June 24, 2008

The Metropolitan Opera Fills House with Sanskrit Lovers

Summary: The Metropolitan Opera sold out performances of Philip Glass' Satyagraha this spring despite the fact that the libretto is in Sanskrit and season ticket subscribers opted-out of this obscure opera. They ended-up selling a large number of individual tickets by creating a series of marketing initiatives "designed to attract specialized audiences. New-age magazines, yoga groups, anti-apartheid organizations, India groups, South African organizations, et al." These audiences, it was determined correctly, would be attracted to the theme of non-violent resistance and the life of Mohandas Gandhi. These ticket buyers were definitely not traditional opera fans.

One of the important and often overlooked ways of selling tickets to dance performances is by connecting the content and themes of a dance work with the interests of the audience. The beauty of this approach is that it can be used to promote performances to audiences with a lot, a little or no connection or understanding of dance whatsoever.

This content-specific approach underlies my recent series of posts on how dancers and dance companies can develop a vertical marketing strategy (Post 1, Post 2, Post 3 and Post 4).

In the introductory post to this series, I wrote about the interdisciplinary explorations of choreographer Karole Armitage and how the themes of her work would resonate with non-dance audiences:

Consider the Armitage Gone! Dance program at the Guggenheim Museum this past weekend. Here was a wonderful program where Karole Armitage choreographed a series of dance sketches that were inspired very directly by Brian Greene's popular book "The Elegant Universe." Armitage briefly introduced each new section of the program and Greene offered the most concise explanation imaginable of the guiding principles of theoretical physics. The simple fact that Armitage is exploring quantum mechanics, the curvature of space time and string theory means that there is a new gateway through which non-dance audiences with an interest in physics can connect to her work.

A Turn-Around at The Metropolitan Opera

Ben Rosen, a board member of The Metropolitan Opera, wrote an excellent post earlier this month about the turn-around at the Met. [Via Sequenza21/]

In very clear and specific terms, he describes how the Met recovered from its financial woes after the glory days of full houses in the '90s which were followed by financial troubles on all fronts:

But in the last six years, everything's gone awry. Attendance has declined sharply. Costs have risen every year. Philanthropic contributions have flattened out. The endowment is woefully inadequate. Competition for the cultural dollar is soaring. There are signs of organizational complacency. And even though your audience is disappearing, you have no marketing organization in place to try to offset the decline.

Then the turnaround started to happen under the direction of Peter Gelb. The new gameplan consisted of three major initiatives:

(1) improve the product, (2) create a major marketing effort, and (3) add new sources of revenues and audience development.

My favorite story deals with the new marketing strategy of the Met for selling tickets to Philip Glass' opera Satyagraha. I'm going to quote from Rosen at length because I think this is an excellent example of how the themes of an opera can be embraced in order to reach non-traditional opera audiences:

An example from the past season, the marketing of Satyagraha, illustrates how inspired marketing can work. Philip Glass's work is, for many, an acquired taste. If you add to that hurdle the fact that the Satyagraha libretto is written entirely in Sanskrit and that Met Titles are not used during the performance, it provides a marketing challenge of the highest level.

As the 2007-08 season began, here's what happened: Seven performances of Satyagraha was scheduled for the spring of 2008. Many subscribers who found Satyagraha included in their series decided to opt out of the Glass opera -- they traded in their seats for other operas. And single-ticker buyers turned out to be equally cool to the prospect of watching a Sanskrit work. Normally, as a season progresses, single-ticket sales start out filling up the house. But a funny thing happened in this case. The forecasted box office of Satyagraha started declining, and at an alarming rate. The more time that passed, the worse the box office ahead looked. If this continued, there was a chance the opera would play to near-empty houses.

So a marketing task force was put together. For a modest budget, aided by contributions from a board member, the team was able to create dozens of different marketing initiatives designed to attract specialized audiences. New-age magazines yoga groups, anti-apartheid organizations, India groups, South African organizations, et al.

It worked. By the end of its run, Satyagraha had sold out its run. (By the way, it was a terrific production. I like to quip that Satyagraha is now my favorite Sanskrit opera.) Next year, the same team will have an opportunity to apply its narrow-focus marketing techniques to selling the John Adams opera, Doctor Atomic -- a contemporary work about the creation of the atomic bomb.

According to Rosen, "The Battleship Has Turned on all fronts." Ticket sales are improving strongly, sell-outs are increasing rapidly and subscriptions are growing.

I encourage everybody to read Rosen's post. It's an excellent case study that documents the specifics of the Mets turn-around.

Reaching Non-Traditional Dance Audiences

Will this content-specific approach to marketing prove effective in cultivating new dance audiences? I think it will. I'd be very interested in hearing from dancers, dance companies and presenters who have embraced this marketing strategy.

Trackback Pings