Even if…

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I have to thank my friend Eric Edberg for some pushback in the comme#nts. Pushback to my last post, in which I quoted Deborah Rutter — the new head of the Kennedy Center, who used to run the Chicago Symphony — about how she felt orchestras could improve their standing in their community, and objected that her suggestions really only touched on minor points. The key to classical music’s future, I said, isn’t outreach, education, or advocacy. Instead we need an explosive new audience. Then everything turns around.

And I said my next post would be about why the field mostly doesn’t think this way. But I’ll put that off for a day or two, because Eric’s points are worth taking seriously.

All-time high in ticket sales?

First, Eric notes that Deborah seems to have gotten great results at the Chicago Symphony, presumably by following her philosophy. He quotes something from her statement in the orchestra’s 2013 annual report, where she says:

[O]ur ticket sales are at an all-time high, and for a third consecutive year, we have broken records in fundraising.

So, really — Chicago Symphony ticket sales are at an all-time high?

With all respect to Deborah, that’s a PR talking point (as I’m sure she knows). And its real meaning can’t be deciphered.

Why? Because orchestras keep their ticket-sales data tightly secret. Which — let me digress for a moment — is a practice that in my view is damaging to the public, because people are asked to support orchestras, but aren’t told what their real condition is. The secrecy is bad for the classical music field, because we’re deprived of crucial data that would tell us much about how bad our crisis really is.

And finally, the practice is bad for orchestras themselves. They’d do much better facing their reality if they had to make it public. At the very least, they’d have to tell the world what their plan for fixing their crisis is. And that plan would have to make sense.

Back to record-high ticket sales. Without the precise numbers — disclosed in their full statistical context — it’s impossible to know what Deborah means, or what her statement should mean to us. Record-high ticket sales? Does that mean more tickets are being sold now than were ever sold before? Or does it mean that revenue from ticket sales is higher than it ever was?

These are very different statements. Revenue from ticket sales is closely tied to the number of concerts an orchestra gives, to the type of concerts it offers, and to the price of tickets. In the late 1960s, the big US orchestras were selling 100% of their tickets. (Or so I gather from a private report from a consultant they hired back then, when they were having a financial crisis.) I doubt the Chicago Symphony enjoys similar success now, and in any case, if percent of capacity is a measure we want to use, Deborah couldn’t possibly mean that the CSO now sells more than they did in the late ’60s, since that would be impossible.

But it would be easy to have more revenue from ticket sales, if you don’t adjust the numbers for inflation. Tickets cost more now than they did back then. So the revenue could easily be higher now, even if absolute number of tickets sold was smaller.

And let’s look at what kind of concerts they’re selling tickets to. When most of us read “record-high ticket sales,” I think we form an image of packed houses for serious classical events. But most orchestras these days put on many other kinds of shows. The Chicago Symphony this year has a jazz series, a film series with events like “Pixar in Concert,” plus special events that include a mariachi concet and the silent film Ben-Hur, with a new score by rock/classical composer Stewart Copeland. Plus family and holiday concerts. And sold-out new music events, curated by composers in residence Mason Bates and Anna Clyne, with programs nothing like what the CSO does in its main classical performacnes.

Did Deborah mean that sales for all of these now total more tickets sold — or more revenue from ticket sales — than the orchestra ever had before? If that’s true, comparisons that go more than a decade or so into the past are comparisons of apples with kumquats.

One thing I know. Sales to the core classical concerts have been going down for the big orchestras since at least 1990 (where private numbers I was shown began). If the Chicago Symphony has brought those numbers up to where they were before, I’d be thrilled, but also speechless with surprise.

Record fundraising?

I covered this in my last post. Fundraising seems to up these days, because a small number of very wealthy donors want to help organizations in crisis.

But these donors mostly can’t repeat their gifts. And they’re not getting any younger. So while fundraising may be healthy now, the precise reasons for that health will be reasons for trouble in the future, as donors age, and aren’t replaced by younger ones. (Why do I assume they won’t be? Because donors come from the audience, and the audience isn’t being replaced.

In a Washington Post interview with my wife, David Gockley, who runs the San Francisco Opera, put it very plainly:

This fall, the San Francisco Opera and its unions negotiated another new contract. The company’s endowment is up, and it has increased its number of operas from eight to 10. “I would say I’m feeling better about our short-term prospects,” Gockley says.

But he acknowledges that the fundamental problems aren’t going away. Half of the company’s fundraising income comes from nine donors who are over 70 years old, he says.

And note where he went from there:

And he characterizes opera as “a voracious beast that will continue to consume increasing amounts of money.” Meanwhile, the decline in subscription audiences and corresponding rise of single-ticket buyers puts more pressure on companies “to deliver a popular or hit production every time, or we are stuck with empty seats”…

Orchestras, too, are voracious beasts. And, with its varied events, the Chicago Symphony, like all big orchestras, is looking for popular or hit productions.

Changing orchestras

Eric’s last point, and not a bad one, is that orchestras are changing. I’ll quote him at length, because he’s wonderfully eloquent:

But what if the game itself has changed but most of us didn’t notice?

What if it’s no longer about presenting concerts but it’s actually about “transforming lives through music”? What if being connected to current culture means being socially relevant and engaged? What if concerts–while still essential and central–are one of many ways of fulfilling that larger mission?

What if you can’t be connected to current culture if all you do is give concerts?

If that’s the case, then education and civic engagement activities are not secondary functions meant to support a primary concert-presenting function. They are coequal with concert performance and have become intrinsic to the mission.

Particularly for younger players, these less formal concerts and activities, which have have a social impact, are deeply energizing. They are already living in the new, socially-connected, music-as-transformation paradigm, whether they have articulated it for themselves or not. The energy of those socially-engaged, intimate performances and other music activities can be a major factor in the kind of engaged and engaging, powerful concerts that create enthusiastic, break-down-the-doors audiences.

It’s a new time. It’s a new culture. And I don’t think it is possible to do great, fully alive performances without being engaged in making a difference with music outside the concert hall. We have to embrace our full humanity, and to do that, most of us need to get out and connect with people.

I love that!

But still, even if that’s true…orchestras still need to sell something. They still need a paying audience, a new one, avid and young. So if “socially-engaged, intimate performances” are a big part of orchestras’ future, they still have to do what I said, which is to sell tickets, except to these smaller, more connected performances, rather than to big events in big concert halls.

Which then leads to a question we’d better face. These new events  — can they bring in as much money as the big concerts now do? And if the answer is no, how will orchestras make their budgets work, so they can pay musicians as much as they’re making now?

Eric lofts an inspiring vision of the future, but it doesn’t invalidate anything I said. And does, unfortunately, raise some practical questions, for which I doubt that there are answers yet. Unless we expect the inspired orchestras of the future to be almost entirely supported by donors and by the community, with far less earned income than they get now.