This Week: Arts in, arts out (duh)… A link between ticket cost and attendance? (Nope!)… How short attention spans are changing behavior… Let’s get beyond audience ratings… Can the arts make a difference in war zones?
- If You’re Exposed To Art, You’ll Pay Attention To Art: Some things just seem so obvious it goes without saying. But here’s yet another study that finds that students who study the arts in school are “significantly more likely (than their peers) to create art in their own lives, and to patronize arts events.” Bottom line is that people need a reason – good or bad – to pay attention to something. Once they start paying attention they’ll likely care about it. Happens for sports, happens for money and business, happens for the places we choose to live. So it absolutely follows for the arts. So the problem isn’t that we don’t understand this, it’s that the value systems we have set up don’t prioritize it.
- A Correlation Between Ticket Costs and Attendance? Not if you consider high-end sports and pop music events. Time magazine reports on what it really costs to go to the Coachella Festival. Tickets sell out in a matter of minutes and cost hundreds or thousands of dollars. Then, “entry fees are only half the battle. You’ll spend quite a bit on lodging, transportation, food and alcohol as well. In fact, hotel prices for Coachella weekends are 140% higher than normal, according to hotel booking website Trivago. Even compared to last year, hotel costs for properties within 10-miles of the festival are up by $120. So people really will pay for what they believe are unique events. that have buzz.
- Short Attention-Span Behavior: Studies show that most of the stories that are shared online on social network platforms are shared unread. That is, people see a headline they think is interesting and share it without even reading the story they’re sharing. Turns out a version of this behavior happens with music too. “Online streaming services offer countless choices, so there’s no reason to stick with a song that doesn’t grab you right off the bat. And many people don’t: Research from 2014 found Spotify subscribers skip about one-third of sampled songs after a mere 20 seconds. But perhaps more interesting is the notion that this new reality is changing the way music is written and recorded.” If you want people to listen you have to bare your most alluring wares in the first few seconds.
- Are We Finally Getting Beyond User Ratings? Maybe once upon a time having audiences rating what they used seemed like a good idea. But audience ratings have been incredibly problematic. People lie. Yes, lie. So companies like Netflix are getting out of user ratings. “People rated aspirationally, but they watched situationally. Yes, you did give That Important Documentary five stars when you got around to watching it, but at the end of a trying day at the office, you more often settled on viewing some pleasing pap like “The Ridiculous 6.” This sort of virtue signaling, often undercut by divergent behavior, is everywhere — witness the discrepancies that sometimes occur between polling and actual voting in elections.”
- Arts In War Zones? Well, why not? “There is currently a rise in interest in the work of artists in areas of conflict. This work runs the risk of ascribing too much power to art, whereby it is seen as a potential panacea to the ills of the world.”
Image: Pixabay
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