Getting Something Out of Nothing

I replied to a post over at Kris Vire's blog about TCG's Free Night of Theatre Program, and Ed (friend of the blog) responded with a great comment of his own. I started crafting a response to him there, but when I got to the tenth paragraph I knew I needed to put it here instead. Check out Vire's post and the comments, then circle back here.

Ed's point about seeing more theatre is exactly what I had in mind when I said avid theatre-goers such as yourself want to save a buck. And I'm not saying we shouldn't give out discount tickets - far from it.

He is are exactly right about his value to a theatre organization - but Ed is further along the chain than the people the Free Night of Theatre is trying to target. I would never accuse him (or any body who buys a discount ticket) of "robbing" companies - I was just reflecting a point of view (perhaps without much art) I've heard while working on shows.

Discount tickets are never an end to themselves, but they are used to do a lot of different things: getting butts in the seats so actors have a real live audience to hone their performances, making sure there are some friendly faces (and voices) in the house on press night, generating buzz among a key constituency, thank yous to volunteers. It can also be an incentive used to get people at one stage of "audience development" into the next stage. Theatre-building 101 tells you that you want to get never-beens to attend, attendees to be repeat attendees, repeat attendees to become devotees (who then become donors who become repeat donors who become regular donors, etc.)

From an organizational standpoint, the Free Night of Theatre Program is clearly aimed at audience development: the TCG site says it wants to attract "thousands of new theatregoers and introducing them to joys of live theatre."

I love the sentiment - as anyone who has been unlucky to find me around Konak at about 12:30am can attest, I never tire in talking about it. My questions here are about tactics: how is the program going to be advertised to the people it wants to reach? By definition it can't be any of the places theatre's usually advertise, because this isn't geared for theatre's usual audience. An ad on the TCG site, or the League's site, or the participating theatre's site isn't going to reach anybody who isn't already looking for theatre.

Then you get into demographics and targetting - well, who in the non-theatregoing population is most likely to attend theatre if the ticket was free? How old are they, what other activities are they involved in? What websites, magazines, social networking services, etc. do they use?
Who's responsible for placing those ads? TCG? The League? Or is it up to individual companies?

If you don't target, you're not going to hit who you want. Advertising free tickets in all the usual places is going to get a lot of people to come, but they'll be people who already see theatre. Maybe they are people who wouldn't have seen your show otherwise - and maybe they will go tell their friends. Good? Sure! But that's not the stated goal of the program.

If I were a company, and I was about to jump on board with this program, I'd be asking these questions - just so I know how to get the most out of the event. It's not about knocking down the idea - it's about knowing what your part in making it a success is.

And again, this is only the first part. As I said, the goal is not just to get people in the door, but get them back. As far as I know, it's up to the individual theatres to take care of everything after the ticket has been reserved. Fine - TCG can't run your theatre for you - but participating companies need to be aware that it isn't magically going to increase your attendance from here on out: you need to get people to give you information, you should be prepared with discounts to future shows, you should have a follow-up plan to thank them for coming and other communications so that those folks remember your company - your brand - and not just "that play I went to about the dying girl."

This is time-consuming stuff, but it's absolutely essential to building a company on anything other than the blind luck of a hit show. I'm not accusing anybody - not TCG, not the League - of being stupid or having bad ideas. I think this is a great idea. Actually, what I've seen is one half of a great idea. I know there's probably a more detailed version somewhere, but I haven't seen it. I'm just pointing out that giving away tickets is not hard to do, and that as far as creating new theatregoers goes, it's only the beginning. Knowing who to give tickets to, and when, and how to reach them, and how to get them back - that's the hard stuff: that's the stuff companies - especially ytoung companies - need help with, and that's the stuff I want to hear about. Getting a full house is by any measure a hit out of the ballpark, but it ain't a home run until you touch all the bases.