Can Gustavo Dudamel save classical music?

See audience strategy from the demand side

Your go-to source for audience insight, consumer trends, business model strategy, and fresh thinking on what drives relevance, demand, and growth in the arts.

Latest thinking

Blog

Can Gustavo Dudamel Save Classical Music?

The New York Times’ weekend episode of The Daily has a bold headline: Classical Music Is in Crisis. Gustavo Dudamel Is Here to Save It. That’s an enormous amount of pressure on one single person.

This is not a website redesign

At first glance, these two screenshots look like a before-and-after website redesign. But what you’re really seeing is a change in how an orchestra understands the value it creates.

How arts organizations win in a billion-dollar attention economy

We'll never win the fight for attention with budget or spectacle. But understanding the human experience? That's how we win against massive brands and big tech.

What Gartner just confirmed: active personalization beats passive.

Personalization without genuine customer understanding, says Gartner, can backfire. The solution? active personalization.

2.9x Ticket Conversions: When Marketing Starts with Patron Need

Can need-based intelligence increase engagement and drive higher ticket sales? A 16-week controlled test at the New Bedford Symphony.

Why Customer-Centered Thinking Keeps Getting Pulled Back Into the Status Quo

This happens a lot. A demand-side insight surfaces in the sector, and the product-centric model absorbs it back into the same logic it's always run on.

The Boston Symphony Orchestra's Real Crisis Has Nothing to Do with Andris Nelsons

BSO's 40% audience decline isn't a conductor problem or a financial problem. It's a business model problem. Here's what the data says—and why no conductor search fixes it.

The Wrong Trousers: What the Met Opera’s Crisis Reveals About Strategy in the Arts

The Met is in the New York Times again, searching for another solution to its financial crisis. This time, they brought in BCG.

Built for a Different World: The Arts Sector Business Model Problem

Arts organizations aren't naturally resistant to change. But it feels that way, right? And it’s all too easy to assume that it’s a leadership problem. But it’s the model that creates inertia.

The sentence that unlocks board engagement

The moment you frame the sector's problems as structural, your board stops offering tactical fixes and starts asking the right questions.

What if arts patrons aren’t “different”

What if arts patrons aren't inherently different? What if the traditional arts model makes them behave differently?

Zero-Party Data: How arts organizations win in a privacy-first world

We’re living through the biggest data shift in 20 years, and it's forcing a reckoning for arts leaders: know your audience deeply, or lose them to organizations that do.

Your stewardship strategy is killing your moment-based giving

CEO: Ok, our stewardship is dialed in. Appreciation events, welcome gifts, the works. But donations are stuck. What’s your take?

New CMO: Don’t kill the messenger, but we’re playing one giving game when there are actually two.

The Rise of Experiential Gifting: 5 Studies Arts Leaders Need to Know

It’s mid October. Your patrons are about to face one of their biggest holiday season frustrations: finding the perfect gift. Here are five consumer studies you need to know.

When personalization backfires

Personalization is billed as marketing’s holy grail. But most of what the industry calls “personalization” isn’t personal at all — it’s shallow behavioral tailoring, and consumers know it.

Universal design: How to grow audiences by centering the outsider

Forward-thinking organizations are applying universal design principles to their entire organizational structure, recognizing that inclusive design fosters innovation that benefits everyone.

The blind spot in arts audience research

For decades, arts leaders have been told to focus on people who already love the arts. Here's why that advice is limiting growth.

Burying the Lede: When Arts Recovery Headlines Reinforce Inertia

The headlines are exciting. "Arts sector grew at twice the rate of the total economy!" "We contributed $1.2 trillion to the GDP in 2023!" Here's what's actually happening.

Ruth Hartt 8/24/23 Ruth Hartt 8/24/23

Are your cultural events interactive? In 2023, that's not enough.

Are your cultural events interactive? Nina Simon says that's not enough. But the solution may not be as expensive as you think.

Ruth Hartt 6/22/23 Ruth Hartt 6/22/23

Why community is the arts sector’s most powerful strategy

Imagine being able to invigorate and expand your customer base while simultaneously having a profound impact on the health and wellbeing of the people you serve. This is the extraordinary value of building community.

Ruth Hartt 6/8/23 Ruth Hartt 6/8/23

Four strategies to reach outsiders now

You’ve worked hard to make your arts marketing customer centric. But it won’t actually grow your audiences if it’s only reaching your loyal followers. Are you implementing these four strategies?

Ruth Hartt 4/22/23 Ruth Hartt 4/22/23

A chat with BBC’s Tom Service

The one where the BBC’s Tom Service asks me about arts marketing. Listen at 29:32.

Ruth Hartt 4/15/23 Ruth Hartt 4/15/23

What the World Needs Now: Your Brain On Art

Your Brain On Art comes at a crucial moment, illuminating the intersection between the arts sector's need for proof that the arts are indeed essential—and our world's need for powerful solutions to the deep-rooted problems we're facing today.

Ruth Hartt 3/22/23 Ruth Hartt 3/22/23

What the BBC Singers need to know about persuasive messaging

On March 7th, the BBC announced wide-sweeping changes to its classical music programs. Possibly most shocking was its decision to terminate the nearly 100-year-old BBC Singers. Here’s what the supporters of the BBC Singers need to know about persuasive messaging.

Ruth Hartt 3/8/23 Ruth Hartt 3/8/23

For International Women’s Day: Why I left the arts world (and why I’m back)

I spent over a decade as an opera singer and music educator. I regularly witnessed the profound power of the arts on myself, my audiences, and my students. I was happiest when making music. But in 2014, everything changed.

Ruth Hartt 1/14/23 Ruth Hartt 1/14/23

Customer centricity at Bangor Symphony Orchestra

The Bangor Symphony's executive director, Brian Hinrichs, recently shared an update on LinkedIn outlining the strategies that helped the BSO sell out their entire 2022 Nutcracker run.

Ruth Hartt 12/24/22 Ruth Hartt 12/24/22

Rethinking relevance in 2023

How do we make the arts so relevant that society at large finally recognizes its vital importance?

Ruth Hartt 12/10/22 Ruth Hartt 12/10/22

A pandemic silver lining

In a recent podcast interview with Capacity Interactive, Colleen Dilenschneider pointed to how the covid lockdown forced cultural organizations to "prove that they were relevant beyond their walls."

Ruth Hartt 12/7/22 Ruth Hartt 12/7/22

Year-end fundraising that’s mutually beneficial

We all know how tough it is to “sell” a fundraising campaign. How do we show our community that donating to our cause will benefit them when we can’t offer much in exchange?

Ruth Hartt 11/10/22 Ruth Hartt 11/10/22

Community outreach that pays

Arts organizations, the working parents in your communities are an untapped source of revenue.