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The View From Where We Work
Photo
Credit: Bozeman Chamber of Commerce
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Greetings
from ArtsMarket
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 Welcome
to the August ArtsMarket
newsletter. This month we
welcome some exciting new clients and
projects including the launch of a
cultural plan for Asbury Park, NJ and a
fascinating national direct marketing
initiative for the Trudeau
Institute. The Asbury Park plan
for Bruce Springsteen's home town
(he's a quiet but active arts supporter
there) has the benefit of tremendous
local artist involvement and a focus on
downtown development. The Trudeau
Institute, in Saranac Lake, NY,
is the leading independent research
institute in the United States
conducting research into understanding
the functions of the body's immune
system and learning how to strengthen
these functions to fight tuberculosis,
cancer, AIDS-related infections, and
other life-threatening infectious
diseases.
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A
String of Pearls: Making Cultural
Districts Work
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This
is the title of a major
presentation that Artsmarket President
Louise Stevens is delivering to the
International Downtown Association
conference in Denver early next month.
It is a topic of research that has been
a major focus of ArtsMarket's work the
past several years. What does it
take to make a great cultural
district? What differentiates
those that are vibrant from those that
don't quite make it? Here are a
couple of critical elements.
Keep it Manageable, Make it Dense.
Let's
say your community has a museum at one
end of a potential district, and a
couple of antique stores at the other
end, and you've got some pressure from
City Hall to link it all into one big
arts district. Should you do
it? Not if the district is going
to stretch on for more than 14 blocks,
and not unless each of those blocks
has a "pearl" of a
destination. Recently, we did a
size inventory of cultural districts
around the United States. When
districts get too large and too
diverse, it is better to let them
split off into smaller themed
districts than to try and lump
everything together. It is also
a better strategy to focus on a few
blocks at a time, making sure that
they are as dense as possible.
Create incentives and marketing that
will pack one or two blocks next to
the museum with arts retail and
restaurants. Let the antique
area at the other end of the street
become the hub of an antiques
district.
Keep
it Authentic
The
developer-led movement toward
"town centre"
so-called cultural districts that
are oriented toward upscale chain
restaurants and shops shows no sign
of slowing. They may be
entertaining, but they aren't
cultural. Culture is
authentic: historic, local, personal
and quirky. Good cultural
districts are full of everything
real and local. That makes
them by nature smaller and
unique. Find the reason behind
each cultural district, then play on
that theme. It may be 18th
and Vine in Kansas City, or Main
Street, Bozeman.
Pearls,
not just Anchors.
Lots
of cultural districts are anchor
focused: a performing arts center, a
museum. Those that don't fully
live up to their potential rely too
much on those anchors, and don't
plan the pearls that link
experiences together from block to
block. If arts-related
enterprises aren't there as pearls,
communities either need to create
incentives to move those enterprises
in, or find other pearls, such as
public art and gathering places, to
create the cultural links.
These
are just a few of the key
elements. Stay tuned next month
for more.
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This
month we salute the Midland (MI)
Center for the Arts. MCFTA is possibly
unique: one center that encompasses a
major museum, heritage center,
symphony orchestra, community theater,
presenters/festival, education
programs, choral music, and
more. All are independently
managed. All these groups came
together earlier this summer to engage
ArtsMarket in research of the current
and potential audience. In
itself, this joint analysis of
audiences and prospects is
special. What is most exciting,
however, is how all the managers have
embraced the work.
Demonstrating
their commitment to audience
development, each group - and  the
Center as a whole - re-engaged us
after the research was completed to
continue with marketing planning for
each entity and the Center. During
intense work over the past six weeks
each organization has shaped
research-based marketing plans.
Most recently, we worked to address
the systems and structure issues that
need to be focused and tweaked for
market success. Each group has
looked at a wide range of synergies
and cross-promotional
opportunities. Everything from
database coding to ad placement,
discounts on multi-group ticket offers
to new educational programs and
performing arts series have been
detailed.
What
is exciting for us is to see how
the multiple organizations have
worked together to transform their
culture through this work.
Moving completely away from a prior
culture of silo-style individual
organizations, they've now become a
team focused on building audiences and
connecting to their regional
market. They've become
entrepreneurial and able to make quick
decisions. They're becoming
research-responsive on a weekly
basis.
In research we've done over the years
regarding marketing success, we have
repeatedly found that infrastructure
and culture are critical to
success. Organizations need to
be oriented and focused on audience
development every day, top to bottom,
everyone acting as a team.
We say this often, but it doesn't
happen that often in practice.
Here, it has. Curators,
conductors, theatrical directors,
accountants, board members, managers,
back stage crew – all have become
partners in this venture.
They've worked with us differently
than most clients, as well, calling on
us to stick with them as they become
tuned in to daily audience
development, working with them through
the systems and structure, culture and
content issues, to ensure
organization-wide success week by week
and month after month. That
means working with the box office to
create new research data reports and
new codes for prospect fields,
thinking through ad strategies and
list pulls with the managers, and
facilitating joint program planning
for future seasons with artistic
directors. All in all,
comprehensive and exciting.
This is an organization that has
embraced new thinking and has decided
to take the plunge and comprehensively
orient itself towards building
audiences. Few, in our
experience, are so bold. We did
a lot of case studies of other
institutions to help Midland learn
best practices. Now Midland
Center for the Arts is fast becoming
the new case study of how to do things
right.
Keep
us posted on your successes. lstevens@artsmarket.com
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Bozeman, MT
Photo
Credit: Bozeman Chamber of Commerce
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