The Magic Bullet – Eight Prescriptions for Bringing Back Audiences
By Thomas Wolf
A magic bullet is an effective solution to a difficult or previously unsolvable problem. And if there is such an intractable problem in the classical music world, it is how to attract greater numbers of audience members to live events. Let’s explore whether a magic bullet exists.
Is there a magic bullet for fixing the audience problem in the performing arts?
You’ve no doubt heard the term “magic bullet.” In medicine, a magic bullet is a treatment that can cure a disease quickly and completely. More generally, a magic bullet is an effective solution to a difficult or previously unsolvable problem. And if there is such an intractable problem in the classical music world, it is how to attract greater numbers of audience members to live events.
The COVID pandemic and its aftermath exacerbated the challenges; but the problem of declining audiences for the performing arts generally and for classical music in particular, has been around for decades. And so have recommended solutions. Yet still the problem persists. In classical music, halls today are routinely one-third empty or worse. (An article in a Pittsburgh paper on January 16, 2024 complained that while the orchestra was playing better than ever, the average audience only filled half of Heinz Hall.) As the great impresario, Sol Hurok famously quipped: “It seems that when people don’t want to come, there’s no stopping them.”
Lots of magic bullets to solve the audience development problem. And none appear to work consistently.
If a magic bullet was truly effective in solving this problem, there would be no need for many different proposed solutions. But today, that is precisely what we have: many explanations for what has caused the problem and many prescriptions for bringing audiences to live events, each with a different configuration and rationale and each with varying and inconsistent degrees of success.
Below is a sampling of solutions, among many, and theories about why some work better than others. In the end, I share some thoughts about how institutions can begin to move ahead with confidence that they are headed in the right direction. [NB: Though a lot of the examples and citations are taken from the orchestra field where much research has been done, many of the points raised apply more broadly to other genres across music and some to other performing arts disciplines.]
1. Modernize the Experience.
In September 2023, The Royal Philharmonic circulated information on its web site about an audience survey that had been administered to a “representative sample” of 2,071 adults. The survey indicated that three in four (76%) respondents said they would be more likely to attend an orchestral concert if orchestras took steps to modernize the concert experience.
The responses, to be truly meaningful, would reflect a numerically accurate representation of the opinions of a cross section of people approximating both actual and potential audience members to orchestra concerts. However, based on many other surveys of this kind, the people who filled it out probably were predominantly those who currently go to concerts, so the solutions are not likely to attract people who have little to no underlying interest in the art form. Yet, these, ideally, would be the largest group one would want to attract. There is also the question of whether the opinions of London audiences can be universally applied in other parts of the world like the United States.
But setting these concerns aside, here are the top 10 perceived innovations that would make people more likely to attend an orchestral concert:
Offer shorter concerts of an hour, rather than having them in two halves – 27%
Provide access to information before the concert so the audience has an opportunity to learn about and understand the music a little better – 27%
Offer more daytime or matinee concerts, so attendees can bring family and friends – 24%
Allow/support casual attire for attendees – 24%
Schedule time for the conductor to speak to the audience before a performance – 20%
Provide opportunities for ‘meet and greets’ with the players / soloists after a concert – 17%
Publish digital programs attendees can access in advance on their tablets or devices – 12%
Allow attendees to take photographs or film clips of the concert with their smart phones - 12%
Encourage the audience to applaud between movements, or when they want to – 12%
Encourage the audience to react on social media during the concert – 11%
The late conductor, Leonard Bernstein, speaking to an audience at Tanglewood. Some respondents to the Royal Philharmonic survey believed that if more conductors would do so, audience numbers would go up.
Not one of these recommendations is surprising. We have seen them repeatedly in survey results. Indeed, several orchestras and other musical organizations have experimented with many of them. Why then, have these changes not solved the problem of declining audiences?
Many classical music audience members are quite senior and like things the way they are. They are also often people who do not fill out audience surveys which tends to bias the results indicating that most people want change.
One reason is that the backbone of the classical music audience today—those who regularly attend concerts and account for the majority of ticket sales—are individuals steeped in traditions with which they are comfortable. Change the practices for some and you alienate others.
Older attenders (data often place the average age at 60 and above) often like things the way they are (they are also, often, people who do not respond to surveys and whose views are not tabulated in studies of the kind the Philharmonic conducted).
Make one change that will attract some, and others who don’t like it may decide not to attend or go elsewhere.
2. What About Multi-Media Experiences?
Yuja Wang playing Pierre Boulez at a David Hockney exhibition in a box-room behind London’s Eurostar terminal? Seems a somewhat far-fetched proposition. But according to Norman Lebrecht who was there, “Yuja Wang, seeing [an exhibit called] ‘Bigger and Closer’, decided that Hockney could be even more effective with music. She drew up a piano playlist to accompany the images, ranging from a Satie Gymnopédie—perfect for [Hockney’s] poolside [paintings]—to Nikolai Medtner, Bach, Liszt, Shostakovich at his darkest, the final pages of Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique symphony, and Philip Glass. It took under an hour to play.”
Why would a celebrity like pianist Yuja Wang, who regularly fills large concert halls, be playing two recitals a night (six concerts in all) in London’s Lightroom at £50 a ticket? Perhaps, says Lebrecht, this is the future of classical music concerts. The Yuja-Hockney fusion sold out to a crowd drawn from both arts.
Yuja Wang plays a recital accompanied by art works by David Hockney.
“Concentration was intense and, since no word was printed about the music, each successive piece was greeted with an audible gasp of curiosity, appreciation, or perplexity. Some unseen app made leaves grow on springtime Hockney trees in perfect synchrony with Yuja’s Bach.”
And there may be some wisdom to the idea. Consider the comparison: sitting in a concert hall with no visual stimulation other than (often obstructed) views of the performers. While experienced classical music enthusiasts may be satisfied with a mostly auditory experience, such a lack of visual stimulation may not be enough for potential audience members (especially young people) in what is increasingly a visual culture. Classical music organizations have had plenty of opportunity to experiment with visual/virtual programming. The pandemic made that form of concertizing one of the few options for a while. But those programs were not live-in-person events and the great majority of them were visually dull with a camera or two providing limited shots of the performers. The Wang-Hockney presentation offered a live experience that for many, was at least as enticing visually as musically.
Is enriching the experience of listening through visually-arresting content a possible way to entice more people to attend classical music concerts? Might music organizations devote at least some of their programming to this approach to attract a whole new audience demographic? Are the economics of adding visual content so prohibitive that there is no way to recoup the marginal costs even if more people come?
3. Make Concert Occasions Social Occasions
Another proposed solution to the audience development challenge comes from what is probably the largest survey of classical music audiences in the last half century—the Classical Music Consumer Segmentation Study, conducted by Audience Insight in the year 2000. More than 25,000 interviews with potential classical consumers and orchestra ticket buyers were completed in 15 cities across the United States. The results speak to how consumers fit classical music into their lives, whether or not they purchased a ticket to a live concert (many respondents who were classical music listeners say that did not).
One category of results from the study was particularly striking. For many potential audience members, it was the social aspect that was the most important determinant of whether or not they attended a live event. A social “group” could be as small as a couple or as large as a busload and it might involve family members, friends, or other individuals who have been organized by a packager. Further, it appeared that there were two distinct categories of these “social attenders”—those who made the arrangements, issued invitations, and/or tended to logistics (the study called them “initiators”) and those who went along with the plans that others had made (called “responders” in the study). Interestingly, many responders would not have attended if an “initiator”—be it an individual or an organization—had not issued an invitation and taken care of many of the details.
A table at the Grand Toer Restaurant at the Metropolitan Opera that is prepared to serve a pre-ordered dessert at the first intermission to a group of five attending the opera together. A so-called “initiator” bought the tickets and organized the evening.
Two implications of these findings lead to a theory of how audiences for classical music might be increased. On the one hand, organizations might enhance the social aspects of attendance, providing incentives and amenities that promote more group attendance. As an example of such an enticement, I have on several occasions taken my children and grandchildren to the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, purchasing as many as ten tickets. One of the enticements is the Grand Tier Restaurant in the building which offers us dessert at first intermission that can be ordered before the show begins—a real motivator for youngsters to attend a long opera performance. There are many other examples that need not be so expensive—discounted tickets, free parking, and expedited concierge services, for example.
A second implication of the findings is that organizations should provide greater incentives to initiators to encourage their activity and make it simple and cost-effective for them to organize a group outing and make attendance part of an “occasion.”
Those skeptical of this view believe that adding a social element or other kinds of incentives may be most attractive to people who already like the product and may increase their frequency of attendance. For those not predisposed toward the art form, it will take more than sugary foods or free parking to convince them to try something that is not part of their life experience.
4. It’s the Repertoire Stupid
The so-called “Americanizing Report” called for many changes for orchestra institutions aligning repertoire with modern American culture. The result, it was said, would have a positive impact on audience interest and attendance.
“A renewed commitment to American works, contemporary works, and rarely performed works [is] important to every American orchestra working both to sustain its own artistic vitality and to expand its appeal, support and connection to its community. Orchestras can enlarge the traditional canon in ways that will keep existing audiences and draw in new ones”[1] “…Inclusiveness is achieved through a mix [of repertoire… [including] drawing from the musical traditions of a variety of cultural, racial, and ethnic influences.”[2]
In 1993, the orchestra field spent a year in an intensive self-examination process for the purpose of developing a roadmap toward a healthy future. A task force of some 156 individuals discussed all aspects of orchestra activity coming up with a series of recommendations that were codified in a book called Americanizing the American Orchestra. At the time, the report was controversial though since its appearance, most of its recommendations have become standard fare in orchestra practice.
The report began with a consideration of repertoire—both the reality of past practice and a prescription for the future. From the 1987/88 season through the 1991/92 season, orchestras with budgets in excess of a million dollars reported on 11,366 concerts. The repertoire at those concerts was composed overwhelmingly by European men whose lives and work dated from the 18th and 19th centuries. The top five composers were Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Brahms and Haydn. The remaining top ten composers were Richard Strauss, Dvorak, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, and Ravel. “Dead white men” as critics have called them.
No women composers. No living composers. No African American composers in the list… in fact, no American composers. The Task Force viewed this as a problem. To quote the report: “Playing music that reflects the places, events, celebrations, and conflicts of American society also can be a strength of the new American orchestra.”[3]
The African-American composer, Florence Price (1887-1953), whose work was largely ignored by major musical organizations during her lifetime is being programmed frequently these days. Conductor Riccardo Muti claims her third symphony is—“a fantastic piece, well-written, well-orchestrated”—and he is taking on the European tour of the Chicago Symphony.
Since the report was written, musical organizations of all kinds have greatly increased their performances of works written by women, minorities, and living composers with some works reflecting all three of these characteristics. In many respects, this has been a positive development in making these musical organizations more relevant to modern American culture. In a recent interview, 82-year-old conductor Riccardo Muti spoke glowingly of the third symphony by the African-American woman composer Florence Price—in his words “a fantastic piece, well-written, well-orchestrated”—that he is taking on the European tour of the Chicago Symphony. When superstars make such statements, others take notice.
Certain American composers and their works have become part of the traditional canon. Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” is now so familiar to audiences—given its frequent use in films—that it has become a concert standard. So too are works by Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein.
But there is little evidence that these and other similar additions to the repertoire have had a substantive positive impact on concert attendance, and it is possible, given the correlation with audience declines, that it has had a negative impact. And except for a very few American standards, audiences still flock to concerts of the so-called classics.
Back when the orchestra survey was done in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the two most popular works in the eleven thousand plus concerts were Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto and Beethoven’s third piano concerto. As a chamber music presenter for five decades, my experience has been similar. I have been able to reliably increase ticket sales by programming any one of a handful of familiar masterworks: Schubert’s trout quintet, a piano quintet by Schuman or Brahms, Mendelsohn’s string octet, the Mozart serenade for 13 winds, or Tchaikovsky’s String Sextet “Souvenir de Florence.” The only America work that had as much appeal in terms of ticket sales was Aaron Copland’s “Appalachian Spring.” Freshening up the repertoire, important as it may be for other reasons, has not been the magic bullet to solving the problem of declining audiences.
5. No Music Education Equals No Interest
Read the autobiographies of American-born classical musicians or their more informal reminiscences and over and over again we learn about the transformational experience of their primary and secondary school musical experiences. One of my favorite examples is the autobiography of Joseph Robinson, former principal oboe of the New York Philharmonic, a North Carolina farm boy who discovered a love of music in his high school band. His book is Long Winded: An Oboist’s Incredible Journey to the New York Philharmonic (Chicago, Joshua Tree Press, 2018).
More recently, acclaimed violist Caitlin Lynch of both A Far Cry and the Aeolus String Quartet, knew she was lucky. Growing up in Salem, Oregon in the 1990s, the aspiring young musician was able to take advantage of the extraordinary musical educational opportunities offered in the Salem-Keizer public schools. As a result, though now based on the East Coast, she has started a music education program in her home town.
In my own case, I learned more about sonata form in an eighth-grade music class than I did in college and I regularly attended concerts by the Philadelphia Orchestra as part of that class. That was in addition to regular chorus and orchestra participation in junior and senior high school.
And what is true for musicians is doubly true for audiences. Serious music education, especially when it involves singing and playing instruments, has a greater influence on later attendance at concerts than almost any other factor. Thus, according to one theory, the primary reasons for the long-term decline in attendance at musical concerts is the reduction in arts education in the public school system and the only thing that could counteract the ticket sales decline in the long-run is making arts education a core part of the curriculum again.
Lest there be any question about the data, research bears it out. A study from the National Endowment for the Arts documents the decline in arts education of all kinds since 1982 by tracing the percentage of 18-year-olds who had received any form of arts education broken down by discipline. The decline in music education was 30 percent. What the study does not show is that by 1982, there had already been a very significant decline since the 1950s.
Some say the solution is simply to increase arts education in public schools. Laudable as that goal may be, unless the offering is more substantial than an occasional music class, the results will be insignificant. Given the trends in public education, it is hard to be optimistic that anything more substantial will be offered on a widely adopted basis.
6. It’s All About Loving Our Performing Kids (and Amateur Musicians)
Recently, I attended a concert featuring performances by mostly young people from a community music school and a few adult amateurs, none of whom planned to become professionals. Like so many of these events, several features stood out. The concert was very long, allowing the greatest number of performers to play. To be generous, the quality of the performances was “uneven.” To be brutally honest, judging by fairly lax standards, most of the performances were quite mediocre.
But now comes the surprise: the auditorium was full of wildly enthusiastic audience members who appeared to love the concert.
Having been a long-time presenter with an organization that had both a formal concert component as well as a community music school for non-professional students, I have seen a pattern repeated over-and-over again. While struggling to fill the hall for the formal concerts that included some of the top chamber music players in the United States, the task of filling the auditorium for the young people and amateur performers was much simpler.
Of course, not all concerts by young people are musically sub-par. Benjamin Zander’s Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra is a remarkable example of fine musicianship by young amateurs. (I once heard a performance of Berlioz’s Symphony Fantastique by this orchestra that was truly extraordinary.) The same can be said of the Carnegie Hall’s exceptional National Youth Orchestra (NYO) and its junior ensemble (NYO2). But seemingly from an audience size point of view, it doesn’t seem to matter how excellent (or not) the music making is. Filling the hall for kids and adult amateurs is often much easier than filling it for professionals.
Conductor Benjamin Zander and the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra. The quality of the ensemble is quite extraordinary even though most of the young people will not pursue music as a profession. The hall is routinely full for the Orchestra’s concerts. There is a strong correlation between young people who play instruments and later concert attendance.
There is another interesting aspect of the emphasis on young players as a long-term audience development strategy. The Classical Music Consumer Segmentation Study mentioned above indicated that one of the strongest predictors of adult attendance at classical music events is whether individuals played instruments or sang in a choir as youngsters. Programs and organizations that offer opportunities in this area are doing yeoman service in long-term audience development. The nagging question is whether it is enough and whether it reaches any but the most affluent.
7. The Celebrity Approach
There is no question that Yo Yo Ma is a celebrity who can consistently fill halls of any size. But what about filling the hall for the rest of the season?
Hovering over all this, is the celebrity approach—something as ubiquitous in classical music as it is in other fields. One way to reliably fill a hall, many will acknowledge, is to hire a major celebrity musician. Again, this approach is not new. What is new in the classical music business at least, is that today there are many fewer musicians whose celebrity status is sufficient to fill a hall. When I started going to concerts seventy years ago, there were reliably a dozen each of conductors, pianists, and violinists who could do so. Throw in half a dozen singers, a couple of cellists, and miscellaneous others and that leads to over between forty and fifty dependable rain makers in the past. We can argue about how many musicians can attract a sold-out house in a major hall today, but I would suggest the number may be closer to half a dozen. And given the astronomical fees those celebrities charge, only a small percentage of organizations and venues can afford them even if they can manage to secure a date (which is not always possible).
But imagine that an organization can manage to book a celebrity and sell out a hall, the inevitable follow-up question is “and then what?” Having attracted an enthusiastic crowd, many of whom came out solely to see and (hopefully) hear the celebrity, what does the organization do for the rest of the season to attract a large audience. Experience shows that in many cases, a goodly number of those who attended that one performance are done for the year.
8. Too Much Product
In a benchmark study of the orchestra field conducted in the 1990s[4], one statistic was especially noteworthy. The number of performances by orchestras between 1971 and 1991 had increased by 40 percent. It is no secret that one of the things driving that increase was the number of orchestras moving from part-time to full-time work for their musicians. To justify the increased work, orchestras scheduled more concerts and that trend has only continued as more orchestras have provided increased work opportunities for their musicians. Given the correlation between increased numbers of performances and decreases in audience numbers for any given concert, it would seem obvious that the solution is to lower the number of concerts.
But this solution, based on obvious laws of supply and demand, flies in the face of the collective bargaining agreements that orchestras have with their players. Reducing employment and compensation is extremely difficult among a strong unionized work force and the very survival for some institutions might be threatened by labor unrest, defections of star players, and a hostile local press that often sides with musicians in such struggles.
But even if such action was necessary, would it really make a difference? Given the huge number of competing live attractions, would not others rush to fill the void?
Which Theory is Right?
All of these theories about how to address the challenge of audience development for classical music may be right to a degree. What is wrong is to assume that any single approach will be attractive to all audience members. The Royal Philharmonic acknowledged this fact in its survey report finding very different responses among different audience segments: longstanding orchestra enthusiasts said one thing, music students and others part of a younger demographic requested something else, and those new to the art form had entirely different opinions.
Each reader of this blog probably gravitates to a particular approach to the concert experience and may shun several others advocated above. Some of the recommendations for change over the years have kept me out of the concert hall on occasion. We can look back with envy at a time when people were willing to go to concerts regularly and predictably as part of their recreational and cultural life and did not require a la carte concert presentations. But for the most part, that is a thing of the past that went out with the subscription model when people signed up for a season without checking carefully about individual events. Today, potential audience members are choosier, especially as a myriad of other entertainment opportunities are available, including excellent options on home electronic equipment and screens. They often know what they want… and conversely what they don’t want.
The challenge then for the concert presenter today is that it may be impossible to meet everyone’s needs and desires through a single magic bullet or a single concert. Diversification of presentational approaches, segmented offerings accurately described, and a business model that accepts that it may be difficult to consistently sell out large venues, may be the best way to build larger and loyal audiences.
With gratitude to Joe Kluger who helped substantially on this blog
[1] Americanizing the American Orchestra: Report of the National Task Force for The American Orchestra: An Initiative for Change, June 1993, p. 24.
[2] Americanizing, p. 38.
[3] Americanizing, p. 19.
[4] “The Financial Condition of Symphony Orchestras,” Research and Report Prepared by The Wolf Organization for the American Symphony Orchestra League, 1992.