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

OK so last week I outlined my longer term and strategic worries about season subscriptions and their hold on the Arts Industry. But what are the upsides? What are the alternatives I hear you ask?

Well isn't it lucky I just happen to be sitting in front of a computer to answer your hypothetical questions you imaginary reader you!

So the first thing is to acknowledge the power of the status quo, subscriptions seasons are very entrenched in the industry mindset, and the physics of inertia say it's a lot harder to get a body of mass (or in this case an idea) off the ground than it is to just keep the existing system rolling.

From my research most of the venues I've found that offer memberships instead of subscription seasons are either small regional venues who found the cost and effort of producing a season and marketing it for a few hundred people just too draining and the risk of swapping a couple of hundred subscribers to the unknown quantity of members was justifiable. Others who employed this model were start-up venues who took the opportunity to try something new, whilst others were really large capital city venues who cede the ability to offer a season because their major hirers all book the venues over the course of a year for their own seasons, they just didn't have the product to offer up for a season. Of course memberships is how galleries have been working for years!

Also currently for most people subs seasons still offer good marketing ROI, using the rough figures from my current work as an example the cost per ticket sold for marketing a subs season is $8 dollars for every ticket sold. Most individual ticket campaigns hover around $10, so you'd be a brave marketer to just get rid of the subs season idea on those numbers regardless of the longer term concerns.

So the dominant alternative seems to be a membership, a patron pays a fee at the start of the year and this gives them entitlements including access to discounted rates over the year as they book. It puts the power back in the patrons hands, they can come when they please, they can apply their discount to a greater numbers of shows over the year and for the marketers and programmers it removes a massive annual project that needs to be resourced.

Other ideas include a premium membership, this is a package of added value servicing - dedicated box office line, dedicated lines in the venue, seats always put on reserve in case they need them, a members lounge, free car parking. Now you have the beginnings of a package that patrons might actually want to pay MORE for rather than less.

Three signs you should think about ditching your subs season?

• Is your long term (five years plus) season ticket trend going up or down?
• Is your cost per ticket ahead, the same or behind your single ticket campaign cost per ticket?
• Do you own enough of your yearly capacity to offer a genuine membership per ticket purchase discount if you moved in this direction?
• Are you able to source product all year round outside of the Government imposed annual funded tour announcements?

If you are trending down. if it doesn't make financial sense and you can actually build a membership package with the product that comes to your venue, then what's the next step?

I would say that you then do some semi-pro focus groups, get a few subscribers in and talk to them about your idea, see how receptive they are. If it seems positive you can then carefully work across your organisation to build a great package.

The sum total of all this thinking myself has me considering if we can make it a contractual obligation for hirers to offer a members price and the logistics of running both campaigns side by side for a few years.

That's it from me for now and if you have case studies of Subs Season to membership transformations I'd love to see you comment about them.