Blame Culture

If something sells well, it’s because Programming did a knock-out job.
If something sells badly, it’s because Marketing didn’t do their job properly. Sound familiar?

This is an all too common occurrence within the arts and cultural sector and it’s a complex issue to unpick. As a marketer, I’ve seen (and heard about) a fair share of unique projects and wild visions from different Artistic Directors (AD) and Programmers over the years, some have been successful, but there’s quite often a disconnect between what ADs and Programmers deem to be artistically interesting and worthy and what the audience perceives them to be and this is where Marketing comes in...

Marketing is effectively the buffer (or filter) between Programming and the audience: to realise and translate the ADs vision and programme into reality to attract an audience, but instead of Marketing being a part of the preliminary discussions about a programme, they’re often simply presented with a final product or season of events and asked to ‘market it’ without being consulted on the programme’s viability to sell or attract an audience, let alone breakeven, before the programme is finalised, but at this point it’s too late to affect change.

Now, to be fair, there is a valid need to programme experimental and groundbreaking and even risky works that push the boundaries of arts and culture and creative expression, this I think we can all agree on, but there needs to be a conscious balance between commercially viable events and events that both Programming and Marketing can jointly and openly acknowledge their niche-ness from the start, thus managing expectations when it comes to breakeven targets and ultimately avoid the blame culture if if something doesn’t sell as well as the artistic team anticipates.

Even if you’re lucky enough to have a Programming and Marketing team work in tandem to produce a collaborative and coherent season or festival of events, sometimes there are external factors beyond all our control that thwart our efforts and make selling events harder and these need to be acknowledged as they are having an impact on us all: the pandemic, cost of living crisis, ticket scalpers, lack of funding for the arts, venue closures, lack of clash diaries and so on.

So, what’s the key to success? First and foremost, think about your audience. This might seem obvious, but far too many organisations prioritise other things and initiatives ahead of their audience and without them your organisation can’t survive, let alone thrive. The other piece of advice: bring Programming and Marketing together to collaborate, communicate and commit to a shared vision for your venue, brand or festival and ask for Marketing’s input as events are pencilled in, it might actually help!