In this episode, Victoria Sprowls interviews David Nutt, who has worked at the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Chicago Symphony Orchestra before landing in his current position as the Director of Sales and Advertising at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Conversations touch on the effect of the pandemic on ticket sales and marketing for operas and symphonies, utilizing social media as a marketing tool, and the impact the community the organization is located in has on the organization.

David Nutt 0:00

One of the most interesting things we did I think was called Twilight: Gods. And it was an opera in a parking garage. So it was it was completely staged in an underground parking structure in Chicago underneath Grant Park. And people would drive through in their cars, and actually drive through the entire thing. So they would park at one location, and then the scene would unfold in front of them and around them. And the music would come through their car speakers, and they'd be able to listen to it that way. And then they'd just be sort of guided through this, scene to scene, through this opera.

Victoria Sprowls 0:36

Welcome to an interview episode of Tech in the Arts, brought to you by the Arts Management and Technology Lab at Carnegie Mellon University. My name is Victoria Sprowls, the Podcast Producer, and today I'm talking to David Nutt, who has worked at the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Chicago Symphony Orchestra before landing in his current position as the Director of Sales and Advertising at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. David, thank you for being here.

David Nutt 1:00

Of course, so happy to be here.

Victoria Sprowls 1:02

So I know everyone's sick of talking about COVID. But I am going to bring it up. How has COVID and the move to digital performance during the pandemic changed the marketplace for opera and orchestra programs? Have you seen a return to normal in this past year? Or what's it look like out there?

David Nutt 1:20

Well, it's changed a lot, in a lot of ways. Short answer has it returned to normal. No.

Victoria Sprowls 1:26

Okay.

David Nutt 1:28

Yeah, I mean, so you know, it's changed, like, it's changed the demand overall, if there's a lot less demand out there for, for tickets for opera and symphony concerts. And then, you know, I think that's going to take some some time to build back, I think it's going to take a few years that, you know, when operas and symphonies rely on the kind of subscription model still, you know, taking a big hit in subscriptions kind of all at once. It just, it's gonna take a long time to rebuild, because you have to sell that many more individual tickets. So that's a big way. You know, the other way, I think it's just like marketing strategy. With the shift to remote work, you know, and a lot less people commuting, a lot less people coming down into, you know, a busy downtown area, like where Lyric is located, has a lot of, you know, far reaching effects.

Victoria Sprowls 2:23

It's less than their direct line of sight every day, it's kind of yeah.

David Nutt 2:26

Right, exactly. There's so much less foot traffic downtown. So, you know, a lot of things we would do normally to advertise are not as effective or not even happening anymore. And then, you know, other effects that I think we're still kind of figuring out like, are people, you know, if people are commuting less, that means they're driving less in their cars, maybe they're listening to the radio less. And then I think, like, the third way would be just the virtual performances, you know, a lot of companies are doing virtual recordings of their performances, people can watch. Lyric is one of those companies. And I think to some degree, people kind of expect some more online engagement, you know, more virtual options, which has been great, you know? Can reach a lot more people, there's people who used to come all the time, that can't come anymore. And now they can actually watch the operas, and I've gotten so many comments about how excited they are about that, how happy they are about that. On the other hand, I think with the virtual performances, it's been, you know, those are extremely expensive to put on. That's kind of the other side of the coin is that like, extremely involved production with multiple camera angles, and multiple people behind the cameras, you know, selecting the scenes, and figuring out how to how to use that going forward. And if it's viable, I think it's something that we're all still figuring out.

Victoria Sprowls 2:30

So you were talking a little about the marketing and less foot traffic downtown. So I've heard that there are two types of marketing, introducing people to your product, and reminding people that your product, is there. Do you focus on one more than the other? And has that changed? How have you tried to introduce new customers to the various arts organizations you've worked for?

David Nutt 4:08

Yeah. So I think that's a good question. I think we - I think any good, like marketing department focuses on both, and does both. And I think there's a couple of levels of like introducing people to your product, when it comes to the arts, I think there's like, you know, introducing people who have no familiarity with the art form, to the art form in general. And that I would say, is more of like a long term investment that, you know, is really more on the hands of community engagement department, education, and bringing in kids and actually, you know, exposing them at a young age like, you know, we know from the data that adult participation in the arts is highly correlated with exposure at a young age. And so I think, you know, most big arts institutions and even smaller ones are making that long term investment by you know, doing those type of programs, we do a little bit of that on the marketing side, like with I think, you know, content marketing that's sort of more general and aimed to just give people you know, kind of an intro to the art form. But I think overall, that's kind of more on the engagement/education side. But then there's I think introducing people to your product, who are already familiar with, with opera, right? So people are kind of already participating already going to, to the symphony or, you know, going to the arts museums or, you know, coming to see opera, maybe in other places. Those are kind of your best prospects, really, those are the people we always aim to try to bring in, because they're more likely to convert.

Victoria Sprowls 5:46

Yeah. So with that last question, what do you find is the main role of social media, in marketing for the arts? Are there tools that are better for acquiring versus retaining audiences?

David Nutt 5:59

I think like the goal with social media is when it's when it's functioning well, is to create community online and to create a space for conversations. You know, for people to engage with each other with each other about your about your product, and, you know, hopefully, share with their friends and create kind of online word of mouth. I think that's kind of really the best case scenario for having a well run social media page. Of course, now, it also functions really well for retaining people. Because, you know, if you have someone's email address, it's pretty, it's pretty easy to find them on Facebook and follow them around with with ads and posts to them. Especially recent ticket buyers - really effective tool to get them to come back.

Victoria Sprowls 6:48

So do you find you're mostly on Facebook then? With the social media, social media?

David Nutt 6:53

Yeah, Facebook, I think is really the biggest one now. We do Instagram as well at Lyric, I think that's pretty common.

Victoria Sprowls 7:00

With TikTok's rise in popularity and, you know, we were just talking about Facebook. How do you find orchestras and their musicians balance professionalism with the casual qualities of advertising on online platforms?

David Nutt 7:15

Good question. Yeah. So we - Lyric actually just launched a Tik Tok account.

Victoria Sprowls 7:21

Oh, okay. Follow it listeners.

David Nutt 7:24

I can't claim credit for any of that. It was really most - all in the hands of my colleague, Amanda Reitenbach. She's our Manager of Social Media and Content. And it was it was a really long, a long process, because I knew we wanted to, like be sure that we had plenty of content when we launched. And also, I think an interesting thing about the process, you know, starting at TikTok at an arts organization is they wanted to be sure that they had buy in, like, all the way up to like the board chair, like the chair of our board signed off on, you know, TikTok account. I think it was just really important to, to get buy-in on it. And too, for people understand that the content we're sharing on TikTok is not going to be shared other places that it's exclusively for TikTok. You know, I think that kind of helps assuage some fears about how it will be used.

Victoria Sprowls 8:15

About how you might look online. Yeah.

David Nutt 8:18

Exactly. Yeah. And I think that, you know, there's always that balance, you spoke - talked about, like balancing professionalism and the casual qualities, I think it's you finding that balance is kind of about, you know, embracing the form, embracing kind of the, how people use the platform and the language, but not forcing it, you know, still authentic to what your organization is. You know, a lot of the videos that we've put out so far on Tik Tok had been like a look backstage at like the wig department, you know, people creating wigs or, or views from the just on stage kind of right before a performance. Things like that - that, you know, make a lot of sense, but are just kind of done in the TikTok style.

Victoria Sprowls 9:03

Yeah, we had a - I did an interview with Quincy Brown, who does PR/social media for for Broadway shows. And he was talking about how, you know, you can't just take clips of like the performance and put it on TikTok. That's not really what people are looking for. They're looking for that like value added, like, what am I going to get by being on TikTok that I can't get by like being at the performance even?

David Nutt 9:25

Yeah, that's a great point.

Victoria Sprowls 9:26

How does the community that the symphony or opera that you've worked in - that it's located in - how has that affected the marketing or advertising strategy that you implement?

David Nutt 9:36

Yeah, I think the community you're in really affects the marketing strategy like in every way imaginable, really. You know, how, how dense is your population? That's going to affect, you know, where you're advertising and how far out geographically you're reaching to bring people in? You know, is your community is your organization located in a community that's like a tourism destination? And you know, if that's the case, you're going to be wanting to incorporate that into your marketing strategy by, you know, advertising further out maybe all across the country, by partnering with organizations that are in the tourism industry, you know, in your city, really kind of any attribute of your, of the population, you know, that's in your community is going to affect your, your, your marketing strategy.

Victoria Sprowls 10:26

Yeah, I think actually, I, when I was in LA, I think I went to the Los Angeles Philharmonic, just to like, see it. I don't think I went to go to a performance. But yeah, it definitely was on the on the tourist list. Yeah.

David Nutt 10:41

Yeah. And that's, it's funny, you bring that up, because like symphonies everywhere, have a problem with people coming once and then not coming back again. And I think especially there, it's like, on people's bucket lists, right, they want to see a concert at the Walt Disney Concert Hall space. But then, you know, some people think about, okay, check, did that. The challenge is how do you get those people to come back and be regular concert goers?

Victoria Sprowls 11:03

Yeah. Is there anything you you've done, or you've noticed, like works better than than other things you've tried at at retaining audiences?

David Nutt 11:11

I think people really appreciate, you know, kind of what you spoke to about what makes like a good TikTok page is, you know, value-added, like, feeling like they're part of a family or like part of the organization. I think it's similar to the strategy that like a lot of fundraisers use in, you know, feeling like they're a part of the organization, they're contributing to its legacy. I think that also applies to subscribers, because, you know, they're making such an investment by buying a huge package of tickets up front, you know, that are expensive. So I think when they feel like they're part of the organization, they have kind of that inside look in there. They're treated like, you know, they're, they're really a member of the organization. I think that's, that plays a big role.

Victoria Sprowls 11:57

So if I was going to plan a marketing campaign for an arts organization, what would you suggest my first steps be in order to engage the community and drive people to the performance? I'm sure you are facing this every day with trying to drive people back to Lyric Opera of Chicago?

David Nutt 12:13

Yeah, I mean, first steps, I would say, you know, is stepping back and figuring out your who, what, when, where, why, right? You're kind of all the reasons. SWOT analysis, if you want to get fancy with it, what are your strengths? Or what are the key selling points of the performance you're selling? Or the show you're selling? What are the things that are the most interesting about it? To the most people? What are kind of the weaknesses of the show? What are the things that might turn someone off? And then, you know, on your opportunities and threats? It's like, do you have any special opportunities to attract a new audience here with the show, you know, like, for example, with, with lyric we just did the opera "Fire Shut Up In My Bones," which is by the composer Terence Blanchard, who's also like a big, really famous jazz trumpeter, and did a bunch of film scores for like Spike Lee movies. So we had an opportunity there to say, okay, people who were interested in jazz, but haven't tried the opera. That's a great segment to get to try their first opera, right? You know, on the threat side, if we're doing a full SWOT analysis, a lot of time that has to do with like, what else is going on in the market at the same time your show is going on? Like, I remember, when I worked at Chicago Symphony, there was one fall when the Cubs were in the World Series, and there was a presidential election going on the same time that our season was starting.

Victoria Sprowls 13:31

I do remember that. The Cubs won, right?

David Nutt 13:33

They did, yeah.

Victoria Sprowls 13:34

Yeah for like, the first time in a hundred-something years?

David Nutt 13:37

Yeah, it was a really big fall. And it's really hard to get people to pay attention to, you know, orchestra programs, when all that is going on.

Victoria Sprowls 13:45

When everyone's so excited about the World Series, yeah.

David Nutt 13:49

Right. Yeah, the World Series and watching crazy, you know, presidential debates. So yeah, I think that's step one. And that's going to inform your, your key messages, like, what is the main message you want people to take away when you're trying to get them interested in this thing that you're selling. And then step two, or step three would be, figure out what your budget is. And that's going to determine, you know, what you're going to be able to do with your, with your marketing plan.

Victoria Sprowls 14:19

I'm just curious generally, do you? Do you try to advertise more towards selling tickets for an entire season or individual tickets?

David Nutt 14:27

Well, so it's kind of all part of the cycle. So because we still operate on this subscription model. Most of our sales come from - well I don't know if it's most anymore - but, you know, a huge chunk of our subscriber - of our sales come from subscribers. So that's like, you know, a really important part of the sales cycle. And that's how it all kicks off, is put the season on sale, and sell subscriptions for for several months, and try to get as many people to buy packages as possible. And you know, by buying packages, you get the best seats, benefits, all this kind of stuff. And that's what we really want people to do is to buy a full package of concerts, obviously, because the cost of sale there is so much lower. But then, you know, eventually you get to the point where you put single tickets on sale. And that is maybe more work than selling subscriptions.

Victoria Sprowls 15:24

Interesting.

David Nutt 15:25

With a smaller payoff, right? Because your cost of sale for selling one ticket is going to be way higher than the cost of sale for a subscription. But you have to do a lot of it. Right? You have a - Lyric is over 3000 seats in the house. We have, you know, many performances of the same show so there's a lot of seats to fill.

Victoria Sprowls 15:46

Yeah, so having to sell 3000+, like times whatever number of yeah, that seems like a lot of work.

David Nutt 15:53

Yeah, for musicals, it'll be, you know, twenty or thirty performances.

Victoria Sprowls 15:57

So with trying to engage the community, are there any practices from COVID, like outdoor performances, anything like that, that you saw as successful, or that you're going to continue to do.

David Nutt 16:08

So a big thing we did during COVID, was make all these virtual performances that we, in the beginning of the pandemic, we put them up on YouTube, and just push them out, you know, as far as they could go. Because the the idea was just to get as many people to watch it as possible, to keep people engaged with us to keep Lyric in people's thoughts, for when we eventually did come back. And I think, you know, that strategy worked to in effect, we had, you know, some great success with some of the, with some of the virtual concerts that we did. And I think just putting them up there for free, and just pushing them out, was really, you know, a good strategy in terms of just getting people's eyeballs on, you know, looking forward, I think it's about, you know, if we want people to watch them, but we also want to know who they are, and be able to bring them, you know, try to bring them in for a performance in the actual Opera House and to create a relationship with them. So I think, you know, going forward, it's a question of, how do we capture that information, because if you just put it up on YouTube, you don't know who's watching it. And we did do some outdoor performances, there were some really fun stuff that probably won't continue after COVID. But one of the most interesting things we did, I think, was called "Twilight: Gods," and it was an opera in a parking garage. So it was completely staged in an underground parking structure in Chicago underneath Grand Park, and people would drive through in their cars, and actually drive through the entire thing. So they would park at one location, and then the scene would unfold in front of them and around them. And the music would come through their car speakers, and they'd be able to listen to it that way. And then they'd just be sort of guided through this, scene to scene through this opera. And all in all it was, the whole experience was like under an hour. So you're really in-and-out of there. And that I thought was just incredible.

Victoria Sprowls 17:57

Yeah, that sounds so cool.

David Nutt 17:58

It was it was amazing. And it involved everyone in the company, everyone like, you know, I was down there with those, those flashlight waiver things.

Victoria Sprowls 18:08

Oh yeah, like an airplane landing an airplane.

David Nutt 18:11

Exactly. So we were all down there in these like jumpsuits with these, you know, these flashlights directing people through the parking garage, obviously, something that like that, is like insanely expensive to mount. And you can only a very small number of people go through just because of capacity, and because how long it takes to just drive a car through, you know, the whole thing. Yeah. You know, if there's another pandemic, we know what we'll do.

Victoria Sprowls 18:33

Yeah. So what is the best advice you have for orchestras or operas, looking to increase their impact on the community that they're in?

David Nutt 18:41

I would say my best advice would be to do your research and not make any assumptions. I think there's a lot of value in just some broad market research that can be done, you know, broad surveying, bringing people in for focus groups, and just, you know, if you're trying to address an issue, you know, maybe why aren't more people coming here? It's easy to make assumptions by just looking at the information you have and say, well, ticket prices are too high, or we're doing the same, too much of the same programming. We need to change it up. But maybe the answer is as simple as there's not enough parking here, you know? Right, you know? So I think, doing that research and putting in the effort to find out what people in your community actually think about you and how they engage with you. And then how they want to engage with you. And what they kind of want from you is, I think, extremely valuable. And finding that sweet spot between, you know, how can you best deliver on your mission and what are your strengths, versus what do people in the community want from you? And how can you find kind of the best place for those two things meet up?

Victoria Sprowls 19:50

Well great. That was very insightful. Thank you, David, and thank you for being here today.

David Nutt 19:55

Thank you so much. It's my pleasure.

Victoria Sprowls 19:58

Thanks for listening to the Tech in the Arts podcast. If you found this episode, informative, educational, or inspirational, send this to another arts aficionado in your life. You can let us know what you thought by visiting our website: amt-lab.org. That’s A-M-T dash L-A-B .org. Or, you can email us at amtlabcmu@gmail.com. You can also follow us on Twitter @TechintheArts, or on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn at Arts Management and Technology Lab. We'll see you for the next episode.