Ideas

Here we are in a place that we could never have imagined only a short time ago; robbed of audiences, our lifeblood. As the realization has slowly descended upon us that this won’t necessarily be a short intermission from the way things were, we have been forced to reckon with the idea of embracing a new way of delivering our art.

If you haven’t already started, you will soon be charged with creating theater on video. As organizations rush to develop new content and platforms, we can see firsthand where it hits and where it misses.

While it may feel like we have been in election season for years (because what is time?), we really are in the final weeks before the election. Following the actions of foreign and bad actors in the last presidential election, Facebook is implementing some new rules aimed at preventing the spread of misinformation about candidates and voter suppression in this election. Facebook announced a ban on new ads during the week leading up to the election October 27 - November 3.

It’s no secret: 2020 has been a challenging year thus far for arts organizations. But we’re collecting market research surrounding arts entities at IMPACTS Experience, and some trends are actually working in organizations’ favor when it comes to establishing new strategies not only to survive this year but also to thrive long into the future.

Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, the arts and culture industry has been spilling out of online spaces. We’ve embarked on virtual tours, taken online classes, and watched countless live-streamed performances. We’ve seen foster dogs meeting fish, Instagram dance classes, and science snacks. Here at Tessitura, organizations using our e-commerce platform have sold more than 10 times as many digital experiences on their sites this year than at this time last year.

So how do you get started with monetizing virtual experiences? We’ve taken a look at the arts and cultural industry, including the leaders who shared their insights in “CI to Eye Live: How Arts Organizations Are Monetizing Livestreams and Digital Content” (available on YouTube), and have put together some tips to help you plan.

We didn’t rehearse this.

No one did.

Almost overnight, arts administrators everywhere had to put on their programming hats for an entirely new venue—a digital venue. Instead of curated experiences involving lobbies, printed programs, and curtain calls, it’s a world of livestreams, blog posts, and emoji reactions. You are the arbiters of your organizations’ digital presence and now have to improvise events with smaller teams and less money. Cool.

Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) was one week into their 2020 season when COVID-19 shut down in-person production. But as luck would have it, video recordings shot for posterity would turn into a monetized digital content opportunity. We worked with them to explore YouTube pre-roll campaigns to promote this new, video-based endeavor.

In many ways, The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, and The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston could not be more different. One is a historic building with a private permanent collection of European, Asian, and American art with an idyllic courtyard. One is an art museum and research institution featuring Degas, Homer, and other greats, sitting on top of 140 acres in the Berkshires. One is Boston’s waterfront museum, which hosts leading contemporary visual artists and performances, recently featuring the works of William Forsythe and Yayoi Kusama.

Despite significant differences, these museums have one thing in common: they were all allowed to open as of July 6th per Massachusetts’ Phase III Step 1 of post-COVID reopening.

In the midst of a pandemic, arts organizations are leaning into Facebook’s organic features to reach their audiences as they spend more time at home and online. Livestreams, watch parties, video premieres, curated playlists, archival clips—you name it, someone’s probably tried it.

Ask the Industry features advice from arts marketers in their own words. We hope it will spark new ideas for your organization.

In our latest installment, we’re asking two arts administrators, “What are you doing to go the extra mile for subscribers and members during COVID-19?” Sara Billmann, Vice President, Marketing & Communications at University Musical Society, and Mike Servedio, Web and Social Media Manager at The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University give insights on how to shine a spotlight on your nearest and dearest.

Gibney is a dance organization based in New York City. We asked their team to write about the evolution of their fundraising efforts in light of COVID-19.

On March 19, Gibney’s spring Gala—The Wonderful World of Gibney—publicly shifted to the “Keep the Wonderful World of Gibney Turning” campaign. In lieu of celebrating Gibney’s "world” of artists with a fundraising event, we would instead find ways to support them during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Over the next 6.5 weeks, this campaign went through more iterations than any we’ve ever worked on. It became a testament to the moment: so much is unknown and changing by the minute, there is a relentless cascade of information, opinions and emotions are right at the surface, and there is no precedent to fall back on.