I’ve had some interesting comments and e-mail feedback on my rant about distributed ticketing. Some had attempted some version of the idea before, but had been flummoxed by distrust or neglect by the community’s arts organizations, or inelegance of the technology available.
I continue to think there’s a way to hack the system to make this idea workable…to allow a broader and more distributed group of players access and authority to sell tickets to cultural events. With your help, I hope to continue to think it through, and find relevant examples…even of efforts labeled as ‘failures.’
Among the comments was a thoughtful post by Frank Chiachiere from an arts collective in Seattle, who suggested one snag with my airline analogy:
Airlines are a hard analogy, too, because the services are interchangable: most people don’t care which airline they get booked on, as long as it gets them there cheaply. Not true of cultural events. You’d want your ”cultural concierge” to have a high degree of knowledge of each event, to help guide people to the right one. That’s harder than it is in the travel industry.
I completely agree about the difference between air travel and cultural experience, and about the need for responsive and even omniscient agents to suggest possible ticket purchases for each patron. In fact, that’s the kind of broad view that a distributed ticket system would allow (”You know, it sounds like our current theater work isn’t what you’re looking for, but there’s an experimental jazz combo playing at the King Club that would knock you out…can I book that for you?”).
But Frank’s comment also raises an interesting question: how interchangable are the services of cultural organizations? In other words, when we buy a ticket to a cultural event, are we paying for the means of travel, or for the place it takes us (the meaning, the connection, the new perspective, the escape, etc.)?
Certainly, the two are closely interconnected, but they’re not the same. If I’m buying a specific show, there’s only one place in town I can go. If I’m buying meaning, connection, discovery, or escape, I could travel any number of routes to get there.
The core economic term here is ”fungibility,” which means ”the degree to which all instances of a given commodity are considered interchangeable” (defined here). Specific grades of coal are fungible, since I don’t care which chunk of coal I get, as long as it’s of similar quality. Generic white rice is fungible. Cash is fungible. Is it possible that the core feeling of connection we get from a personally engaging cultural experience is somewhat fungible, as well?
I’m not suggesting that the arts are fungible, or that they are a commodity (many would smack me upside the head for saying such a thing). I’m just wondering if there is a common destination that meaningful experience takes us — regardless of discipline, professional or amateur, nonprofit or commercial, formal or informal. In short, I’m wondering if meaningful connections through culture aren’t a bit more fungible than we’d like to admit.
Forget TicketMaster. Let’s create the ”Meaningful Experience Master.”
Here’s how it works:
I go to a website and enter my name, date of birth, address, and information about my educational background. I answer some questions about other arts experiences I’ve had lately — books I’ve read, shows I’ve been to, classes I’ve taken. I also indicate what kind of mood I’m in and what sort of ”meaningful experience” I’d like to have — whether I want to be disturbed & enlightened, or simply have a good laugh, or to get my own creative juices flowing. There are also a few random questions that don’t seem to have anything to do with my aesthetic tastes and preferences, but which add an element of surprise to the mix.
Since I’m planning to go out with my spouse, she fills out the same info. Then we indicate the date & time that we’d like to have this ”experience,” how much we’re willing to pay for it, and how far we’d like to travel.
We submit this information to ”Meaningful Experience Master” and within a few minutes, it sends back a one-of-a-kind itinerary:
”Your meaningful experience begins on Friday, June 7, at 6:05 pm. Leave your house and walk 6 blocks to Godric’s Cafe. The weather will be lovely and the irises in full bloom. You’ll have time to order the dinner special and admire the photography exhibit before walking the remaining 3 blocks to the Walnut Street Theater, which is putting on an original play by the local community theater group The Eastside Players. There’s no need to buy your ticket in advance…they never sell out. The show starts at 8:00, and it’s general seating. If you arrive by 7:45, you ought to be able to get 2nd row balcony seats, which are the best. The play is called ‘The Zucchini Man’ and you’ll spend most of two hours squirming in your seat, alternately with boredom and with extreme discomfort, although the video montage at the end of act two makes it all worth it. The play will spark an intense discussion on the walk home and will inspire you to begin writing poetry again and to audition for a future Eastside Players production. You’ll also find yourselves thinking and talking about this play 12 years later. Enjoy.”
Re: Meaningful Experience Master: I love it! I want two.
Thanks for the shout, Andrew. I think you’re right, there is a degree of fungibility to cultural experience.
My immediate reaction is that the degree of fungibility increases in direct proportion to the “socialness” of the experience. That is, if you’re out with good friends and having a good time, the content matters less.
In a similar vein, the cultural experiences that require your full and constant attention (theater, opera, dance) are probably less fungible than those that you can move in and out of, or at least walk around during (an art gallery/museum, a rock show, etc.). For the latter, the overall ambiance is more part of the experience. Not that ambiance doesn’t matter in a traditional theater, it’s just that with all the lights out and everyone focused silently on the stage, it’s far less obvious.