The 2022 Theatre Communications Group conference offered virtual, hybrid, and in-person experiences. Hosted in my home, Pittsburgh, the conference adeptly revealed the opportunities and challenges facing the field as theatre artists and institutions navigate their futures. Panels, keynotes, and workshops offered thoughtful and engaging discussions addressing the cultural shift in society and how it is affecting the industry ranging from Board transformation, shared leadership structures, shifting marketplace dynamics, anti-racist frameworks to stage and structures, and climate justice. The following summary offers two core takeaways from the conference, focusing on a theatre administration future of human-centered strategies allowing adaptive innovation within a constantly changing ecosystem.

STRATEGY

Whether discussing Leadership, Marketing, Climate, or DEAI — creating and applying strategies designed to make change is key. For example, Capacity Interactive shared findings from its most recent Ticket Buyer Survey. The future of marketing and fundraising is changing as public policies in the US and abroad address customer privacy. Often called the “cookie-less future,” organizations will have to rely more on first-party data strategy — the data collected at the time of sale or donation or other engagement or transaction points. Digital content strategy is also critical, with an intentional deployment of both long-form and more evergreen content and shorter, just-in-time content. Why? Because digital content from organizations (e.g. video or articles on blogs, websites, social channels, video channels, podcasts, etc.) is now 1 percentage point ahead of word-of-mouth as the decision point in the customer journey. Furthermore, of those who took the survey, 17% who plan on attending in person ALSO plan on consuming content digitally. Strategy took center-stage in the workshop on Climate Just Futures. If an organization wants to make climate justice a commitment, then strategies, goals, and resources must be allocated.

DATA

Goals and the strategies to achieve those goals mean nothing if accountability is not part of the process. Accountability and its associated data require clear data collection, maintenance, and reporting processes and procedures. This has become increasingly evident with respect to the change needed as part of the anti-racist transformation, but also for climate justice and stakeholder relationship maintenance.

In fact, the repeated lesson from Capacity Interactive’s presentation was the urgency for a regular data cleaning and maintenance procedure. The example given offered a stark understanding of what happens when ticket buyer data is not consistently monitored. In an effort to more deeply understand the digital-only customer, a specific survey was distributed to over 35,000 individuals across all participating organizations. These individuals were queried from databases such that they should have been a digital-only attendee and a first-time attendee during the Covid pandemic. To ensure the validity of the answers, a screening question was put in the path that confirmed that the survey taker was BOTH a digital-only customer and a first-time buyer. That screen removed 64% of those who received and attempted to answer the survey. The individuals came from all the participating organizations, indicating that few organizations were able to manage new categories or clean data well enough to get a substantial data set. While I have heard the argument by some that data and metrics are not the way to cultivate real relationships, in a digital-first world, it is the only way to connect to the people who want to be reached.

The conference was robust in sessions and information. The key to sustainable futures for nonprofit theatres, from my perspective focusing at the heart of arts, management and technology, means the business side of the equation demands focused attention on both strategy and data. They are the lynchpin to making change and accomplishing all the transformation embodied in the practice.

For more information about Climate Just Futures, check out the leaders of the workshop at Groundwater Arts and No Dream Deferred. For more information about the findings of Capacity Interactives Survey, you can download it here. For more information about data maintenance and cleaning, read this article.