Melinda McKee 's List: Arts Marketing

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    Permission Marketing by Seth Godin

   

    Made To Stick by Chip & Dan Heath

   

    What Would Google Do by Jeff Jarvis

   

    Big Red Fez by Seth Godin

   

    Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug

   

   
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    Men With Pens

   

• In class Howard used an analogy that I want to share. He said (I am paraphrasing) that social media today is like television in 1949. Television was a fairly new medium, though not brand new. There were many naysayers who discounted the impact of the medium. Content was mostly recycled from other mediums. And while we now consider 1949 television quaint, those early adapters were pioneers. And the impact of television on our culture cannot be denied.

• Theaters around the country have gradually allowed cell phone use during live stage performances, risking upsetting older patrons by needing to stay relevant and reach new audiences.

• Meanwhile, a Seattle-area performing arts complex in development is even planning to encourage any and all patrons to send texts and to update their social media accounts while taking in a show. The Tateuchi Center in Bellevue, Wash., plans to open in 2014 with a 2,000-seat concert hall and a 250-seat cabaret space, and will sport a 12- to 14-foot antenna on its roof to improve cell reception.

   

  Artists booked in the space can request a blanket ban on phone use, but the standing policy will be to allow “non-disruptive” smartphone activity — meaning no talking and perhaps requiring patrons to dim phones’ screen light.
• Older, more established venues, from New York’s Carnegie Hall to Washington’s Kennedy Center, ban cellphone use during performances, though they have been increasing their use of social media to engage audiences at other times.
• Statistics from the National Endowment for the Arts finds that attendance for classical music concerts, in particular, is down by at least a third among younger audiences, most no

  tably those under age 24. To cater to this segment, the Pacific Symphony recently held a “Tweet-cert,” encouraging audience members to tweet or text during an outdoor concert.
• Apart from distracting performers and other patrons, a deeper concern is whether those messaging during a performance are gaining from the experience.

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• As the National Symphony/Wolf Trap example suggests, Twitter and tweet seats aren't necessarily about making it easy for people to swap the latest gossip on Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore as some boring, strange-talking guy named Hamlet flounces about in tights way up there in front of the footlights. It's often about encouraging real-time, performance-related, Twitter-enabled discussions. And the venues or companies themselves are often participating in the tweeting.
• "With both the author and a designer on Twitter during the show," Bedard wrote, "it served as a sort of Director's Commentary version of the show that really added something and would have been interesting for repeat audiences."
• Of course, one can imagine that such digital annotations could get distracting to first-time audiences--perhaps interfering with their emotional connection to a piece, not to mention their ability to simply follow along with a storyline (or a melody). But tweeted footnotes might also add to the experience.
• "It's kind of like the conductor is whispering in your ear during a great piece of music," de Cou said, "telling you what I'm thinking of and what the composer was thinking of that [you] otherwise wouldn't know." And he added that "if you have a tweet come up every two minutes and you read roughly 140 [characters], you are still engaged." An example of one of de Cou's tweets is a note letting listeners know that in measure 13, Beethoven is using the orchestra to create a symphonic homage to the "sound of rattling carriage wheels."
• I know there are plays in development as I type that were written with a Twittered audience in mind," Powers wrote, "and if it supports or enriches the storytelling in a new play, then I say, 'Go play, boy, play.' I am urging thoughtful consideration, though; if we throw devices at our stages without care, we are creating gimmickry and not better storytelling."
• But conductor de Cou seems to view the new Twitter-fueled developments as a welcome shot of inspiration. He told USA Today that "it's fun to bring something that is spontaneous and new to a symphony concert. Shaking it up and thinking 'new' helps us on stage too."
• (As Forbes reports, National Endowment for the Arts stats show that attendance at classical concerts is down by at least a third for the young set, especially those under age 24.)
• De Cou again: "The main goal is to get new audiences and young audiences interested.... We have to use what is relevant to make it more fun and interesting."
• Indeed. I would much rather have the nuances of a performance spoon-fed to me through a glaring phone screen *during* the performance. That way I don't have to go to the trouble of having any creative thoughts/emotional response of my own to the performance, and will miss said naunce while reading anyway.
• I can see the idea, however, as a customer watching a performance, it'd be extremely annoying to have the person in front of or next to me have their phone out. No thank you. 
  My reccomendation, have only the Furthest back row, the row with no one behind you, allowed to use use the option. Or dedicate an antire section to tweetseat. 
  I'm against it personally. During any type of performance, the only place it doesn't bother me if a person is using their phone, is in te small room with a door with a sign on it "Ladies" or "Gentelmen" on it. preserve the integrity of theater, not give in to youth/tech.
• That would be a huge distraction, and insulting to the performers, even if the messages are short.
  
  Consider how loud some phones are, even on vibrate. Are the "tweet-seats" required to silence their phones (and risk getting a message too late)? Are they required to set their screen brightness to a certain level, or will everyone else have to watch them with their phones out? What if they end up surfing the net, taking pictures or FILMING the show? Smartphones are getting better and better at this, and you have to wonder, what happens when the entire show is filmed and uploaded to the internet?

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