantastic. I’ve been meaning to write this since seeing Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Orpheus there in October, but my scanner has been on the fritz. I was reminded how much I liked said programs, however, on Sunday night at the Kurtag recital (um...go Steelers?) and promptly repaired my scanner for this purpose.
Such nice bright colors in the calendar section! Gives the hall the opportunity to highlight specific concerts in an aesthetically pleasing fashion without using wasteful and noisy program inserts. The blocks of color are clean and distracting in a good way. There are few things worse than venues trying to be cool with their marketing materials and, in doing so, losing sight of their established brand. The new calendar pages are still very “Carnegie” just…a bit more fun than the standard black, white and re(a)d all over.. Another great improvement is the inclusion of big artist photos above the bios; MUCH better than the tiny thumbnail treatment artist photos used to get:
On Sunday, I also noticed a page I’d not seen before: “From Where I Sat”, billed as a “Carnegie Hall Recollection”. February’s re-collector is Glenn D. Lowry from MOMA, who talks about the energy contrast between pre-concert buzzing and the hush just before the first notes. The quote is only a couple paragraphs, but it’s nice to think about folks from around the city coming to Carnegie and then reflecting in print. I hope they choose people completely outside of the arts in the future, too.
I, personally, always save my programs. I put them in a basket, and then in ziplock bags when the basket overflows, and then bring them to my mom’s house in Connecticut en masse whenever I visit. Some unsuspecting future relative will someday discover how many performances “crazy great-aunt Amanda” actually went to. Every time I leave a concert, though, there are used programs lingering on the floor and on seats, not to mention boxes of untouched programs by the doors. In the interest of saving some trees and shekels, should presenters do away with printed programs?
At the point of purchase, ask if the patron would like to be e mailed the program. Get his/her e mail address. (Two birds, one click.) Advertisers will like this because they will now be able to get click-through reports from these e-programs. Patrons can print out the pages they want (most likely the actual list of pieces) and bring them to the concert. If they print the whole thing, fine: it’s not your paper and printing costs! At the same time – and they’ve been doing this in England, at least with West End shows, as long as I can remember – charge $1-$2 for printed programs, and tack that charge onto the ticket price. “Would you like to add a program?”, click. Print a handful of extras for walk-ups, and have the single pages with the list of pieces available at the box office just in case. Press and artist comps, of course, always get free programs included with their tickets.
While you’re at it, announce that your house is “Going Green!” and get some local press for your troubles.
At the SSO in Sydney we moved from the long-standing Australian tradition of purchased programs to free programs (with downloadable pdfs available in advance as well) in 2007. Other presenters in the city have since followed suit.
We ask patrons who are attending in pairs or groups to share one between two. (If you’re attending alone no one demands that you to share.) And we use the power of our ticketing and patron database to calculate print runs that are, mostly, very close to what we’ll need at each concert. (I can even tell how many people will be attending alone.) There’s not much waste and except when rare mishaps occur we don’t run out. Because patrons have spent so many years paying for programs (and therefore taking them home) we’re finding that there aren’t that many programs left behind after concerts. Many would be like you: inveterate hoarders of programs, which then become valuable souvenirs of the concerts. Of course, we also like to think they take programs home because they’re worth reading. 😉
I flinch a bit at the thought of people bringing along their home-printed bits of A4 paper and rustling through them during the concert. More seriously, the commercially printed program has important additional functions such as providing a professional-looking presence for sponsors. And I wonder just how “green” the impact of a home laser or inkjet printer using office paper is over more efficient commercial printing options. (It’s certainly not cheaper – in the grand scheme of things – to print a program at home.)
Perhaps the future is a couple of steps ahead and we’re in a transition stage right now (print supplemented by pdfs that are mainly read on computers). But I can imagine that when the various handheld e-readers become more prevalent and user-friendly and inexpensive then the idea of concertgoers being able to bring electronic programs with them to the concert on a Kindle or equivalent might really take off. Even today, it’s possible to read one of the SSO’s program pdfs at a concert via an iPhone or similar. But I’ve not noticed anyone doing that yet.
When I was in London this past September, I went to three concerts: the season opening of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the season opening of the Philharmonia Orchestra with Salonen, and a Christopher Wheeldon/Morphoses performance.
Programs were, I believe, $4-6 (US) and I didn’t see *any* sitting around on the floor afterwards.