The Academy of Ancient Music (AAM) is an orchestra which gives about 70 performances around the world every year, explains Christopher Lawrence.
The majority (60%) of those performances are abroad, with The AAM being engaged by a promoter. As yet the orchestra has had no need to access the customer data of those performances. Indeed, this is information to which I feel we have no right. Of the performances we undertake in the UK, most are engagements rather than own-promotions. While I feel we could make some use of the customer data from such engagements, again I feel we have no right to it.
However, the tricky area is that of own-promotions. When the orchestra presents concerts under our own banner it is we who hire the venue, create publicity material, advertise in the press and generally put in the work to attract an audience. Consequently, I feel we have a right to know something about the customers that we have attracted; at the very least who they are.
The AAM has two own-promoted subscription series, one in London and one in Cambridge. Our access to customer data in the two cities differs wildly. In Cambridge, the venue itself does not run its own box office, so tickets are sold through another venue’s box office and I am given full and unfettered access to the data. In London, however, where the venue does have its own box office, I have no direct access to the data and can only mail previous attenders ‘blind’ by paying for labels which I never see. I take the view that anyone who subscribes to all the concerts in The AAM season at this venue must sense some sort of relationship with The AAM, quite possibly over and above any relationship he/she has with the venue.
The compromises inflicted by this lack of access on our aims and ambitions was recently brought into sharp focus. Before the 2003-2004 season I wanted to write to all of our subscribers from the 2002-2003 season to thank them for their subscription and to encourage them to look at our new brochure. I also wanted to include their names and addresses and to ‘top and tail’ each letter by hand, to reduce the sense of it being a circular. In Cambridge I was able to do this, but in London I had to settle in the end for knowing the customers’ names but not their addresses (or indeed any other information about them). Accordingly, our London subscribers have had a less personalised approach from The AAM than the Cambridge subscribers.
Ultimately, it seems that some venues are uncertain about their legal obligations under the Data Protection Act (DPA) and therefore err on the side of caution. However, it may be that some are using the legislation as an excuse to retain data unfairly, and then to charge for its use. Given that the DPA is, in fact, far from clear then, should performing groups encourage venues to follow a less nervous interpretation of it?
Christopher Lawrence is General Manager of The Academy of Ancient Music.
t: 01223 301509; e: c.lawrence@aam.co.uk