Subscription Seasons: An answer but what was the question? Part I

It was a massive week last week here in mARTsketing land with the launch of my theatre's annual subscription season and although it was widely lauded as one of our best ever both in terms of programming and marketing execution, it got me thinking....

Exactly what need are we filling here, what idea is a subscription season the answer to?

I 'think' the question being asked is "I love the theatre, I come often, how can I feel more a part of what is going on here?", in response the industry says "OK here's our season for next year, commit to coming at least four or five times, commit to coming on a set day i.e. the second Thursday next November, pay up front and we'll give you a discount and do a few other cheap things over the year to make you feel a bit special."

Basically purchase your culture in bulk and we'll give you a discount... Costco-ulture!

Now it feels to me that this is a strange response to our audience, it feels like we are asking a bit too much. Why are we selling a premium product like a commodity? And why for heavens sake are our most committed patrons paying less money instead of more?

There's a side issue here too in that most venues and theatre companies in Australia survive with government funds, so what do we do? We take that support and use it to sell cheap tickets to our core patrons - i.e. rich old white people. Doesn't exactly gel with my sense of social justice. But I digress. (This contradiction will form the basis of a future article)

I mean the whole notion of such a commitment, in this day and age of instant publishing, 3D live telecasts of Opera from New York, on-demand TV viewing, seems out dated and unsustainable. Whilst we might still have a good number of older folk who are prepared to make this time and date commitment to us so far out, we are trading on their loyalty too much.

Now I'm the last person to peddle the line "Our patrons are getting older, when they get too old to come, all will be ruined" because I do believe that people graduate into different arts forms as they mature, so the audience segment maintains its base. But what I'm not sure about is whether the consuming patterns of  people aged in their mid thirties and younger will going to change as they age to make them think a subs season ticket is a good idea..

I mean I like Dr Who, but I'll be blowed if I'm going to make an appointment to watch it Saturday evenings, AFTER I know it's premiered in the UK earlier. No I'll watch it online whenever I want to.I mean thanks to VHS I've been time shifting my viewing since primary school, these are long established patterns of arts and entertainment consumption.I just can't see lots of fifty somethings in twenty years time willing to purchase performing arts in the way we are currently asking them to.

So what should we do? We'll save that for Part II because I've rabbited on for long enough already AND well I need to research some case studies!