{"id":1657,"date":"2013-05-08T16:40:19","date_gmt":"2013-05-08T23:40:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/?p=1657"},"modified":"2013-05-08T16:40:19","modified_gmt":"2013-05-08T23:40:19","slug":"the-enemy-is-empty-seats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/2013\/05\/the-enemy-is-empty-seats\/","title":{"rendered":"The Enemy is Empty Seats"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1665\" alt=\"Empty Seats 3\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Empty-Seats-3-300x223.png\" width=\"300\" height=\"223\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Empty-Seats-3-300x223.png 300w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Empty-Seats-3-500x372.png 500w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Empty-Seats-3.png 1511w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>Do empty seats make you angry?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>They should! \u00a0They should make you <strong>BOILING MAD<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Each empty seat represents a <strong>direct cost<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>the wasted expenditure of advertising,<\/li>\n<li>the loss of immediate cash flow,<\/li>\n<li>pressure to increase ticket prices and\/or spend even more on marketing,<\/li>\n<li>a diminished pool of future donors.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Each empty seat also carries the <strong>indirect cost<\/strong> of\u00a0the <strong>APPEARANCE OF FAILURE<\/strong> to artists, audiences, members &amp; donors, visitors, sponsors and stakeholders.<\/p>\n<p>Make no mistake, each empty seat drains the precious energy, momentum and goodwill right out of your organization.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>If you are not actively working up &#8217;til the very last second to fill EACH &amp; EVERY seat&#8230;<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>If you are still defending some model of doing business that supposes there is ANY virtue to having an empty seat&#8230;<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>If empty seats don&#8217;t make you furious with rage&#8230;<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Then your organization is absolutely failing to address its most profound challenges in audience building.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>For more on this topic, <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/soldoutrun.com\/episode006\/\" target=\"_blank\">listen to this just-published PODCAST <\/a><\/strong>by theatre marketing consultant Clay Mabbitt, of <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/soldoutrun.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Sold Out Run<\/a>,<\/strong> who interviews me about this and other topics addressed in my <em><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/audienceavenue.com\/audience-development\/audiences-everywhere\/\">Audiences Everywhere<\/a><\/strong><\/em>\u2122 workshop.<\/p>\n<p>Podcast link: \u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/soldoutrun.com\/episode006\/\">http:\/\/soldoutrun.com\/episode006\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p># # #<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Do empty seats make you angry? They should! \u00a0They should make you BOILING MAD. Each empty seat represents a direct cost: the wasted expenditure of advertising, the loss of immediate cash flow, pressure to increase ticket prices and\/or spend even more on marketing, a diminished pool of future donors. Each empty seat also carries the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,26,34,4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1657","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-best-practices","7":"category-innovation","8":"category-marketing","9":"category-strategy","10":"entry","11":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1657\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}