C|NET has a once-over-lightly piece on the Van Cliburn Piano Competition’s new blog and the trend it suggests for classical music marketing. Says C|NET:
…like other areas before it, from politics to open-source programming, the classical music world is finding a democratic spirit online that could help shape its future….with little support from big institutions, a bloggers’-age network of fans, musicians and writers is building support for concerts and recordings online. These advocates, ranging from interested amateurs to professional composers, are taking on the roles of evangelist, educator and reviewer once largely played by newspaper critics and radio stations.
Through webcasts, the weblog, and opportunities for the world to vote on a favorite competitor, Van Cliburn is working to open the competition into a conversation, and engaging a worldwide audience through the web.
Meanwhile, at MoMA, they’re discovering that the world is also capable of starting its own conversation, thank you very much. The New York Times reports on an unofficial and irreverant series of audio guides for the MoMA exhibits, made available as podcasts (audio files that can be downloaded to an Apple iPod or other personal device).
With an iPod and Internet access, anyone can now download these audio tours, and then wander MoMA’s new space with an alternative perspective on the works…often quite far from the official curator’s view. The group involved is even accepting MoMA audio tours from the public, allowing anyone to post their audio descriptions through their web site.
We often talk about the marketing power of weblogs, web sites, and podcasts — usually considering them as new ways to draw audiences to what we already do. But these technologies also have a wonderfully insidious way of transforming both sides of that conversation, diminishing the traditional control of message and meaning held by arts organizations — provided by official program notes, marketing language, education, outreach, and so on.
Organizations that dive into these technologies should not be expecting business as usual. Instead, they should be ready for a real conversation that they can take part in but cannot control. It will be an uneasy feeling for many artistic, education, and marketing departments. But what fun!
Thanks to Mr. Blau for the MoMA link.
Andrew,
I’m glad you shared your reflections on iPod story in NY Times about MOMA.
I especially like this sentence:
”But these technologies also have a wonderfully insidious way of transforming both sides of that conversation…”
I think that there is often a real lack of appreciation in the arts world for how interactive technologies transform the relationship between arts institutions/artists and viewers/audience members.
I hope MOMA and other arts organizations embrace these independent iPod-based audio walking tours. It makes all forms of art much more engaging and meaningful. Plus most of the recorded audio programs in museums bore me to death and I don’t both listening to them anyway.
Doug Fox
http://greatdance.com
Good article Andrew! Your final paragraph sums it all up nicely, the conversation which may exist will need to do so outside of the typical marketing sphere. Without that prerequisite for unrestricted discussion any attempt by arts organization (and I’m thinking about orchestras in particular) will come across as yet another propaganda-laden initiative.