Yesterday, I stopped at the Rainboat Foodstore before I left town. I wasn't there to purchase food, but to stop at the Twin's Computer Centre and pick up tickets for the upcoming Twin's/Blue Jays series because I hate waiting in line for a live reservation. The nifty on-screen graphics actually let me see where my tickets are in relationship to the third baseline (my favourite place to sit). As well, I also just recently called the dial a preview at the Plymouth Music Series because I've got a subscription concert coming up and Phillip Cornell gave me a lovely five minute presentation with a snippet of music from the concert I'm about to see. Anti-technology, me? I actually think of myself as a technology dilettante. I'm one of those people who knows just enough to be dangerous.

On the workfront, my relationship with technology feels a little bit like the dinner date with your brother-in-law's second cousin twice removed. You see, you know you have something to talk about because after all you're practically related and you have people in common (I mean there is nothing but potential here) but you're not really sure if it's a better way to spend time then curling up with that new Sue Grafton mystery because after all with Sue you know what to expect. To quote a familiar phrase "Therein lies the rub" -- with limited financial and human resources to invest in generating an audience for our artists, how much risk can we afford? But then again, can we afford not to?

When I think of technology's role in marketing today I see three primary marketing applications. The first is technology's role in learning more about our existing audiences and the second is technology's role in creating new relationships. The third is technology's role in relationship building as an educational information tool to expand our audience's appreciation of our artforms and to assist in setting appropriate expectations for the work when they come and participate in the theatre.

Now, I'm going to digress for a moment and tell you a bit about the Guthrie.

The Guthrie Theatre which, gratefully, employs me, is the United States' largest regional theatre. We have an artistic commission dedicated to performing world literature of timeless things which some people would call classic plays. But we don't like to call it classic because everybody thinks that's dead white people. Interpreted, classic plays or world literature with timeless themes interpreted for a modern audience and performed by an acting company in rotating repertory.

In any given year, our theatre audience is about 250,000 to 300,000 people. Our work is artistically ambitious and eclectic and so is our audience. We're in the relationship business at the Guthrie, and we're not really much of a tourist destination in the heart of Minnesota beyond those shopping crazy Mall-of-America people, but you know they're so tired after power shopping that they don't make it back downtown.

Our success is dependant upon having a small number of people attend a broad range of work over the course of a season rather than a whole bunch of people just coming once. Our educated, enlightened, adventuresome audience defines who we are and what we do. My job is to keep expanding that base of curious and open-minded people who will join us on our theatrical journey. I guess you could say that "season tickets are us," and it would be true because I love direct mail. I love micro-marketing. I spend my days with a charming AS400 computer down in the basement whirring away and it is a sight to behold. I can honestly say that I love data and I love analysis and the more I can learn about who buys what, when they buy it, how they buy it, and why they buy it, the happier a camper I am.

In my life as a volunteer for several small organizations in the twin cities I've discovered the joy of a number of data software programs and I have assisted these organizations to understanding the data management concept of junk-in, junk-out. I have learned that the hardest part of making technology work for you in a small organization is training staff and volunteers and using it and most importantly developing a process for strategic data management deciding which data is really useful to keep. My personal experience is that if a microchip gets more powerful and as computers gets faster the easier it is to keep lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of data and the less functional all that data becomes. Besides, like all great toys, it's hard to put it away and get on with the actual chore list that you've got for the day.

Now as a person dedicated to putting artists and audiences together in the same room, technology has a very important place in helping us understand our audience and patrons better and thereby giving us empirical information to utilize in the search for more folks just like them. Thus, you can count me pro in technology understanding our audience because data can tell us a lot about who is coming. Unfortunately, that data doesn't tell us a lot about who isn't which brings me to part two: Technology's role in developing new audiences.

Developing New Audiences

As the confessed technology dilettante that I am, I love the fact that all the census data is now firmly attached to the postal carrier routes in the States and that it is even relatively accessible. Due to the fact that I live in the mid-west, where it's still primarily true that people who are alike live in the same neighbourhood, this data opens up a huge range of possibilities. Then there's the systems like Prism or CAC's Acorn Analysis or AMS's Research ArtsVision where that basic census data has been augmented with other consumer research to create a series of consumer profiles.

Now I've got an Acorn Analysis of my audience in 1989, I have a Prism one from 1991 and I have an ArtsVision one from 1993 (you see I keep telling you I'm a technology dilettante). So now I figure it's time I actually settle down to really use this stuff on an ongoing basis other than to provide creative inspiration for copyrighting and to write nifty reports for funders and Boards of Directors.

At the moment, I've got about a 180,000 names I've gathered together, most of which have no reported association with the Guthrie Theatre, although they are likely attenders. Now it's your standard, basic trade list and I've successfully now merged, and purged in preparation for the last phase of a subscription direct mail marketing program.

I've got a lot of different relationship products, which is my euphemism for subscription packages. I need to divide this list into a primary offer group, a sampler offer group, a cheap seat offer and a flux pass type offer and a "forget it, these names are junk, there's no point in wasting a stamp" group. I've solicited quotes from the Acorn people and from the ArtsVision people. As dollars get tighter, I need to do everything possible to make each piece of mail count. Mostly, I want to be sure that the right offer gets into the right hands at the right time.

My vision is actually bigger than this current direct mail offer. I want to use this stuff to begin relationships. I have visions of an ongoing direct mail program for individual play marketing that includes a rigorous examination of the people who have attended the Guthrie's most adventuresome work by running my entire mailing list through the system and pulling out only those who have that ambitious and creative people profile that makes them want to attend it. Purchasing an affinity list like the Atlantic Reader or Nature Conservancy and doing the same thing with them.

Then I turn the proposals in and I discover that the cost of running all these lists through the segmentation system is so high that I will need to improve my response rate on this initial offer by more than five times in order for it to be worth it. Now, I haven't said for it to be cost effective, I've just said to even be worth it. The big plan -- the single ticket marketing program, based on an analysis of consumer profiling by play type -- remains a distant dream.

My numbers -- which are all and all pretty decent in the not-for-profit realm of numbers -- are nowhere big enough to put this technology to work at this moment. After all, I'm after relatively few households participating regularly and not the mass market.

Let's face it, when we have a production that is appealing to those "under thirties, who wear earrings in more than one orifice and they have hair that is dyed colours not found in animals of nature". In my little town of Minneapolis I know where to find them. I know where they shop. I know where they eat and I know where they drink.

It actually only costs me about a hundred bucks to hire one of my ticket office employees who is of the same description and get him to hit the clubs and funky clothing stores with flyers and talk to all the D.J's at the funky bars to get them to come and see the show and talk about it and give away tickets as door prizes on New Music Night. I'm not sure that technology can replace that.

When we've got a production with a populous mass appeal, (you know the one that is the perfect show to bring great Aunt Mary in from out of town to come and see), well all my surveys still tell me that that audience still looks to the daily newspaper for their entertainment choices five-to-one over responding to direct mail or electronic mail, nevermind anything else. As well, more than in any other way, people arrive at the theatre because someone else recommended it. Thus, I can invite a hairstylist from the appropriate suburban area and they can come to the preview and, you know truthfully, don't you think that one chatty hairstylist might be worth more than that ad in the Star Tribune?

At the Guthrie, we've been brainstorming about the potential role of the Internet in promoting ticket sales, and I have a wild dream here. In my wildest dreams I imagine that Joe Smith is out for a casual Internet stroll and he inadvertently comes across my stupendous interactive graphics and sounds and he says: "Eureka! Live theatre! I think I'll leave my comfortable, suburban technology-driven home with a state of the art home entertainment centre and participate in that unique sense of occasion and the dynamic aesthetic community that only happens in the theatre."

Then, however, the completely cynical, "been in the business too long" tiny person who is always sitting on my left shoulder turns to me and says "Get real girlfriend!" Generally, after the first month most first time Internet users don't waste time strolling on unfamiliar streets because they know where they are going and that's where they go. A lot of Internet users get really pissed off over overtly commercial messaging on the net. Thus, you stand a better than average chance of turning someone off for all the wrong reasons. If the Guthrie audience travelled from all parts of North America, I actually think an Internet brochure would not only be useful it would be perceived as useful and even if in a specific market I really believe that there is a lot of potential here. However, at this moment my glass of water at work is pretty full and I can't clearly see what I could take out of it to put "Audience Recruitments Through the Internet " in.

Educating Audiences

I also get excited for the potential of technology in educating our audience. From simple ideas with dramaturgists and actors, to directors, to on-line access to the 100-plus page dramaturgical information we put together in a study guide for every play, to documentation of the production process, costume design and set designs. There is an endless range of possibilities on that superhighway but for the ones that actually sound the most interesting to us there's a really large boulder in the middle of the road and we spell it "c-o-p-y-r-i-g-h-t". Publishers readily give us permission to reprint materials for 250 study guides, as do costume designers to reprint their sketches. However, feeding that stuff onto the information highway is another matter indeed.

Leaving the Internet and moving onto the satellite, we've been using this technology in preparing student audiences for performances, for after performance dialogue and for a drama term. We have about 50,000 students who annually participate in the Guthrie's intensive programming. What we do in the classroom is simultaneously broadcast into ten other schools throughout the northern tier of Minnesota. Thus it becomes an experience in a quite a number of classrooms.

It's proven to be an efficient way to ensure the students attending performances are prepared for the experiences without the teachers having to carry the full load. Additionally, since exposure in high school is such a significant criteria for participation as adults it's a very good thing, indeed.

The efficiency is without question, but is it effective? Will this televised behind-the-scenes have the same impact as the actor in the classroom who then joins the kids in the lunchroom for a sandwich and a chat? I confess that my anecdotal research, and it's only anecdotal, says "no." I've witnessed the difference in interest and involvement inside the theatre between those 26 kids who spent time with those people in the classroom and the 450 who had the televised one. Can they both develop future theatre goers? Only time is going to tell. We're also a long way from cost effective access to really good videos. As a marketer I can imagine its role and I get very excited indeed, but the unions refuse to imagine. They are going to continue to hold their breath until they turn blue.

What is technology's place in my future? Well, after some 20 years or so in working in audience development I can honestly say that my passion for artists' and audiences' ability and for art's ability to make us more human and to make our world a better place is only growing stronger everyday. My lifetime commitment is to leave no stone unturned in search of an audience and I remain ready to take any road or any highway in bringing an audience member to the art. I also confess I want to grow up to be a technocrat and I actually dream about having plastic hand protectors to match every outfit in my wardrobe.

In the short term I will continue to skirt on the edges of what technology has to offer and I'll continue to imagine what it might do for me and for the audience building exercise one day, but I'm still going to call most of it a pass. I'm going to keep putting my dime in time and to, pardon me Brian [Monahan of AT&T], literally keep reaching out to touch someone.

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