AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT AND MARKETING
In October of 2019, I attended the TRG Arts Audience Building Summit. In my 30-plus years in the arts, I had formed strong opinions about attracting and keeping audiences. I still believe that quality work is the best way to retain audiences and that youth programming is a great way to build informed consumers of arts and culture. However, I also learned that, because we live in a time where there are dozens of screens fighting for the attention of every pair of eyes, gathering data about your audience is crucial- If you know who comes to the theater and why, you can make sure that they know what, when, and where shows are happening. Also I have come to believe that first impressions are crucial to retaining audiences and that hospitality and the total experience are as important as the work happening on stage.
