Are You Serious About Changing The Narrative?

Toward the end of summer, California Symphony Executive Director, Aubrey Bergauer, posted an article chronicling their work change out how they approach audience development. Gone is the full court press contact for first time ticket buyers to convert into subscribers and donors. Instead, they decided to focus on an audience development model closer to what we’ve examined here since 2003.

Adaptistration People 161After some genuinely heartening exchanges with Bergauer about the work, she decided to write a trio of follow-up posts that drill down into the operational implementation details.

With a tagline of “A Series for Those Who are Serious About Changing the Narrative” you can expect some thought-provoking content.

I highly recommend you set aside some time to read the entire series and if you have already read the original post from August, do yourself a favor and give it a fresh read before jumping into the follow-up series.

About Drew McManus

"I hear that every time you show up to work with an orchestra, people get fired." Those were the first words out of an executive's mouth after her board chair introduced us. That executive is now a dear colleague and friend but the day that consulting contract began with her orchestra, she was convinced I was a hatchet-man brought in by the board to clean house.

I understand where the trepidation comes from as a great deal of my consulting and technology provider work for arts organizations involves due diligence, separating fact from fiction, interpreting spin, as well as performance review and oversight. So yes, sometimes that work results in one or two individuals "aggressively embracing career change" but far more often than not, it reinforces and clarifies exactly what works and why.

In short, it doesn't matter if you know where all the bodies are buried if you can't keep your own clients out of the ground, and I'm fortunate enough to say that for more than 15 years, I've done exactly that for groups of all budget size from Qatar to Kathmandu.

For fun, I write a daily blog about the orchestra business, provide a platform for arts insiders to speak their mind, keep track of what people in this business get paid, help write a satirical cartoon about orchestra life, hack the arts, and love a good coffee drink.

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