Webinar Recap: Engaging with Audiences During Closure and Beyond
April 7 (Replay at end of page)
On April 7th, the Advisory Board for the Arts hosted a webinar to highlight innovative ways arts organizations have been engaging their audiences since having to close their doors. Our research shows that arts organizations have found a range of creative ways to serve audiences during this time. We’ve organized that engagement into three categories: content innovation (both on the stage and beyond the stage), platform innovation (e.g., website and social channels), and service innovation for both traditional and COVID-specific needs.
We were privileged to have three guest speakers join us to share their organization’s new initiatives to stay connected to their audiences during this time: Annie Burridge, General Director and CEO of Austin Opera, David Kilpatrick, Director Education Programs and Productions at the Kennedy Center, and Ethan McSweeny, Artistic Director at the American Shakespeare Center.
Below is a summary of our guest speakers’ new digital engagement projects:
Austin Opera: Movie Production of ATX Winter Journey
Annie Burridge shared that during mid-March she had a moment where she realized she needed to entirely rethink her organization’s priorities in response to the pandemic. She landed on three key area of focus: 1) keeping staff and patrons safe 2) relentlessly trying to identify paths to offer art and connectedness, and 3) providing employment for as many people as possible.
These new priorities led Annie to change course for an upcoming production of Winter Journey, starring David Adam Moore. With rehearsals scheduled to begin later in March, Annie asked her team about the feasibility of filming the production. There were already a lot of video elements planned for the production, so she thought there might be potential. The team enthusiastically agreed and began brainstorming how to make it work.
A member of the organization’s Innovation Advisory Council offered equipment to support the project, as well as his staff. The production will begin filming as soon as its safe for the artists to leave New York, creating meaningful work opportunities for a number of artists and production staff. Annie noted that this new project will give her staff the opportunity to come out of this crisis with an entirely new skillset. The organization is still determining how they will distribute the filmed production, but they hope to have it complete by mid to late Summer.
Kennedy Center: Lunch Doodles with Artist in Residence, Mo Willems
Mo Willems has been serving as the Kennedy Center’s Education Artist in Residence for the past year. Just hours after getting notice that the Kennedy Center would be closing for a period and he would not be able to host his usual shows with children, Mo came up with the idea of “Lunch Doodles.” He wanted to produce daily shows for 20-30 minutes where he would speak directly to children and teach them how to draw. Recognizing that parents were going to be home and stressed trying to manage homeschooling and their own work, he was hopeful this would provide parents a guilt-free break.
David shared that they suggested starting the program on Wednesday of the following week, and Mo insisted it was important to start on Monday – the first day kids would be home from school. The team worked throughout the weekend to get everything ready to go and by Sunday night Mo had the first video complete, filmed at home on an iPhone.
The response was overwhelming – in the three weeks they produced the show there were more than 12.2 million view on YouTube. Many families saw Mo as a “first responder” to the situation, providing them much needed relief in an incredibly stressful time. While Lunch Doodles concluded last week, David shared that the organization is now trying to find the next “Mo moment”, thinking through the lens of “what do people need now?”
American Shakespeare Center: BlkFrs TV
When reflecting on the past few weeks, Ethan McSweeny emphasized the extreme amount of flexibility and adaptability required for arts organizations to change course completely following closures. After having to cancel its current season, the organization quickly moved to film 7 plays in just 5 days. Filmmakers in the community volunteered to help with the production which they filmed on the stage in their playhouse. Ethan shared that they could not have moved forward with the productions financially without donations – they received donations from more than 900 people and over half of those were first time donors.
The organization is now streaming the plays on BlkFrs TV (using the Vimeo platform) for a fee. Pricing is a “pay what you will” format but asks viewers to consider the number of people in their household who will be watching the show. The average contribution has been around $20. The response to the streamed shows has been very positive – long time patrons have shared how reassuring it is during this stressful time to be able to tune in and see a show in their beloved playhouse.
Similar to Annie, Ethan is viewing this as an opportunity for the organization to develop new capabilities. The organization recently completed a 5-year strategic plan that called for increasing the use of digital, and the current situation has forced them to be far ahead of schedule on that priority.
Building Your Audience Engagement Strategy: Key Lessons
As arts organizations look to connect with their audiences when they can’t be together in person, ABA offers the following recommendations:
Lead by getting art into the world right now – art is meant for times like these. Also, this approach will create the good will you need with funders, artists, staff, and the boarder community to sustain the organization through the crisis.
Engage your artists! They will astonish you with their creativity in connecting with audiences and the broader community. In addition to helping you connect, artists will appreciate the visibility, especially if they are creatively working to make ends meet.
Identify ways to build organizational capabilities you have been hoping to strengthen (including partnerships, customer service, digital engagement, production quality, audience-data analytics, etc.) as part of your audience connection strategy.
Build your community connection strategy to be crucial support for the audiences you’ll need for the future. Individuals will reflect on (perhaps) two or three institutions that they relied on for emotional support through the crisis.
Think broadly about the assets you’ve got and leverage them to the limit to connect with audiences and other stakeholders. Assets can include archived or available content, famous friends, artist and staff talents.
ABA plans to continue collecting interesting examples of audience engagement from arts organizations across the globe and will update our website to provide ongoing inspiration for how to continue delivering value and engaging your audiences during these unprecedented and unpredictable times.