 which hello everyone 18,000 people are just saying hello welcome thank you so much for being here before we get started I want to take a moment to offer up a land acknowledgement I want to acknowledge that wherever we are currently located on Turtle Island otherwise known as North America we are on occupied territory Art New York's membership in the five boroughs of New York City operates on the unceded ancestral land of the Lenape the Wappinger, Canarsie, Rockaway and Matinacock communities. I want to honor and celebrate all of these indigenous communities their elders past and present as well as future generations. I also want to take this time to acknowledge that after there was stolen land there were stolen people and I want to honor the generations of displaced and enslaved people that built and continue to build the country that we occupy today. Thank you so much. My name is David Shane my pronouns are he, him, his. I am the director of program services here at Art New York and I'm thrilled to have you here in the room and for those of you who are streaming with us online via HowlRound. A brief visual description I am a white man in my late 30s I have light dark hair I have a short brown beard I'm wearing some maroon pants a white shirt and a dark blue blazer I am going to let our esteemed panelists introduce themselves when you do I would ask you to tell us your name your pronouns an organization that you are representing here today and then I'd also love it if you would share with us one show that you have seen recently that is SICKING WITH YOU I my show recently saw was called Camp Manapia a new play that they're workshopping and if you get a chance to see it I recommend it. Hello my name is Allie Blunt I am a white woman in my exactly mid 30s as a week ago and I am my pronouns are she her hers and I am wearing a silvery shirt and black pants I'm with capacity interactive I don't remember I said that already so I had all the things in your show I have a one-year-old three-year-old at home so I don't get to see like as much theater as I used to before they existed so mind a little further back and I'm gonna choose Parade which is the recent Broadway production because it's one of my all-time favorite musicals and I had been dying to see like a really solid professional production of it since I first heard the score so that was very very exciting to see such an incredible production of it. Hi everyone my name is Brian Joseph Lee I use he pronouns or any pronouns that with respect visual description I am a black man with black hair full beard bright smile wearing a blue suit and white shirt I am the founder of Center Arts Center Arts is a creative agency that centers artists activists and communities of color we do that through strategic planning audience development arts marketing and community engagement and issues what show what show the show that's sticking with me right now is fantastic it's called Pray by our friends at Arts Nova Fernando knows it well co-produced by the National Black Theater written conceived created by a fantastic artist their name is Nikki Douglas you should know them but it's a fantastic ritual that centers black women and femmes through the lens of spirituality. Hi everyone I'm Tom O'Connor I use the he series I am a early 40s white bald man who everybody thinks is much older than that and I'm wearing a black shirt and a gray blazer jeans and black boots I run a company called Tom O'Connor Consulting Group we do a variety of things including executive search for the arts with a specialty in fundraising and marketing but as well as executive leadership artistic and managing we also have a division for marketing consulting and for strategic planning we work with organizations across the U.S. and in Australia of all different genres we work with theaters we also work with classical music opera dance performing arts centers all sorts of different things I'm also trained as a social worker so I talk about that a little bit as I talk about my approach to marketing but very glad to be on this panel with old friends. Oh my show just last week I saw pearly victorious and it's amazing and it's it's like it could have been written yesterday unfortunately but it's really incredible it's in it. Hi everybody my name is Beth Fribour she heard pronouns I am a white mature woman with short gray hair wearing kind of clear glasses black jeans white shirt and I think that's my visual. I run hands-on sign interpretive performances we do sign interpretive performances I guess that's in the title. I actually haven't seen anything here recently I did the parade but I saw a production in London of Dr. Semmelweis with Mark Rylance which was amazing and I hope they bring it to New York was wonderful. Hi everyone my name is Fernanda Masterson I use he and his pronouns I am the marketing director at Ars Nova visual description I am a Latina man wearing a like blue plaid situation a black hair very dirty white shoes I am now realizing so my mom would hate how dirty these shoes are that's New York and a little bit about a show that I'm gonna say the answer that I shared with y'all right before this and I am totally an amper stand I think is what they're called whoever it may came up with that at a k.a. is a genius and Juliet I have I have seen it like six times judgment-free zone I've seen it six times I'm obsessed with the show good they called it amper stand because it's like and Juliet whoever at a k.a. like really came up with that like please get a raise like this is amazing and we're done here and we're done that's marketing all you need to know about marketing you've learned yeah very big fan and Juliet and I also just to like give some love on the off-broadway space and kind of there are some parallels to and you know with and Juliet Mary get hers that was done at playwrights horizons if you guess I think it wrapped a few weeks ago was spectacular so spectacular playwrights realm it was sorry yes it was we love all the playwrights yes we love all the playwrights things but Mary get hers spectacular cool thank you thanks everybody so we're gonna get started let's let's get going here so I think that you know it is will not come as a surprise to any of you or to anyone in the audience that there's a lot of uncertainty in the theatrical field right now and I think one of the things that folks are wondering is whether or not what they're experiencing is something unique to them something that's unique happening in their organization or whether what they're experiencing is actually part of a larger sort of new normal if that's actually a thing that we can say so I wonder if we can start by asking anybody who wants to share what trends you're observing what what's sort of happening out there and maybe we'll center our conversation around some shared understanding of what really is happening in terms of marketing and audience development broadly in the field so I asked Ali to start off to give us some insights and some data that you have from capacity interactive yes I'd be happy to so the data I'm going to share is actually unpublished as of right now it will be soon but it's a sneak preview of a talk that I'm giving on Friday at capacity interactive bootcamp conference with the advisory board for the arts with their permission they said I could share it here so you guys get a sneak preview of the sneak preview which is exciting so there's kind of some baseline numbers it's kind of a mixed bag right now let's start with subs so subscriptions right now we're seeing that there's roughly an average of like 72 percent renewal rate compared to the last full season before the pandemics that be the 1819 season so you know not amazing could be worse and a more optimistic note the subs rate about 23 percent of subs are actually new to file which is a substantial number which is honestly very exciting that about a quarter of subs are new people who have not subscribed before looking at single tickets about 50 percent on average a single ticket buyers were new to file and then looking at paid house going back to 1819 so less full pre-pandemic season we were looking at roughly 70 percent for paid house that dipped in 2122 all the way down to 57 percent and actually as of last season it went back up to 66 percent so we are not quite where we were in 1819 but we actually are seeing some improvement the kind of headline is that audiences really kind of are where they're going to be like the audiences that have returned are really what we expect to have returned and this isn't surprising to us because honestly even pre-pandemic even setting that aside audiences were on the decline this is a trend that's going back way before that if you look at data kind of is like a steadily steady downhill so it is exciting that between 2122 and 2223 that we did see some improvement but it is definitely on the decline overall big picture like I said kind of mixed out there you tell us a little bit about the types of organizations that you're referring to in this data set yes so that data set is based on ABA's study of 50 organizations those were all of the arts but good number of them were theaters and this is really the trend that we're seeing specifically for theaters to like you know we're kind of seeing roughly ballpark similar things across genres thank you yeah does anybody else have any trends that you're observing that you want to share I'll just jump in and say that our client base is pretty broad in terms of budget scale and genre as I mentioned before but I think the the one sort of the correlation we can point to or that we could put our finger on in terms of perhaps the slower to return or the slower to rebuild audiences is has a lot to do with with let's call it proximity to risk in terms of the artistic program you know there's a lot of institutions that whose very mission is tied to doing work that is lesser known that is newer and that represents more of a risk to audience members that are coming back slower they're just seeing they're having a tougher time getting folks over the line whereas our clients that are doing more what you might call mainstream fair musicals things of that nature not surprising are having a slightly easier time I don't think any of that is groundbreaking but I think that it's leading to a lot of conversation among our clients around a new conversation between marketing and audiences and artistic programming which I hope we'll talk a lot more about but that's that's really what we're what we're seeing that's what we're seeing across I capacity interact about I think I said is we're a digital marketing consulting firm for the arts for me specifically on the consultant there and my clients are exclusively theaters my background is a theater I worked at Huntington around about so anecdotally I can say that that's very much what we're seeing it's really fascinating to hear from my clients that when you do like a big name blockbuster like a river chorus line we like ended that campaign early because sales were so incredible but then you know those smaller newer lesser known plays are of course not seeing those results so it's it's not dissimilar to what you would expect even pre-pandemic but I think it really has exacerbated and we're really seeing such a stark contrast between like blockbuster shows and other I know I just spoke but I just want to say one quick thing to add on to the data that you referenced before and that talking about that turn of folks who don't coming or the ratio of people who are new to file and who are new in the audience I feel like you know for anybody who spent more years than they care to admit looking at this kind of data in terms of audiences returning turning all that kind of thing what strikes me and what we've seen both in the data you're referencing and in other similar studies is that what is distinguishing about this period is that we have audiences that have been not completely deactivated for several years but have been not as active and so when you're thinking about a small percentage of audiences generally speaking returning year over year to institutions you're now in a period where you're trying to reboot a machine after you know a shutdown that is just in a different place so said slightly differently if you're trying to sell subscriptions to a single ticket buyer and you have had single ticket buyers for two years it stands to reason that it's going to take a few years for that engine to fully rev back up so it's just there's a there's a downstream effect of all the things we're seeing in terms of single tickets I am curious to know in like the subscription conversation because we're obviously actively interrogating what subscriptions and membership look like do you does this data have any insight on like fixed versus flex I imagine okay I am something that I'm like observing is you know just like audience trends is this feeling of wanting control and that you know long gone to the days of I need to go to this show on this day and I value that consistency you could get sick at any moment anything could happen you know so I have that that's something and also I will give a plug for capacity interactives podcast because I listen to all of them and I know that was a conversation that came up recently but it was I was curious that that popped up in your in your data but yeah the ABA study did not break it down by sub types but I can very much affirm what you're saying that audience is one flexibility and even at CI because we all the consultants we all talk amongst ourselves and share data and you know anecdotes and everything about our clients and very much the organizations that have flexibility and you know not a fixed package definitely are seeing better results than those who have packages I think the one thing I can add as like sitting somewhere in between the data-driven analysis and this civic and community oriented programming is that none of this change is happening in isolation and so we have you know yes a pandemic that stopped us from having public audiences and moving forward nested within a conversation about racial reckoning nested within a sea change of artistic and executive leadership you can't change a leader of an organization about shifting literally everything about that organization right so that goes down to what is programmed who the supporters are who your core audiences is or imagines themselves to be and so a lot of the conversation anecdotally that I'm seeing with clients around the country is really about like you know if there is success or not sort of what to attribute the success to right so whether we do see that like blockbuster shows which I don't parallel with any you know anything other than spectacle actually course line is a great example but you know you're a dusty old insert you know American stalwart here I have not seen in my anecdotal evidence selling any better or worse than your new adventurous show that is written by of or for a specific community right so spectacle yes in terms of entertainment and scope and scale but that doesn't equate to traditional or not it also doesn't parallel any sort of like core audiences that imagine themselves at a theater before a specific change had occurred there so you know if you are comparing sales data before a pandemic with one artistic director to sales data during and post pandemic with a different artistic director those are not apples to apples right and so I do think that this conversation ripples very quickly beyond the numbers and into specifically what are we doing to maintain relevance within our communities and make the case for why people should support us even through significant changes that are happening I think this concept about you know you change a leader at an organization everything changes is really interesting because for me I actually think I find it really optimistic to think about the opportunity that's there right the changes don't take place overnight and it takes a while for them to like take hold and do think but there's a lot of opportunity I think in that change you would hope so yeah I mean I think so too I think that you know unfortunately if a certain theater company region leader in New York is doing better or worse people's will want to extrapolate that to well what's the agenda right what's the mission who's the person programming and I think it's interesting we'll probably touch on this it's like where do you want to lay that blame because a prevailing narrative that is starting to emerge is that certain organizations have shifted too fast or become too woke or have forgotten about their core audiences and are moving too quickly and so a lot of your traditional either funders or ticket buyers or subscribers would rather pack up their toys and go rather than sort of see that change through I don't necessarily think it's that simple yeah right but optimism I think there's a case for I think it's unfortunate that the time frame by which we are assessing the ten years of new leaders particularly leaders of color but not exclusively being in relation to the pandemic and the shutdown and the return I think it's really unfortunate time to be assessing anybody's effectiveness as somebody who does executive search and talks to boards all day about trends you know turns and leadership and changes in direction for an organization to to grade anyone on that curve is very hard and to the point of what Brian saying you know the you know let's just call it the attribution of the challenges that we're having right now you know looking at a show that's not selling if we looked at that same show five years ago under the same under a different leader we might have very well just said and that's and that's frankly sometimes true we all know that this it's not what's the saying it's not art if there isn't a risk that it's a total disaster you know all that kind of thing we have to have that sort of risk-taking appetite in this business but now we are so quick to try to attach that to an identity or so quick to attach that to somebody's you know sensibility that it's really unfortunate to see so I will just say somebody with wearing many hats up here who is both in the business of finding and supporting new leaders that's something that I'm talking to boards about all the time it's how that how they're funding and seeking support for that transition that's off topic of our family and yet such a good topic you got a whole other plan maybe we will see you in the spring so you know this isn't I think that what we heard about trend so far has a lot of optimism has I find it really grounding actually to think about like it's not great right but the downward trend I find grounding because I think that that sort of indicates to me that the things that we might think about addressing aren't about like a bounce back from 2020 it's like we were already headed in that direction and so we can we can look at a longer term to assess what we might change right I think that's actually really useful yeah well and I think I was I mean in terms of our work because we work with a specific community I have either the luxury or not luxury of picking different shows from different theaters so I the tendency is to go to you know as somebody who's kind of thinking that they're somewhat of a producer and what's going to sell I mean I have the luxury of going when New York Theatre Workshop said we'd like to do a show going I'd like to pick merrily roll as the show would never one right that's what they pick I mean so so the interesting thing I think for us is even in the last two years we've been incredibly busy in terms of access issues and haven't seen theaters kind of pull back on that which I guess was you know a thought that was probably going to happen after the pandemic with budgets and you know all the stuff that's going on with theaters but I haven't seen that which I thought was an interesting trend good for us and in terms of audiences you know we we have the luxury of picking some kind of hot shows and then we have other theaters that we work with where we don't have the opportunity to pick and choose and I haven't even seen that as well I mean I I've seen kind of consistent audiences so it's been good so far great like we're gonna I'm and that's part of like I'm still chewing on the data that you provided processing in my brain but and and to speak to what everyone on this panel I think is saying is that institutions there is an exciting moment in kind of moving from the you know inch deep mile wide mentality to like you know inch wide mile deep I'm noticing that a lot of organizations are you know doubling down on their values and are are retargeting to the consumers and the people that are actively engaged and involved with their organization and there's there's exciting opportunity there because you know of course we all want to be in a growth mindset sometimes we need to sustain and I think it a little bit of a of an environment right now where it's sustaining is okay and that you know from a jet revenue perspective we can actually generate a lot of revenue from communicating to the audiences that are invested in our organization and in our organizations values and organizations leadership and principles so like I was just kind of chewing on that it's it's I totally agree David I think it's an it sounds like an exciting opportunity and it sounds like there's some really great some great things happening there's so much fun data to about investing institutionally and like your values and whatnot I don't remember the exact numbers but there's a lot of data there that shows that doubling down on in marketing your values actually has a lot of positive effect and that audiences arts audiences in fact are clamoring for that and they look at nonprofits nonprofits arts organizations specifically as places where they should be hearing about values and it's interesting because a high propensity arts buyers actually are in much more in much higher numbers registered voters so there's definitely a correlation there between investing in your values people who are actively looking for that people who are active politically generally like that is our audience say it louder for the people in the past so important this is really so I mean I wanted to I shared some questions in advance to think about and this was actually one of them was like how do you how would you advise someone to think about marketing their institution as opposed to this the specific show how do you think and this so I am hearing that that's part of it does anybody want to expand on how you are thinking about that I I'll jump in that space I mean I so my background you know starting in marketing and regional organizations and actually moving to New York to work with the public theater as an artistic producer I sort of been on both sides of that equation right between the art and the business at the public I was director of public form which is their platform that sort of has conversation in and around the work right so it's where art activism and community collide and what was wonderful about public form which is actually where Fernando and I met we both were working on that together it was really exciting to sort of produce work that was in direct conversation with the most urgent issues in the community I think that that has a lot to do with how I support organizations now with their institutional marketing and narrative around why they do what they do right so it is not uncommon that I will join an organization at a moment of either crisis or you know some other kind of major change we're really knitting together that narrative of why we market you know our educational programs one way and our development initiatives another way and our artistic programming to subscribers one way but to single-ticket buys next way it's all about alignment right and so sort of being able to help organizations see that the common threat there is providing value of buying for your community right creating art that really transforms our theaters into more civic institutions that can support all activity within a community I think is part of the values driven efforts that we're seeing in companies right but it is harder than it looks and I think we can all attest to that that when you're in the machine of a high performing like high output arts organization that has so many different messages to maintain you can create sort of disparate threads very quickly right and so I think that when you talk about how do you market an institution it is about values but it's also about speaking from one common voice add to that that you know so often and I say this particularly to small institutions all the time so often when we talk about the under resourcing and under capitalizing of institutions we're talking about the inability to advertise enough and and so often this institutional marketing we're talking about is not done with advertising and press it is done through relationship and experience and so you know the experience we can give in an in a space and the relationship we can have through our own the channels things like our email and social channels and all of that relatively inexpensive but that is actually the way you build an institutional connection with it with an audience member you know there's I feel like so often and as I mentioned we work with organizations of varying scales so for having this conversation with Metropolitan Opera it's very different than having it with WP theater you know it's a very it's it just is a range but the opportunity to talk about your values and to let people know who you are let people know who the humans are that are putting on this work that is the distinguishing factor I think and what I observed in the pandemic during shutdown where you know folks who hadn't been talking about who they were as an institution and we're just expecting people to put that connect make sort of connect those dots between the shows they were doing the institutions that were better about telling that story directly were in a better place to seek support when everything got shut down and I think that there was there was a real need and a real eye-opener for a lot of institutions to see that that was that was where the opportunity was for contributed revenue but also for backing the more risky shows to say how does this fit into our this mission how does this fit into this collection of values as a way to make your institution or your organization the star quote-unquote when the product when the show doesn't itself doesn't have one but but you know and when we're counseling organizations on how to do that it's generally not through a big expensive ad campaign it's not through you know investing in a price EPR firm it's about what is who do you already have in your database and how can you talk to them and I just want to like I'm the I guess I'm the disability accessibility person on the panel but I not just that but I but I do want to say to you know especially you know when you're talking about like service organizations that provide services for accessibility that suddenly we become kind of like the middle person the direct contact and it's always been incredibly important to me you know especially working originally at roundabout or the public theaters like that to just go we are a program around about we are a program of the public we are not you know we might be hands-on and we might be the the contact people that the community is probably most comfortable with whether it's deafness or you know blind low vision whatever you have that link to these communities but it's so important to me and always has been that it's the recognition that it's the program of roundabout but it's roundabout that these audience members and I will just kind of like a short story when we did the John Lithgow's one-man show that that he acknowledged that on stage it you know during the show introducing the interpreter and saying that this group of people in this audience are roundabout subscribers and that was so important I think for the entire audience to hear along with the deaf community that was part of that audience that they're not they're not a hands-on audience they're they're part of roundabouts community and so it becomes a little bit of a kind of a separation that it's not a direct roundabout or public theater program but it's it's always been incredibly important for me to make sure that the community knows that we're just kind of the middle management in this but you belong to the public and you belong to roundabout and that it's their program that there's an invitation and that they feel part of it that they feel part of that organization that they are roundabout subscribers or roundabout ticket buyers along with the other people and and over the years it's become you know I see people coming into an interpretive performance at roundabout and they see me giving out tickets or something and they go oh it's a hands-on performance and we're just part of the group we're just part of the overall community and so they're not segregated they're not separate from it they are part of that whole community I love that you called out like mentioning that people are subscribers when they're there because that's such an important element to marketing is the experience when you're there really it needs to be like from a to z from when you see your first ad or whatever the first touch point is with the show all the way through to your ticket buying all the way through to your experience when you're there like that is what is going to build that affinity not just like the programming itself there is some really just saying data from ABA about that about one-third of audience members who buy tickets are there for the programming like for the show itself and about two-thirds are there for something more for the experience for the community for something else that's the majority of people who are in our audiences are not just there not just buying tickets because they want to see the show they're looking for something more and that is only been accelerated by the pandemic where people can have like so much programming at their fingertips on Netflix or whatever that they want that in person community experience and that's what's so crucial and this is what I tell all my clients is it's so essential not just to say like hey here's our show but you need to say this is what is going to happen when you are in the theater like this is what it looks like this is where your experience will be because you are selling all of that not just the play I wonder if that gets to one of the things that I've heard really anecdotally from people is that they're trying to think about not just how do I engage the people who I have engaged with before but this like new audience whatever that means like who are they I don't you know but but that for some people the barrier is that they just don't think of themselves as a theater person and I would posit that it's like no one theater's job to try to fix that but if you are trying to speak to those people I wonder you know like our audiences maybe aren't back to the level that we would like them to be but but concerts around the country are selling out as you said you know like people are hungry for the live experience and so I wonder if there's something in there that we can think about communicating about that aspect of what it is to go to theater. I almost I want to touch on that lightly and then kind of circle back to some of the points made here so I I think that there is like a light and it's one of the exciting trends that I'm seeing more on like content creation side especially in like producing organizations of this kind of like you know education on steroids you know auxiliary and ancillary podcasts that are associated with shows that give you an opportunity to learn a little bit more about the institution so that you can get aligned in a sense of its values that that is something Playwrights Horizons does and capacity interactive I know the public had a podcast I'm mentioning all podcasts because I love podcasts but additionally and this is something that actually when we were at the public our former colleague Rinaldi Linder low-long really helped to birth this and this is kind of goes back to the values thing so sorry for like going back to that question but one of the really exciting things that he introduced to us as a marketing team is this idea of commissioning graphic artists commission like coming going into the community but going on Instagram finding illustrators and designers that can essentially you can pay to come attend the show and then they do fan art for the show right and the end result is you are reinvesting marketing dollars back into the pockets of artists right you are you know getting this really cool juicy content that you can share it on socials the artists that are participating the show like love it I mean that makes them feel like rock stars that people are like creating you know content with their faces and their likeness on it you know I shouldn't say likeness because that that's the asterisk in the contract anyway because then it gets tricky but you know I kind of going back to that last question it's a little bit of a you know it's really important that your that your community that your subscribers that the individuals that are invested in your organization are aware of your values but it is so a show not tell sometimes especially for an institution like ours Nova that I it's gonna sound dorky like I think we have like a cool on like as far as like reputations go we're like one of the cooler edge years so it would be like lame if we send an email that was like hey everyone we're you know fair pay initiative is happening or you know we have to be really kind of subtle in how we're communicating those ideas and in a way it's like instead of talking the talk we're really trying to walk it we're trying to say you know we're investing you know marketing dollars back into the pockets of artists we're not gonna make a big thing of it we're just going to do it you know this name your price ticketing initiative that we're gonna talk about a little bit later we've taken a really interesting marketing approach but it's it's very it's more on the subtle side and then the hope is that like you know with support from our development teams and with kind of we're giving our audiences the tools to to spread the word themselves right so that we're not having to be the big you know flag waivers ambassadors of our message that we're doing the thing that a cool brand would do which is like being cool and hoping that your consumers sorry that was such a tangent but I yeah hitting on things yes I feel like a lot of eaters tend to put out those messages of like hey look what we do when it's like giving Tuesday or end of your donation time or whatever which as somebody who's run so many giving campaigns it doesn't work literally never you taught me that giving Tuesday does I remember this was the public use my client was there I was like do not please it's such a waste of money it's so expensive and you're not you're not going to beat out like other massive organizations that have massive budgets don't do it but like most tactics and isolation right no tactic and isolation work you know like that's the thing that I feel like whenever we talk about marketing or fundraising to a certain extent we do we do sort of distill it down to talking about like the effectiveness of tactics at least absolutely right like that one thing alone is not does not work as an as a piece of a strategy that is supported all year long all month long or that has a variety of different tactics attached to it yeah including board giving but that's a different story for giving Tuesday you know like there's there are opportunities but I think a lot of institutions are under resourced and or short-sighted into the point that they just don't support thing well that's what I always say to my clients is like let's not do it for this one day where everybody's advertising it's gonna be so much more expensive let's do it for the entire year and I have one theater I work with that we actually run an institutional branding campaign for their entire season from like September through June and it just is constantly running to all the audiences across the full funnel it's like a fairly minimal spend it's like you know 30 40 dollars a day so we're not talking massive amounts of money and we just swap out content for it like as it comes up like if something gets you know if they get a cool article about them if they have some like cool student matinee or initiative or whatever like anytime something new and interesting pops up we just throw it in that campaign there's no call to action there's no ask we're not saying to people like hey donate buy tickets whatever it's literally just like here is this information about us and they're my only theater where when it does come time for asks for you know end of year and a fiscal year donations they always have a positive return on our campaigns and they're the only one I could say that for and I really think there is definitely a correlation between when we started doing that institutional branding and you know seeing that increase in donations because you don't have to tell people like hey these are all the cool things we're doing really rushed at the end of December people are hearing about it all year so they already have that in their heads so that when it is time for the ask they already are fond of you I feel like I'm just yanking the conversation all over the place but to go back to your point that I mean about about the about the sorry I could sit and talk and you probably will we got two hours but I know the just to say coming back to the institutional piece and the experience piece to tie that all together and your question about what I interpret to be about Beyonce and Taylor Swift and all that is you know always about like exactly let's let's acknowledge that like coming to the theater in most cases is extremely uncomfortable and the fact that a lot of venues are extra I mean I'm saying this is a six four very large person it's not the most accommodating experience and I'm a fully able-bodied person that's another whole other conversation but what gets people to fill you know you don't fill arenas with brecht you know you fill arenas by things that that give you that give joy that have the people have a connection to and I think that when we're taught when we come back to I would I would take slight not issue but I would sort of say like spectacle is maybe not how I'd frame it but I would frame it around joy around the things that people are like blocking to right now to get that to get out of this kind of collective whatever we want to call it right now like I do like the country is in a collective stupor at the moment around a variety of different things and to and getting folks for you there's effervescence there's something yeah out that moment yeah and I feel like that if we're going for the for the challenges we have around come the theater going experience I think that's the biggest barrier we have to getting people to experience new work to take risks on work is the physical space and the social expectation around what we do the people that you know we hear in survey after survey decades now I feel about the fact that people don't feel like the theaters for them because there are unspoken rules about what you have to do to go to see a piece of theater and no one theater is going to change that perception so you know we talk about this all the time in our firm my one of my VP Cynthia who's been in the theater field for 45 years or 40 years talks all the time about like where's the got milk campaign for the for the arts right now because that's what we need for something that is completely institution agnostic completely regionally agnostic completely genre agnostic to talk about the fact that you know coming to see an arts event has life affirming life enriching communal experiences and available and things that make a you know a part of humanity available to you none of us can afford to do that alone I probably offer so thank you for that because I think what you're please shut me up never what I think you're pointing to I approach from my work in audience development particularly with communities of color in a very specific way I think it aligns with what we're talking about the deaf and hard of hearing community or accessibility in terms of other ways that invitation and welcome is so important you know particularly as a marketer who also creatively produces work I think what I've experienced in my time in my career is that just changing who's on stage is not enough in order to make people feel like an experience sparks joy or is for them right we know that represent representational politics like does not work we know that because you know we had a black president for eight years and look how that turned out right like that we know that like just putting someone into a position of power in a position of visibility alone does not shift the system or structure to make it more welcoming and so the work that I am most excited by now changes the actual ritual of attendance like if you attend a black queer gathering like pray it is unlike many different gatherings right you know we have to take off our shoes when we enter to the door we have to call and respond there's there's a there's a joy and there's a religion at pray at play there right the same can be true for queer gatherings the same can be true for Latina gatherings the same can be true for any community that is really at the center of a conversation right and so a lot of my work involves us re-centering like who is in that conversation which is why the company is called center arts because we think about centering people right but I think that that ultimately changes how and why we gather in a really exciting way and once we do that authentically people will come so authentically folks knew that Beyonce was for them and you couldn't find like silver sparkly cowboy hats anywhere this summer because we knew that that was the ritual we knew that that was the invitation same with Taylor Swift you know same with all these big moments of effervescence and joy and spectacle if they are authentically about us then people will come and that invitation I think transcends you know whether it's a sales campaign or whether it's just you know marketing or institutional and it becomes more about am I actually welcome here yeah so I think that touches on a lot of what has been shared so far but particularly through lens of authenticity and can I add to that Brian because I think in addition to that like authenticity that they're that an invitation like an authentic invitation from marketing and press teams is important not just for the show if you're a producing organization not for just for the show that you think that that yeah exact which which I think that is an exciting trend that I've been that I've noticed us moving away from in the last you know a few years certainly I mean I a consistent invitation to community to communities to whether it be you know deaf and hard of hearing communities to culturally specific communities I'm seeing it happen with the kind of producing orgs the marketing directors I know partnering with consultants and I think just to say Brian we like talked about this over drinks a few days ago like there is a lot of work that needs to be done for that work to kind of happen internally inside of an organization from you know the way that these organizations are structured but also in the way that marketing teams are are communicating to patrons and you know it's there's there just needs to be a lot of intentionality there needs to be intention in who you're communicating with and there needs to be consistency but I'm I'm optimistic because I'm noticing and especially in the work that you're doing Brian like that that is that is I'm seeing that on the rise I'm seeing that happen you know I've got a quick thought which is totally agree with what you guys are saying we work with a lot of what I'm gonna put in quotes culturally specific organizations ballet Espanico East West players a bunch of different organizations I always want to challenge every organization to accept the fact that every organization is culturally specific they might not want to acknowledge the culture that they've engendered or the culture that they sit within but almost every institution is culturally specific so how do we think about the culture that is perceived as exclusionary or unwelcoming because that that is your culture whether you want to believe whether you whether that is intentional or not is a different is a different question but we all have have cultivated some kind of culture within institutions whether it's by genre whether it's by venue whatever so I I just I feel like that's a helpful provocation whenever we're having any of these conversations about where we sit intersectionally as organizations to say if we were you know what is the culture that we are we are sitting in that we that we represent I think that really goes back to what Brian was saying earlier about you know changing a change of leadership doesn't change culture a change in representation doesn't change culture like they may be a piece of that but that alone isn't going to be the thing that makes a whole new culture spring up yeah yeah we've done so much of this already so just like a lightning round because I think I said that this I would bring together a panel of people who could talk about what's working and what's not so lightning round what's working like something that you some tactics some approach something you've seen that you're like yeah that worked for me or for them or whatever and then we'll do one about what's not and then say louder no but I just wanted I'll be very brief I know you're you know that's a lie but I'm gonna try you know like so much of what right now is about like expense containment let's be clear when we talk about audiences being slow to come back partnerships are a great way to both from a marketing standpoint from a producing standpoint from a awareness standpoint to remedy that and so many organizations whether they're trying to reach new people cut down their costs all that that's just the name of the game if you do not have a video and I specifically say video not just the images that is about your experience at your theater like go back on Monday would ice today I don't know whatever I think today's Wednesday tomorrow Thursday I make that video make that happen because I think that is just so crucial the number of times that I've seen a video like that get pushed out and it just performs so well it's just it's such a great asset to have so I would say selling the experience for sure is really really working well I mean the only thing that I can that I can think of I mean it's just this term community that I think is just so important I mean the the community that we work with is a community and you know it's when when we do a show when it's interpreted I mean the reason why we do interpretive performances and not kind of just put an interpreter someplace for a person is just that thing of seeing a hundred people or 50 you know however many people talking to each other you can't get that people out of the theater after it's that it's that existence of that community being within that community you know I mean I felt it when we when it when the pandemic started kind of waning a little bit and I went to see music man and just the idea of being in a shared space with you know I was with a friend but I mean being in that audience with other people was exhilarating it was fun but it was that shared experience with all these people and when we do a show or whenever but you know when when you're with people that are like you that's that's kind of the experience you know you could be in a you're with other people and you're with unlike you people as well in in that kind of shared space but I think the gathering of people the comfort level and that experience of being being with people that you know that you haven't seen for a while it's it's that's why that's what I see and that's what I love I love when I when I'm giving out the tickets and somebody comes up to me and hugs me and says oh how are you doing that I know the audience and they know me and they ask about me and I think that that is the part that is is what I cherish about what I do other responses are so connected yeah so far like they're real all they're all kind of circling the same thing you speak in my language I just love anything about gathering community I think the thing that's most exciting to me that's working well is in particularly theater organizations your companies can be more than just a theater company when their relevance is far beyond the work that's happening on stage and ripples into the community I'll shout out a former client of mine Baltimore Center stage and Baltimore Maryland who created this really fantastic program of sharing space it's called the shared space initiative where they're giving as much of their space away for free as possible Akia right yesterday you shared something that was happening at the 14th Street why and I was like that's amazing and you're all doing it like in many ways very similar things trying to activate these spaces of buying for the community but making sure that folks have ownership right and doing what you can to either like radically subsidize or swing the door doors as wide open as possible I think that's what creates the case for belonging and for relevance is when folks feel like it's not just you know a walled building that they don't have access to or can only come in if they buy a ticket but it's actually their community space I like National Black Theater we're partnering with right now on pray and I see them doing that so well Shadei and Jonathan I mean and they literally just to say our do not have the building right now like they are going to have a theatrical space so it is the ultimate practice of like how do you create something that is more than just a theater create like a brand and identity that people want to commune around so just adding that to that and and to my lightning round answer a content forward a content forward approach that allows you to go kind of that mild deep I'll kind of use that as my thing I think that when we are all in theatrical spaces whether we want to be or not we are kind of dramaturgs we are we are you know we have a positionality and we're you know having the show kind of run through us and we're processing in our own way and having that kind of auxiliary content that you can either engage with before or after I think can make a really big difference in how you retell the story of that show and if you can arm your audiences with that it makes again to my point before it makes them do the work for you as a marketer they're the one spreading the good word and evangelizing and I'm loving that I'm seeing more of that I like your response better than mine I want to like highlight gold content is just content is like the most important thing because also goes across everything that you know by the email to social like everything it is could not make it more crucial your previous point about like I learned it as the white glove technique where you take the good news and you put on your white glove like a server and you shove it down everyone's throat like that is actually like a time a time-tested practice that I couldn't agree with more so yeah they're really great ideas here I feel like those are take that and run with it you know and what in the lightning round of what is not working or maybe put a gentler way what could we release what are the things that we're like we're still like you're releasing giving Tuesday which I right you revoke it no pressure what else are you releasing I mean I have like a list I made myself mentally like pare down my list that my number one thing because I could have like a list of seven things the top one for me is there's a big fixation on subs and donors and loyal audiences which is understandable these are people who are giving us a lot of money so it's necessary but it's often coming at the expense of audience retention and that is an upsetting trend to me because it's way more expensive it's six to seven times more expensive actually according to Bain to get a new audience member than to retain a pre-existing audience member and there is definitely this big trend I'm seeing where people are sort of like really focused on subs donors loyal audiences really focused on new to file and then the people in the middle who have like come you know see a show or two they're sort of left behind and we just we literally can't out afford to do that we're hemorrhaging money by not paying a lot of attention to those audiences one of the most interesting things that came out of the ABA study that we found was that marketing directors ranked their their audience priorities and audience retention actually for the majority of respondents came in in the bottom half of priorities which was wild to me because I feel like that's just so crucial so maybe you're sitting there thinking like I do a lot of audio retention and if so like I great and I love that for you and I'm glad but there is definitely a big trend of people not doing that and I've lots of ways I could talk for like an hour about how to do that but I'm not going to in the vein of Tom I'm gonna shut myself up but audience retention oh the thing I'm leaving behind I love this question I want to leave behind false binaries either or thinking is like a tool of supremacy and it will always get you so like when everyone if anyone in your universe says it is either subscribers or single ticket owners it is either core audiences or investing in new audiences those are you know setups that's that's an equation that doesn't actually work and I think that the most successful organization I've worked with have found a way to incorporate both right to recognize that it's all the work and that either your campaigns or your strategy or the way that you message is one that is as inclusive to the people who have been committed to supporting your organization and you trust them enough to go along on this journey as it is welcoming to new audiences right and so even the numbers reflect that sure we might not have the same sort of subscriber retention as we once did and we are doing well if not better with new audiences even though it's more expensive and our dollar doesn't go as far but there's still a case to be made for campaigns that equally look at both or think about looking at both in a relationship that makes sense I'll strike the word equally because I don't think that for every show or for every organization it'll be 50 50 in terms of that mix but anyone who says one or the other is lying to you I deeply concur how do I put this short briefly you know I thought a lot about this question and mine is more of a practice than a than an approach or tactic but I think the role of this is a panel on marketing and audience development and we're talking about the pretty lofty topics because that's where this topic belongs and I think we need to take marketers out of the space of just being at the end of the conveyor belt or the end of the assembly line to say like okay we've made this thing that why is the house not full marketers need to be market we've talked for so long about the silos between marketing and development and it's time to talk about the silos between marketing and the audience and artistic programming and so I'm very glad but but I mean there's a there's I just feel like the organizations that are successful right now are finding ways to develop a shared language between those two that does not feel like a sacrifice of mission because it is not a sacrifice of mission to give a shit what your audience thinks there's not a sacrifice of mission to do things that people want to see if it's in line with your you know stated aims as an organization and I feel like for too long you know I always used to describe to my students that the difference between marketing in the you know corporate world and the consumer products world and the arts is that in the arts you get no say in what you're marketing and that is still mostly true in most institutions but I think a lot of organizations right now we see this a lot in the presenting world and more so increasingly so in the producing world they're finding ways to have those conversations not to say we're gonna totally take a populist approach and abandon any of our you know any of our previous claims to our mission and our values and what we exist to produce but to maybe just find the right balance of what's gonna what's going to be enough of a gateway to welcome people into this institution so they'll see the other things and how does how can the marketing team be you know useful in having that conversation I do think we need to accept the fact that to ignore the insights that the marketing team has or marketing specialists or what not have about the audience and say no no artistic knows best is just a form of elitism and it's a form of putting an artistic programming team in a place that is completely out of line with what we talk about when we're talking about community and values and just honoring the public good that we claim to stand for as arts nonprofits I say we because I still feel like I'm in one even though I now have a consult consultancy I work with so many of them but anyway that's the practice I hope we can leave behind and start to have a fuller conversation in institutions it's not so much leave me leave behind is as that I wish because I think we're like everybody's kind of working with the same community in terms of who the audience is I wish there was more kind of collegiality or you know collaboration on the top level about providing the services that they want to provide because ultimately there's a small there's a small you know resource pool is a small community that we're dealing with but everybody is kind of doing their work independently and not looking not that not kind of focusing on the idea that it's the same group of people that we're trying to you know so so I wish that there was more collaboration at that level I wish there was more kind of inclusion of the people that actually work in the community that know the community a little bit better so that it wasn't so segregated and so isolated in terms of what people are doing so that we could help and be more collaborative and not just go if somebody else is doing something maybe don't do it on that day because something else is going on so if people were just a little bit more aware of other things that were going around going on with those communities that they want in that would be great would you like to release something yeah I think my I hope my answer doesn't get me in trouble I was like actively thinking about changing it as we were going down the line and I was like no I'm gonna say it and I think it has to do with a marketing campaign's relationship with press specifically and I know this is the this is the song that has been sung year after year as long as I've been in this industry but it specifically as it relates to critics I think that especially in the way a lot of producing houses are modeled in New York City the majority a lot of the performances are happening in previews and then when a performance finally gets to a press opening it's there is a lot of kind of missed revenue and you know and folks are usually waiting for someone whose voice is a value to tell them if it's a good piece or not I see a really beautiful trend happening and kind of these empowering micro influencers and you know theater companies offering again with their invitation to communities like their candid like consistent invitations to communities like these taste makers coming in and and uplifting and supporting shows like authentically I see that happening I wish if I had a magic wand that I could just like release some of the power that a that a review can have on a piece this coming from a show like we had an amazing review like yeah it's wonderful it's wonderful when it's great right we'll take them I know right thank you thank you so much but I I wonder what the next you know decade looks like in an industry where you know we are where organizations are really doubling down on their values and that maybe consumers are more interested in taking a chance to go see a show at an organization whether or not they've heard it's the greatest thing of all time or you know whether or not there's like some kind of a list are in it I know that that is such an idealistic lot but I think that you know education and like a content forward approach can make a really big difference and re kind of framing the way that audiences participate in your piece on like a you know transactional level. Kateria Spurn are you seeing now like close pandemic that a review is having the same power that it once did? I know I wanted I wanted to have it the best I mean it again. Yeah you is releasing that cool. The highs the highs or highs and the lows aren't as low as they used to be that is my observation and like the institutions I've worked at and in talking to other marketing directors but I like I think you know not to like pat myself on the back but I think it's because of what I was just saying I think that a lot of marketers are doubling down on content and they're like whether or not you know so-and-so person says that this is a fantastic show we're going to be serving up a lot of really interesting ancillary content that is going to prove to you why this is something you cannot miss. I'm glad you're bringing this up because I feel like so often when we're talking about evolution of you know marketing and communications and whatnot for the arts we just completely ignore the greater macro factors of the media landscape right now I mean if you look at what's happening in traditional legacy media and digital media and all sorts of media those those business models are shifting their influence is shifting look at how much they're being inserted into political you know division in the country there's so many things that that erode trust in media and yet we still think of it as this this element of our you know earned media strategies that are going to sort of make or break a show or a property whatever it is and I feel like you know that's also the piece that I feel like is missing from the conversation large big picture when we're talking about the trends in the field is that you know they were it was a huge correction happening in the sort of digital tech and media space at the same time that we were experiencing a huge downturn in audiences post pandemic and there was never a correlation made in any of the industry media around that and I just want to I want to I guess my point is a I want better arts journalism and B I want less naval gazing I want us to actually talk about how we exist as a microcosm in a larger system and start really thinking about how that all play is interdependent and weaves together to create the outcomes that we're seeing end of rant I don't want to scare people but we're gonna talk about for a second ready because it's actually so important younger generations like 18 to 24 year olds place a lot more value on what random people a.k.a. not mainstream media not new sources are saying on tiktok and you know Instagram to a lesser extent than what they're seeing a mainstream media and that's a trend that is very much on their eyes it is not going to change so very much so like to your point that that younger audiences if that's who we're looking for they don't care at all what the New York Times has to say they care about like what the random person who lives down the street from the city has to say and that's where they're finding information in their news is from places like tiktok and I just think you know for your point I'm not sure if we can have it both ways yeah like if we either disbelieve the systems of sort of like media and whether or not they're advantageous for us but then are the first to sort of brag about a review when it happens I think that's a little bit disingenuous from our organizations who you know complain when times are bad and then rave when times are good it's either you want it or you don't right and I think that if we say that that kind of coverage is nice to have but we're building strategies whether it's content or sort of home property strategies that speak directly to our communities that don't wait for a third party to authenticate the value of our work that platform our artists that connect with the micro influencers all that's the bedrock and then you know what the New York Times says you can take it or leave it but I do think that like we're seeing that shift happening at least I'm seeing with my clients but I think it requires a greater sort of investment in some of those considerations I heard a lot about in 2020 I heard a lot about media bias I heard a lot about lack of access particularly for non-traditional shows and I just would like to see us follow that through underline underline yes yeah so earlier Tom mentioned the connection between marketing and programming and I want to dig into that a little bit more with you Brian one of the things I want to frame around this conversation though is that at Art New York we serve a lot of organizations where those people are not siloed because they're the same person correct that's very I've worked in that organization and many many people that I work with at Art New York I experienced that on a regular basis so so there isn't a silo but there might be a sort of like ingrained approach to thinking about them at different times and in different ways so I think that regardless of the size of the organization it is possible that we are siloing the type of work whether or not if they're siloed people you have a background as a creative producer in addition to your marketing expertise so I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the connection between the two how do you how do you think about those things as connected in your work yeah and I think Tom spoke about this a little bit earlier which is the reason why I got out of marketing in the first place which was it is tough man you know you I feel like particularly when I was a regional marketing director for a Lord Theatre company I remember being asked to back into a narrative of either relevancy or social justice for a show that was programmed you know a year and a half earlier that was not relevant to the community that we were approaching and then I was held accountable for those metrics right and I felt a real disconnect particularly because this was around 2016 I was living in Washington DC and I felt like the work that I was doing was only addressing this really critical moment in our political landscape but also that was very disconnected from real change right and so I personally recognize that if I wanted to make a difference in my work I needed to have my hands on the wheel and I think that aligned with an opportunity to join the public on the artistic staff to really dive more into what creative producing can be now since leaving I am a you know creative producer in my own right I support projects you know off-broadway commercially as well as internationally and I find that I'm most excited when I work with artist makers who also sit in that space right most of the artists that I'm really compelled to work with have been responsible for galvanizing their community and their audiences for years they find space by themselves they market by themselves they get on canva and create their own you know assets right we can't think of the artists in 2023 as just sitting on that side of the fence right what happens if there is no fence what happens if we're all doing the work together right so I think in much the same way as the marketers might be sidelined sometimes an institution the generative artists are also not at the table and I think that we all have to come together to make sure that there's a robust conversation around all the assets we have and how we can leverage those equally yeah so sometimes that might mean that your generative artists who has a following you know in Brooklyn they know how to reach those people they know that an email coming from them will matter 10 times more than an email coming from you they know what kind of content works best and they know that because they've been forced to do that for years right and so the more that we can sort of amplify the work that's already happening on the ground that is super useful I think that helps as a creative producer I also love to see artists who are you know my focus is on black brown queer trans BIPOC folks and the work that we do as I mentioned earlier fundamentally changes how and why we gather and I'm interested in those shows and in those experiences that are authentic irrelevant enough that we are actually doing something different right so I very rarely present in a proscenium I can't tell you the last time I did a proscenium show that's tough right because if I wanted to do a show on Broadway my options go from 42 theaters to two theaters all of a sudden I'm already thinking about commercial producing in a way that is not running through that particular like you know vein of a platform and I'm thinking more about how we activate folks where they are where the conversations are already happening where the communities are already gathering you know programming queer black art in the church programming Latina gatherings at a you know street festival like there are ways that we can actually think about the creative producing in a way that also sort of frontlines the marketing and maybe the last thing I'll add for the organizations that feel like that might be a little bit radical I've seen really wonderful arts leaders who exist in this liminal space of the art in the business I'll shout out Stephanie Ibarra who is a former artistic director at Baltimore Center stage who many of us know really really brilliant leader who was on a panel for us yesterday connecting the dots oh yeah also is now at the Melon Foundation and is super amazing there are ways in which as a creative producer I witnessed Stephanie and other leaders making really really smart shifts in the way that they program a season in order to accommodate for fluxes and say revenue or audiences or cash flow things like we assume that our first show in the fall has to be our big community number with 30 people does that have to be the case right can you program the really amazing two hander in the fall that normally common wisdom would say has to go in March do we save you know the largest set pieces for the spring where we know that our influx of subscription cash in March will actually offset the expenses so we're not sort of like leading with sunken cost in this season but moving forward right is there a way for us particularly now to encourage our boards to think about fiscal planning in in three-year cycles not just one right whether or not this one season is sort of like above or below the line is less important than whether we're making a case for the next three years and how we sort of like arc right that's happening in a lot of places that I find is super exciting the more that we can sort of shift our language and our assumptions around artistic producing in a way that can also address some of these ships I think it also helps us as marketers think about how we best meet our community so there are a lot of sort of like bright spots that I'm seeing in the world both as a creative producer and as a marketer but those experimentations I think are super key I mean it's all this panel is a dream because you're all just like connecting with each other in such great ways but you know it's kind of connected to what Fernando said earlier about like an inch wide a mile deep right you're like if you're programming with a community in mind and thinking about how you deeply and authentically engage with that community then you're already doing the work of the marketing if you've done it you know that that's the whole thing yeah yeah but I also think that like you know our communities are wise we know you're giving the example of working at the public earlier and I want to shout out Rich Denny who in many ways was like and you know Rich like was just like the sort of internal standard bearer of accessibility right and in many ways our organizations need those people right because it can't we can't hand off those relationships with community to the organization if we also don't have the folks who are actually advocating with any organizations and taking that on and that could be your accessibility advocate that could be people of color in positions of power we can actually reach out to communities with authenticity but we need to sort of incorporate that into our fibers so that we can do the best work Beth I want to ask you the next question because it's related to programming you have a really unique sort of vision on what it is to to what the what the type of programming and content might bring to your audience because you are selling tickets to a group of people but you're selling tickets from a variety of different organizations you're not picking the work but you are funneling through and so from your perspective I think I think this is a two-part question I think one it's like is there anything you think theater leaders should consider if they're thinking about programming work that might attract a deaf or hard of hearing audience and then anything else that that how that relates to a cell interpreter performances and and actually getting people to buy those tickets because I think you and I talked about the fact that it isn't just do it and people still have to want to come to see the show like what do you want people to know about that well and and listening to everybody on the panel too it's you know we're in we're in a strange situation where I don't have necessarily the ability to program you know I'm kind of at the wheel the will of the theaters that are asking us to help them with their programming so you know it's something that that we're grappling with right now because it's like how do we either include the community because I'm listening to everybody and I'm going like the deaf people or blind people any any person with a disability who's dependent on a service is is basically getting the service based on somebody else making the decision for them and not them and they don't have the luxury of saying I can open up the you know the paper and pick that show and go see that show so so we're kind of making these decisions which at this time is becoming incredibly uncomfortable you know from my perspective just going you know it's a whole power thing it's like I try to I try to kind of look at when a theater kind of asks us to do something to not look at it as my personal aesthetic but what I think the community is going to like but then you realize all the things that are being excluded from what the potential community would like because we're also dealing with limited resources in terms of the service providers in terms of interpreters in terms of advisors as well as as you know a finite number of audience members to come and see it so we're trying to figure out like how do we include the community how do we get people to you know and it's not a homogeneous community it's not like I go oh death community tell me what you want and that kind of answers the question it's not it it's made up of a lot of individuals who have a lot of individual you know perceptions about what they want so it's so you try to kind of look at things and give people a variety of choices but understanding I mean just listen everybody it's like you have to it's you're picking and choosing I'm making the decision I'm saying this is this is what we're offering and this is what you can go and see you can't go see that because it's not we're not picking that one we're picking this one so it's it's it's becoming a very not so much uncomfortable but but we're trying to figure out how do we make it more inclusive of the community I mean do we say okay here's the you know the 500 shows that are going on in New York pick what you want I mean it it just I don't think it works that way it's you know there's money involved there's budgets involved I mean there's other and like I said there's limited resources in terms of interpreters not everything can be interpreted it's just impossible so it has to be a pick and choose and so that the responsibility is is is becoming something that's not as comfortable as it used to be I guess when there were less offerings and so I don't have I don't have an answer to it I just know that it's it's something that we have to involve the community more about how they want you know we're getting into a point to in terms of representation where there's representation that are on stage that we don't necessarily have equal representation in terms of service providers that we're providing do you want to see that show do you not you know do you want to see a show with you know five Chinese actors up there if I can't find five if I can't find you know Chinese or Asian and American interpreters are white interpreters okay you know I mean and and I don't have the answer to that and I don't know from the community what they want you know in terms of who we are as interpreters or service providers versus what you want to see on stage so it's I don't know any of that answers your question but it's just becoming it's it's it's a question that we're asking and pondering and trying to figure out I mean I think what what it brings up for me is really the what you're saying which is like you were asking questions and I know you you and I have talked about how you have plans to actually ask your community those questions but but I think that's an interesting lesson that we can all think about right is like we have to ask the questions and we have to go to our communities that we're trying to serve and ask them those questions to understand if the thing that we're programming is actually going to meet the need fulfill the public good all of those things are we actually gonna do that or are we just sort of like putting it out there and saying they'll come yeah and that's not sacrilege either to say that we're interested in the conversations that are already happening on the ground and we're interested in using our platform as marketers and producers to amplify those conversations I think you said the same thing earlier which is like how can we actually break that silence and be conscious of who we're not asking because I think that when we're talking about you know the folks I gave that very long answer earlier about you know talking to our audiences and using our databases and all those kinds of things but but if we're asking the same people we've always had and we're not forming the partnerships that are going to expose us to other people you know we're not necessarily doing all of this with an attitude of intention around expansion yeah it's about it's about sort of continuing to talk to the same people over and over again one of the phrases that that came up for me when I was thinking and prepping for this panel that we've actually touched on without having to say it is meeting audiences where they are and we've everybody has given some response that speaks to that but I think the sort of core beginning of that is just knowing where they are you can't meet them there if you don't know where that is where that there is so one of the ways that folks are talking about accomplishing that is through new and flexible ticketing models like we're gonna get to the nuts and bolts of it for a second let's talk about that a little bit so Tom we chatted online a little bit about this but I read a blog post on your website was written by is it rainy or Ronnie Ronnie Ronnie Haywood wrote this blog post about flexible ticketing models and I wondered if you could share the highlights of that piece and tell us how you're working with organizations to respond to shifts in audience behavior just for context Ronnie Haywood is one of our VP's she's based in Sydney Australia where I will be in two days so whoo ready for the jet lag but anyway so but that piece the whole premise of that piece was really around some things we've been hitting on as we talked on the panel today around certainly pushing back against either or thinking and thinking you have to sort of choose between a false binary a false choice but it basically is all about the historical conversation we've had around marketing has been around you know is it a subscription theater is it a membership theater or is it just a single ticket kind of a model and what that whole piece was really about was was providing a framework and I don't have it as a visual here but providing a framework to think about all the different ways that you that that your decision to basically package up your offerings it says a lot about the structure of your season but it also says a lot about how accessible you are to the different buying preferences of your audiences and that you don't have to choose one you don't even have to choose to you just have to be able to very clearly communicate what your different options are so in that case it was you know framing it around something we do with organizations all the time particularly as I mentioned since we work beyond the theater we work with other art forms and we'll have folks who are saying well we are we offer if we want to move to a month the membership model but we have a really traditional fixed subscriber we don't want to alienate and the point we always make is you're not alienating that person that's what that person wants so let them continue having what they want and find ways to talk to these people who don't want that and offer them this new model maybe they want to use their shows later maybe they want to choose a different edit you know they want to give themselves some freedom over the course of the season there are different ways to give shape to that person's loyalty beyond just one offering that your theater or your organization has to choose from and so right now it's no secret to anybody that subscriptions over the past 15 20 years have been on a pretty steady decline and that the pandemic accelerated that there are theaters however that I will I'm here to tell you that I do have clients where the subscriber base is growing so I hate to be the skunk at the garden party but it is true but that's because that theater offer something that is predictable frankly to that audience and falls within a certain set of parameters that they feel comfortable subscribing to every year there are however going to be people within that audience who for whatever reason are never going to know their calendar they're never going to know their schedule but they still want to show loyalty to that theater are we going to say no to them because they don't want to buy everything and so that just the thesis of that piece was really just that we do not have to push ourselves into the false choice of saying if we choose this one thing we want to do a Lincoln Lincoln Center style membership not a roundabout style subscription you can do all of those things within your institution if you're clear about how you communicate those offerings and if you're clear about the value proposition of each of them and and be clear about the fact that you just don't have to you don't have to choose one or the other and that you have the you have that range of options all within one institution and that's not just for a huge you know giant bureaucratic arts institutions that's for small small theaters and small institutions as well that was what that piece was referring to thank you I'm pretty no we're going to talk about another ticketing model that you are all trying at ours Nova which is a name it I'm gonna say it right name your price initiative name your price what ours is yours I have a career can you tell us more about how that that model operates and how's it going for you yeah and that I want to say you transition beautifully into this cuz all intentional so the name your price ticketing initiative what ours is yours is something that we kicked off last season so last season was a 28th anniversary we were you know like a lot of other theater companies coming out of like we were in post-pandemic with I think we're still kind of in post-pandemic whatever we want to call this moment and we were you know asking ourselves what can we do to make theater more accessible to our audiences of course that is like the realm that you exist in and and you know we were specifically thinking okay well if we're taking like a tiered approach on making tickets accessible to audiences we already have this ticket subsidy initiative that kind of locks in the amount of money that we will charge for our world premieres are off probably shows what if we kind of juice that up a little bit and tried something that was in the spirit of pay what you can name your price I have to name you know working theater with their sliding scale model and mixed blood theater with their radical hospitality is a lot of the inspiration for this came from them but you know with a lot of support from our you know from the stakeholders inside of the organization of course the board has to buy in we said let's take a big swing and try something where all of our shows all season long are name your price there are some you know there's some really juicy data in there for the first year that we did name your price ticketing our average ticket price was about $19 and just to kind of give you logistically how that or give you a sense of how that like worked out we had a $5 ticket so you would have to pay at least $5 for a ticket with a few fees and then we would offer GA tickets in $5 increments so you could pay 5 you could pay 10 you could pay 15 didn't matter what you paid you would still get the same seat as someone that would pay $100 right and just to name one of like the challenges of name your price one of the challenges of creating a ticketing model like this is that CRM's and ticketing companies haven't yet caught up to creating like sliding scale ticketing initiatives so to your point Tom like yes it is very important that we are making the process as easy as possible and communicating it as effectively as possible you know we were this is my plea to you know ticketing companies like let's make it a little easier to make sliding scale and name your price ticketing because it's something I hope a lot of other institutions look for in the future we did something a little interesting where we have our you know world premiere off-broadway productions and then we also have we do like a presents like one nighter situation on 54th Street the one night shows 100% of the ticket revenue that we got from name your price went directly to the artists like no questions like there we get like the handful of fees attached to each ticket but the ticket revenue goes to to the artists period right of course like in any present situation there is like a guarantee in case you know five people show up in the each pay five bucks but what we found is that really incentivized audiences to like not pay the five dollars okay I'm gonna pay you know thirty five dollars because you know it's a 99 seat house this is my really good friend that's you know doing the show I want to support them financially aside from just you know attending their performance so education was a really big part of that you know there's a lot of messaging that we had to kind of do we're still what we did like a different kind of name your price this season for off-broadway shows for prey specifically where the bottom limit would go up ten dollars every week as an incentive to get people to come during previews again kind of fighting that how do we get people to not wait until the reviews come out to come see the show and data coming soon but it's looking really interesting so very excited to kind of report out that but in addition to that name your price ticketing initiative we also have a subscription model that's like a little different it's we have a platform called ours Nova Supra where you can digitally stream all of our one night shows alive and on demand we set it up a little differently it was of course you know digital theater was a big part of I think a lot of theatrical institutions like pandemic moment luckily for ours Nova was something that had been kind of in the works for a few years leading up to the pandemic so it was easy to kind of flip on but this season we're doing ours Nova Supra and we did it last season $15 a month like Netflix model it's not you know you can pay $15 $10 for a single ticket and 15 again to try to streamline to try to make sure that we are conveying ideas as you know easily as possible to consumers whatever goes in that email we want it to be less than like 10 words so that it like actually like lands to someone we're trying to make it really easy $15 and if you want to cancel your like subscription after you see your friend show you can but if you want to keep it then hey you get access to over 60 shows in our library and we've been seeing a lot of success in that so talk about like a theater company that's seeing success in the subscription I mean I know it is a subscription born out of the pandemic and is more of like a digital focus but you know it's in not not not significant we've got like 120 super subscribers that are paying $15 a month for a small institution like ours Nova that makes a pretty big difference and you know we're still kind of in our test kitchen phase where this is you know the start and just to say a great part about ours Nova Supra as well is the accessibility like possibilities there you know we've had ASL interpreted performance is by pro bono ASL I remembered it as soon as I was like wait that's it was pro bono ASL has done a lot of interpreted performances for us and we've found a way to you know make sure that we have an interpreter in the bottom corner of the screen for Supra so that you know individuals can you know experience the show that way we're working on captioning services that can help make you know our one night performance is more accessible so I know that was along that kind of answered your question and it went back to what Tom was saying but name the price ticketing trying to make tickets as accessible as possible we're seeing that like butts are coming are being sat in seats because tickets are more accessible who would have thought they're really comfortable seats yes they're very comfortable seats so like we're checking the box of that we're still learning more about what the revenue implications are although especially this season since we implemented this like price goes up $10 every week we've you know I'm going to a board meeting right after this where we're going to report on like our findings and it's very exciting but in addition to that name your price ticketing this like ours Nova Supra membership model especially in like a digital lens is it's like working you know it's worse again very early phase but we're in like a really exciting moment where yes we can contain multitudes we can do the subscription thing and we can also offer like an accessible you know in person ticketing moment that someone could like engage with in a positive way so great so as we're nearing the end of our time together a couple of so soon so soon right not yet not yet but we're just getting there we're easing our way toward a conclusion I want to offer you an opportunity to you know we all may wear many hats professionally but also personally our whole humans with lives that aren't just about marketing and selling tickets right so I wonder if anybody wants to share something about either a personal artistic practice of yours another type of practice that isn't about the arts at all something else about your life and that maybe influences how you think about marketing is there something else that you're like oh I actually bring this to the table you're you're smiling because I have one I know you do I'm just a happy person I know you want to start I'll start I mean what the hell I mean my personal creative practice is that I'm a musician and I write poetry but that's not what I'm going to talk about what I'm going to talk about is that I mentioned in the beginning you know coming back to kind of like the you know what impacts like the way we do this work the way we think about this work I mentioned in the beginning that I studied social work and I did that while I was in the middle of my while I was in the middle of my consulting career after I long ago was the head of marketing around about that theater club I worked at a few other theaters but I trained in social work as kind of a mid-career diversion that I now fold into the work that I do now and and it is changed my world view considerably but one of the things that I reflect on often in my work that I that I really try to make part of my practice is I think about our place in all of this amount and I say our I mean the large expanse of the arts and culture world is you know when I was studying clinic clinical social work so I was sitting with clients you know talking providing therapy and counseling services and as a function of that I would I would get to learn their lives and I would ask them about that's not like what kind of arts and culture exposure do you have in your life and I heard about a couple I heard consistently about one thing going to see their kids their kids school like going to see their kids plays at school but but every once in a while I would hear I go to see the the Metropolitan Opera and HD and I and it really made me sort of it I have to stop and remember those folks in every time I'm doing this work to work with a cultural institution or an arts institution to think about this the relevance we're always talking about and how we can make ourselves essential and how we can make ourselves relevant for a lot of these folks you know getting to see a work at a theater is unfortunately a once in a lifetime maybe once every couple years it's a kind of a special occasion kind of a thing I guess what I'm what I'm really coming on to is that like my the practice that I have is to remember not to art shame somebody's way into this business not to sort of shame somebody's access point that made them feel like they had an opening to come and experience and that that is usually going to be something that's a little more mainstream it's usually going to be something that's a little more mass market I'm just glad they went to that thing because that means they might go to one other thing and so I think anybody's success is all of our success because it gives us an opportunity and it's it's really been for me it's changed the way that I look at the way that quote unquote competition and I hate that word for our field but how that works for all of us because we are all we all are thinking whether you are a one person operation or a 500 person arts institution we all rise and fall together and so anyway that that's that's sort of what I thought about it in response to that thank you thing I reflect on a lot is theater can feel like this very insular community because it is and I always kind of orient myself that even though I'm a theater marketer that there's a whole other marketing world and our average audience member is exposed to that and they don't think of us there's not like the the breakdown of well I'm I'm experiencing this not-for-profit theater so I have different expectations for them versus like when I'm on Amazon like that's not how it works people just want the experience that they have and they don't think of it they don't like give you an excuse because you are not a profit theater and I think about that all the time to kind of guide me that like we we can't just be thinking about each other we really need to be thinking about like what is the audience member experiencing big picture and how can we align what we're doing with those expectations because they're not making allowances for us so I kind of always keep that in mind I guess I'm so I have a physical disability and I think as as I'm either getting older or my disability is getting more kind of prominent it is the experience and I I reflect a lot on like my experience and my experience because I go to a lot of theater and how I'm treated and and I I think that you know every time I go to a Schubert house that doesn't have a bathroom on the level and that I have to stop drinking at noon it pisses me off to like no and it changes my experience of that show like like in such a in such a huge way that that it changes my whole day and it changes what what the theater experience is and it kind of it it marrs it and it you know it doesn't always ruin it but it it impacts me on the day of the day at the day after and it's it's just becomes such a a point of what the experience is like and you know having the having that personal experience of what it's like it's going to be different for everybody but it's so you know it's it's so has kind of changed you know my perception of the experience and like I just keep going back to that word because I think that it's such an important word in what we do in what we do with the audience that we say in in whatever context whether it's disability or not disability but it's it's that experience and it it's kind of changed my you know whether it's changed my my experience with other audiences of the same it's it's that shared experience it's that you know kind of being with people like me or being not with people like me has really kind of impacted you know my my personal experience of how I identify myself how I how I portray myself how I talk about myself which I think has kind of helped me work with actually a community that I'm not like so you know being a hearing person working with deaf people who have kind of embraced me and kind of accepted me after you know 40-something years of working in the field but I know I'm different and I know I will never have the experience of being a deaf person so it's always had you know that that's always kind of made me feel like an outsider in what I do but having my own experience has really kind of energized me and empowered me to be able to kind of speak my truth in those kind of situations so that resonates so hard with me I have seen like I couldn't even tell you how many shows I've seen hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and I like I there's some I legitimately don't even remember like years later I'm like I don't remember seeing that but I can still recall I saw The Inheritance in early 2020 it's a six and a half seven hour show something like that and I still vividly can remember that experience I was seven and a half months pregnant and those very very kind ushers were like whatever bathroom you need like move seats whatever because I took the bathroom for like five seconds I was seven and a half months pregnant and I vividly remember that theatrical experience even though I've seen hundreds of plays because it was such a good experience in the theater and I think about that a lot like how can we make it the best possible experience for our audiences and there are things like that you know kind ushers is obviously one of them but also you know when somebody has bought a ticket a return ticket that's not their first time with us can we have that like when they we scan our tickets can that light up which there is technology that can do this that the that whoever's scanning tickets can say like welcome back or can we leave something at their seats can we use AI to kind of help this along like there are definitely lots of opportunities to really enhance that experience in person and after you know sending a follow-up email serving content after that is really going to help people become really loyal repeat fans and to say like we can look at neighboring industries you're so right Ali and I say this all the time I think we can all agree that a lot of our industry's practices at times can be antiquated or there's there's a lot that we can learn from looking at like companies like Disney that are like you know masterclass experienced marketers and and so on which do a lot of that and I know Tessitura has some cool stuff I remember the last conference I went to there they were kind of talking about this stuff so but to your point especially Beth of like of being kind of curators of experience as marketers I'm I tell this like story that you know to my students at Baruch that like you know oftentimes as arts marketers we don't see ourselves as artists right I know a lot of arts marketers are like I'm the marketing person I'm not I'm not the you know I'm not making the art but I I challenge that um and say you know uh when when you are inside of a theatrical space there are kind of two shows going on there's the show that is happening on a stage and a curtain comes up and there are actors in that performance and there you know someone costumed them and there's a casting director that helped to support it and then the curtain comes down and that show ends right but at the same time there's another show happening and that show is the actors of the audience right it is the performance of coming into a space of of sitting down of having that conversation with the person next to you and uh and then you're watching the show um and that show never ends that show does not have a curtain you walk out of that theater space you have a moment with the person you went with or maybe you like get into a cab and think about that show and that show lasts as long as you can hold on to the memory of your experience in that piece and as marketing directors we are the casting directors of that show we we cast that show it is our job to make sure that we're communicating to our audiences and welcoming folks into our space it's also our job in partnership with the rest of the team of the organization to make sure that the you know that the actors are cared for we are also company managers right so um I I totally agree with you Beth I think every time that I'm putting together a marketing campaign it's there's always a strong consideration of like what is the audience experience going to look like because you know I'll say it for for the last time they are going to be the marketers for you I mean um they are if they have a positive experience then they're going to go tell a bunch of people go see the inheritance because you know it's it's long but I had a really great time you know word of mouth is so much more valuable than basically anything it's like 12 times more valuable than what you say about yourself yeah um and what tools can we give our audiences to help that conversation like can the number of shows that I've seen versus the number of post-show emails I've received is really not fortunate at all and it's it's very sad to me I'm the kind of person maybe this is just me but when I see something that I'm interested or that I loved I want to like go and google it and look up everything about it after and though like the context and the history and behind the scenes and all that and can we just hand that to people can we send a post-show email with our blog post which I hope all of you have a blog and are updating it great for SEO um can we just give that to people and send them an email can we do behind the scenes peaks like go grab an iphone and like take some pictures when you're teching can you do if you have some sort of like cool thing happening on stage can you just like snap a video of that and send that to people do you have a podcast right I really want to subscribe I don't know why this feels so radical to me but I'm like I'm like oh yes all of those things except I always think about them as pre-show or pre-show too yeah but I but it's so interesting because I actually think it's more valuable as I'm hearing you talk about I'm hearing it as more valuable after the show as a tool for you to say oh now I have seen it now I want to know more and now I forward that email to somebody else you know like that's so it seems so simple and yet I've not but he's doing it yeah I know and we should have we should have these things ready because I hope that we have a blog I hope that we are making content for social that's showing off you know behind the scenes and all that so it should be as easy as like putting together a triggered email and sending it it should cost nothing ideally but nobody is doing it and it blows my mind do it I want this it can happen for me I do kind of a podcast CI capacity has a a podcast that I'm on very frequently it's called CI die if you want to look it up very good thank you oh there was a question about other hats right yeah I can I can step into that one so in addition to my consulting company center arts I also recently launched a non-profit based in New York in Mexico City it's an international arts exchange program called the urban X urban X org for anyone who's there listening but we're specifically focused on connecting black and brown creatives through the lens of urban culture so it's all about how we dialogue as people with the cities and the structures around us and particularly using art as a vehicle for that kind of civic change and it's our pilot year and it's super exciting so in May we brought six New York based artists in Mexico City for a series of micro-residencies and then the boomerang just flew in the opposite direction this September we brought a group of Mexican artists to New York and one of the things that's really top of mind for me leading an international company now is language justice what it means to actually have artists and creators but also audiences speak and be heard in their language of dominance you know I'm blessed that everyone who's a part of our organization has some familiarity or fluency in both English and Spanish so we speak English Spanish Spanglish we self translate you know we'll overdub ourselves by repeating ourselves in both languages we've had language justice in terms of translators who are able to either translate openly in a different language for the rest of the audience or to be one-on-one sort of intimate translators right and I think that what I would love to see particularly in this conversation of audience development in arts marketing is a full embrace of accessibility in terms of language particularly in the city like New York particularly in a city that is not only 70% BIPOC but a full like 25 to 30% Latine or Hispanic there's a robust particularly like Spanish theater contingent here so shout out to all the Spanish language theaters who sometimes may or may not find themselves like from ironman spaces like this so when you think about like Pregonis, PRTT, Teatro Lette, like all the different organizations that make up a very long-standing cultural history within this city I would love to see more conversation focused on how we platform and share out that great work and not just think of it as you know separated to the side or only for Spanish speaking audiences I'll tell you that one of the blessings of my work as a curator who works in both spaces is like seeing an artist have their mind blown by watching something else whether or not they understand the language right and so like bringing New York based artists in Mexico City and having them just literally like their their brains melt watching performance art in Mexico and seeing the same thing with Mexican artists like we brought a Mexican artist to go see pray when we went a couple weeks ago and you know regardless of whether or not you're following every word you get the experience and so let's believe that our work can transcend those boundaries but also let's think about different ways to meet folks in their languages of dominant anybody else want to talk about any hats any additional hats that influence your your work I don't know I was literally I was thinking about it I was like what do I do that's not theater well it could be some other other aspect of theater I well that's that was part of where I was like you know my answer was I mean I love rock climbing so I guess rock climbing is a very it's a indoor rock climbing is a lot of problem solving and that's something that I really think is interesting and intersectional with kind of my work as a marketing director I feel like especially at a small institution there's always a problem to be solved yeah especially at a place like ours nova that takes really big swings really big like like let's let's pivot because it is the best move for the artists and for the people inside of the institution I don't know I don't I don't I don't think I have a good answer except for that you know sometimes we're we're we're making big swings and we're trying new things which is exciting and having to think I truly and I have to imagine that a lot of people in different industries say this but I I truly believe it that the individuals that I collaborate with in my institution and another are like the smartest people in the world like I because you're you know you're applying your passion into something and you uh we are constantly trying to make this industry better like I I see that I see an active effort from everyone that I've ever collaborated with but they're actively trying to make this industry better more fair more make more sense to more people you know um or make more sense to that you know mile-wide uh mild deep folks but uh yeah that's uh I'll stop before I say I have an offer as your friend yeah talk about the experience you had at Baruch when you invited your twin brother to come and speak oh my gosh yeah Emily helps up I have a I have an identical twin brother who works in uh ticketing and marketing for the for the Miami Dolphins and for the what's that's what's what's this one? Dennis? Oh my gosh, Argy, are you watching? Argy, our sports ball yeah that one this is with the stereotype of of Argy it was really fascinating it was really wonderful and I I love getting to have conversations with it because again like sports a neighboring industry to like especially the performing arts you are you know ushering people into a space and they're experiencing something collectively and they walk away with something or or leave with with something and it was really really fascinating and the students loved it I have to tell you Emily they loved it um because they got to hear a perspective from someone that is in an ancillary field sports are also you know dealing with very similar problems than we are on different scales of course and they have different tools at their disposal but it was great and shout out to Freddie who is with the Miami Open it is a tennis tournament I get a star for remembering that's incredible well okay one final question just to just to close this out I'm wondering if you would you like to share something that you are optimistic about in our field something that you're looking forward to um what makes you feel optimistic I'm excited to see what happens with AI scare I mean it scares me on some level like I'm deeply terrified of AMI has more tech so like definitely see the downsides but I also think there's a lot of upside especially in our industry I kind of always remind myself like I work predominantly with like Meta and Google which there are lots and lots of downsides to those companies but I always remind myself that like I am pushing out campaigns about theater which is good and I'm like using these tools for good that's like how I justify it in my head that I don't like get really depressed so similarly I like there's obviously lots and lots of downsides but I'm also excited to see how we can use the tools for good to help with making our theater and building up our audiences and all that are we going down look if you'd like yeah sure what am I looking forward to what am I optimistic about I am optimistic about the numbers of companies and organizations who are interested in building their relevance for their communities right and so whether that's civically based or community based programming whether that's building like a system and structure within your organization to do the work more often authentically I think that there is a real sea change that we're thinking of marketing and of audience development not as the last piece of the puzzle but as a core design element to the work right that us marketers and us builders of community have a seat at that table and so the more I collaborate with folks around the country and around the world the more excited I am about that thanks I'm optimistic about I'm optimistic about a lot of things shockingly I am you know as I mentioned we do a lot of things we do marketing work we do strategic planning work we do search work all those kinds of things and in all of that work I feel like I get to like harvest people's enthusiasm to be in this field and to really sort of you know fuel myself on it and I see that you know there is a lot of press out there about where things are in our field and where there's a lot and there's a lot of struggle in the field that we don't need to tell you all that but you know it wouldn't be we wouldn't be doing it if we weren't working towards something and we wouldn't be sort of you know going we certain none of us do this for the money you know it's really about sort of what we're working toward for our communities for the world and I get really enthused and excited by the people that continue to want to be a part of that you know I talk to people all the time who are looking to who are seeing this field in this in the period of strain that it's in and want to come help and they work in other places and could be making a lot more money but they want to come help and they want to come do this so that gives me a lot of hope and optimism for our field and we need them and I also want to make sure the people get compensated appropriately for the work that they do but yeah I think it's the people including you all just kind of figure back on that I am optimistic as an incredibly small organization and kind of single run for many years I'm I'm optimistic and pleased about the inclusion of new people to keep us going beyond me and that kind of it's it's so nice after working so much alone with ancillary people but having kind of partnership and having people to work with is so much more fun and and less stressful and I'm so enjoying it and so that I'm optimistic about the future I'm optimistic about the kind of access of it all like I'm optimistic that like there's there are more conversations happening about inclusion on like an accessibility initiative like in regards to like deaf and hard of hearing communities and access also as it relates to like culturally specific communities that have historically felt unwelcomed in theatrical spaces and in artistic spaces access as it relates to language I'm so glad you brought that up because I'm seeing and noticing this like programming trend in in kind of artistic departments playing with programming something in a different language but to your point not enough for it to just be programming what would it look like if marketing you know marketing needs to follow suit right or we need to we need to play ball as well so I think there's like an expansion in the way that in the way that access is happening in our industry that I I see that going in a really positive trend and I hope I feel a lot of pressure because I'm the last one on the end but that's yes I just want to say I don't I don't always have to have the last word for the record but I do want to say like like I'm really glad we're all here I'm really glad what gives me optimism is that we are all here together and I don't mean these five people although I love all these people but I mean all of us in this room and in the sort of greater landscape of the work that we all do because every single thing we've talked about today is stuff that we can't solve as one institution or one company or one whatever and it feels like the the invitation I guess in this moment is to I talked about it before partnership and through the lens of like expense reduction which is an incredibly crass way to talk about it but I do think that's kind of that is going to create so much opportunity if we if we stop if we get over this idea of competition and we get get into the idea of exactly what art in New York does and exactly the service organizations exist to do which is you provide a foundation for us all to do the work we need to do without all having to duplicate each other's work to sort of do the the unsexy part let's just say it that way and so that that makes me really excited and coming out of this conversation something that's going to stick with me is that you know we we have an opportunity but only when we because none of these are none of our organizations have let's just date that but like we have we have an opportunity when we all do it together so I have to say that all of your sponsors are heartwarming and I'm like yeah big scary tack okay you're talking about AI wrote everything she said today I said I wanted to assemble a panelist a panel of diverse perspectives that's what we have and I really appreciate it and I really appreciate all of you thank you for being here thank you all for being here thank you all for watching online and have a great rest of your day thank you so much