Happy New Year! I have so many exciting things coming up in 2022 that I can’t wait to share with you. Today, I had the pleasure of shadowing Shannon Sullivan (Director of Client Services) and reconnecting with Ray Solley. After eating sandwiches with my mom, I headed over to the Tower office building to meet with Shannon. Her position was recently created in September, and she is taking on the whole job by herself! While other staff members have a team of one or two other people, Shannon gets to create her position by herself, which is amazing! She has been a part of the Tower staff for 15 years and is an expert at what she does. Her job is to create strong relationships with potential future partners. She finds these connections from word-of-mouth or event announcements around the community. She has also started reaching out to organizations that individual staff members support. The staff members represent what the Tower is all about, so what better way to create connections than to reach out to trusted organizations! Shannon does a lot of meetings (specifically coffee meetings, which she enjoys) with potential partners and learns about who they are. For example, a filmmaker in the Bend community recently made a film on MIA soldiers. In the film, professionals would search for these soldiers in the hopes of helping them and learning where they went. The Tower has offered to do showings of this film as a result of strong relationship building! One aspect of the Tower that consistently impresses me is their approach with their partners, They don’t see it as a business deal, they see it as a way to benefit each other and the community. The Tower takes on a crucial leadership role in bringing our community together.
Shannon also reaches out to new people in our growing community to discover what events they would like to see at the Tower. She does this by looking at statistics that show who lives in our community. These statistics display age ranges, ethnicities, languages spoken, and more! This information helps Shannon make sure that everyone in Bend is welcomed and represented at the Tower.
After meeting with Shannon, I reconnected with Ray. Before winter break, he gave me two theatre management books to read. I read them, took notes, and wrote summaries. Here are the summaries for the two books below, called “Taking Out the Guesswork” and “The Technical Production Handbook”:
Taking Out the Guesswork
A Guide to Using Research to Build Arts Audiences
Book by Bob Harlow
Summary by Tia Wisco
Bob Harlow’s Taking Out the Guesswork discuss the importance of forming strong relationships with audiences. It’s crucial to know how to build these relationships despite various constraints (i.e. money, time, and skills). This guidebook proposes 3 main steps to understanding an audience: 1) learning about potential audiences, 2) creating more effective promotional materials, 3) tracking and assessing progress toward audience-building goals. The first step encourages organizations to discover the lifestyles, art preferences, and cultures of their audience, The second proposes examinations of how audiences react to marketing tactics (i.e. websites, brochures, newspaper ads). Lastly, the third step explains the importance of analyzing this data. Figure out who was coming and why they were coming to see a show.
The book provides displays on how research can lead to better audience-building results and guidelines for organizations that want to manage their audiences. Even though audience-building proposes exploring uncharted territories, there is strategically designed audience research that can help.
To break this process down even further, the guidebook is broken down into four sections. The topics in each section aid to the descriptions of the three-step audience outreach system stated above. These four sections are 1) research objectives, 2) research plan, 3) results, and 4) acting on results. The sections are quite self-explanatory and aid in describing the research process.
To learn about a potential audience, using qualitative research is the best way to understand audience perspectives. While quantitative data research tools (ex. surveys) provide objective information qualitative data captures subjective perspectives of a specific group. Quantitative research asks “how well”, “who”, and “what” questions while qualitative data asks “why” questions. It also helps companies discover flaws in their promotions and shows. One of the best strategies for collecting qualitative data is to hold focus groups. A focus group is a moderated discussion where participants identify concerns, interests, and habits that the members share. Understanding shared opinions within an audience helps theatres produce shows that are of interest. However, it is important to note that focus groups will not come up with specific ideas for an organization; it is up to the staff to decide how they will use the information that they have collected.
Using the new data collected, organizations can create new promotional tools to target new audiences. This can be seen in changes of websites, new photos, edited newspaper ads, etc. Even though criticism from this data can be difficult to hear, it only drives organizations closer to success. For example, when Seattle’s Pacific Northwest Ballet held a focus group, some of the younger members of the group expressed their disinterest in the company. Since the company was labeled “ballet”, they assumed that it was a boring and stuffy organization. This information helped the organization realize that they needed to market towards youth more.
You never know what aspects will/will not attract audiences. Whenever a company makes a new decision, they are walking into uncertainty. After creating new promotional materials, surveys are a creat research tool to narrow down what tactics are working, and which ones are not. Surveys are an example of qualitative research and help organizations discover the success or failure of their ideas.
This kind of research is a team effort! All staff members in a theatre need to understand what of working and what is not. Linda Garrison, former director of marketing for Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company said it perfectly when she stated, “Marketing is the task leader, but artistic team members are full-blown participants.” (Harlow 2015)
The Technical Production Handbook
A Guide for Performing Arts Presenting Organizations and Touring Companies
Book by M. Kay Barrell
Summary by Tia Wisco
M. Kay Barell wrote The Technical Production Handbook in 1976 and it was edited later in 1991. While most of the information is out of date in 2022, there is still great value in understanding the past. Unlike Taking Out the Guesswork, this handbook stresses the basics of technical production. All of the information emphasizes dance performers because, at the time, dance was the most popular performing art on tour. However, this is not accurate today. There are three groups that the handbook identifies: the company, presenter, and performer. The company is the group on tour, the presenter provides the venue and equipment, and the performers are the artists onstage (dancers, actors, singers, etc). The handbook first stresses the importance of communication between the three groups. A lack of communication can cause a performance to fall apart! There are four main ways that companies and presenters relay information: a company technical rider, company technical questionnaire, presenter technical information packet, and a one-page facility/technical information sheet. These tools communicate contacts, specific factors of a stage, seating arrangements, dressing rooms, hotels, and more! When communicating in this setting, it is also crucial to understand idiosyncrasies (unique factors of a space), is the space is well maintained, and if all paperwork has been completed. From there, the handbook further discusses the technical aspects of a theatre, including rigging, lighting, sounds, instruments, flooring, and more. It also dives deep into the type of crew positions needed to perform!
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After discussing my summaries, Ray and I talked about what audiences have liked and disliked about the Tower. The biggest idea was that audiences did not like watching big names perform songs from “the great American songbook". However, they did like watching members of their community perform broadway shows or concerts. People want to see shows that they can connect with, and having community members perform is one of the best ways to do that. They also enjoyed watching older songs performed with a twist. For example, an acapella group did a performance tribute by singing older songs acapella. Not only did these songs give the audience sweet nostalgia, but they were also performed with a fresh twist.
The pandemic has affected the Tower in more ways than they imagined. ForIn order for the Tower to stay alive, they need audiences to come to see shows. They need audiences to tell their friends and family about what they saw to encourage the word-of-mouth advertising technique. However, when audiences can’t come to see shows, none of this is possible. With the new COVID variant, the Tower has to find new creative ways to keep its audiences safe. With the amazing team that the theatre has, I don’t doubt that they will continue to bring happiness and unity to our community while also staying safe.
During the first week of February, I will be in The Wizard of Oz at the Tower Theatre! I am planning on getting to the Tower early to help out with an internship perspective, and then when Thoroughly Modern Productions (the performing company that I am most frequently involved in) takes over the building I will transition into a performer perspective. TMP is doing a “Meet the Cast” promotion on Facebook where principal cast members are posted about with a headshot and bio. My post was recently put up and the Tower shared it! I was pretty starstruck and it made my day. Here is the post below:
I am really looking forward to continuing my Tower visits. New blog entry coming next week!
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