Opera Theatre of St. Louis set out to discover what motivates new people to come to opera and what makes them want to come back. Rosalind Early reports on what they found.
How do you fill a leaking bucket? Metaphorically at least that’s the problem that arts organizations around the country are facing as their core audience ages and dwindles.
“We call this problem the ‘leaky bucket,’ which is a good metaphor to describe the challenge,” says Andrew Jorgensen, general director of Opera Theatre of Saint Louis since 2018. “The traditional subscription audience is declining as people age out of participation. As we lose audience members, are we refilling the bucket rapidly enough that we are able to continue our enterprise? That’s the basic question. Can we continue to find and nurture new audiences?”
These subscribers who are leaving were often buying season tickets at higher prices, and it takes a “mega-subscriber” to replace them... Keep reading on American Theatre
How do you fill a leaking bucket? Metaphorically at least that’s the problem that arts organizations around the country are facing as their core audience ages and dwindles.
“We call this problem the ‘leaky bucket,’ which is a good metaphor to describe the challenge,” says Andrew Jorgensen, general director of Opera Theatre of Saint Louis since 2018. “The traditional subscription audience is declining as people age out of participation. As we lose audience members, are we refilling the bucket rapidly enough that we are able to continue our enterprise? That’s the basic question. Can we continue to find and nurture new audiences?”
These subscribers who are leaving were often buying season tickets at higher prices, and it takes a “mega-subscriber” to replace them... Keep reading on American Theatre