In my Joseph Volpe post, I said the Metropolitan Opera might not really do marketing, at least as serious marketers understand the term. Here’s an example to show what I mean.
In 1996, I talked to the marketing director of the Met (whose current title, as one of their top executives, is Assistant Manager for Finance, Planning, and Marketing). At the time, he was quite happy with ticket sales, which he said averaged 92% of capacity. There was only one thing he’d change, he said. Each year, the artistic staff decided to produce four or five operas that didn’t sell tickets — things like Wozzeck and Lulu. That, of course, was their business, and the marketing director didn’t mind, because his overall sales were good. He only wished, he said, that Wozzeck would be staged during the time of year when many European tourists typically come to New York. Europeans, he said, would buy tickets to Wozzeck; American tourists wouldn’t.
Compare the Chicago Lyric Opera. In the ’90s, they typically sold more than 100% of their seats — which can happen if subscribers turn in tickets they can’t use, and the company resells them. Now, I won’t necessarily fault the Met for not doing that; it might be easier for the Chicago Lyric to sell tickets, because, compared to the Met, they do a shorter season in a smaller city, making them perhaps more visible.
But the Lyric Opera worked for every ticket that they sold. They didn’t want to have a single empty seat. Typically, they did a new or contemporary piece every season, and if they had unsold tickets for it, they also had a plan. They kept a database of people who’d bought single tickets to 20th century or contemporary works. If empty seats were available for an opera by Shostakovich or Philip Glass, they’d call the people on this list, and try to get them to attend.
Compare the Met, which (if I’m to believe what I was told in 1996), never bothered to market tickets for unpopular operas, because the overall sales seemed good enough. And now imagine a time — which we’re in right now — when ticket sales grow soft. Which company (if the Met persisted in its lazy ways) would be more prepared to fight the trend?