Art on Track: CTA as visual art gallery

As every aspiring visual artist knows, creating the work of art is only one part of actually making a living as an artist. Getting the art in front of potential buyers is sometimes the more difficult part. A local Chicago artist collective is taking matter into its own hands in a very bold way: bringing art to the public by chartering an eight-car CTA train for a one-night traveling show on August 30. For the lowly price of $5, patrons will be able to actually touch at least some of the art and view a performance piece involving representation of Chicago’s famous landmarks and history. The presenters are Salvo, which describes itself as a “think tank” of artists, and Lethal Poetry, a Chicago-based arts and entertainment start-up. I love this idea and wish I were going to be in town so I could attend! It’s a creative and very affordable way to show how art can be part of everyday life instead of something one sees only in a museum or an art gallery — settings that some people find intimidating, uncomfortable or otherwise unengaging. Participating galleries include The Flat Iron Artist Group, Peter Jones Gallery, The Silver Room Gallery, Colibri Studio/Gallery and Quenect 4 Gallery, as well as independent Chicago artists. Full details available at Art on Track.

Goodman wants to know: What kind of subscriber are you?

Going through the mail bag, I discovered the Goodman’s season brochure and discovered an interesting approach to marketing the season’s offerings. As in typical, the brochure offers three tiers of subscriptions — all eight plays, five plays or three plays. What’s not typical is the way the shows are bundled: “The Ultimate Cultural Adventure” (all eight), “Theater on a Grand Scale” (five) and “Strong Women, Strong Voices” (three). As the title suggests, the latter includes a world premiere by Lynn Nottage (directed by Kate Whorisky); a world premiere by Naomi Iizuka (directed by Lisa Portes); and a new play by Chicago’s own Rebecca Gilman (directed by Wendy C. Goldberg). Seems this would appeal to the large proportion of theater patrons who are women. “Theater on a Grand Scale,” on the other hand, focuses on major productions, including Tommy Tunes Turn of the Century and Brian Dennehy in Desire Under the Elms. This approach is much more creative than simply offering number-of-show-based packages, and gives the potential subscriber a couple of themes that might draw their interest. As a matter of fact, I’m interested!

A new 32,000-square-foot contemporary art space in downtown Chicago

Here’s an exciting piece of news: The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) just announced the pending opening of a new 32,000-square-foot exhibition space in a glorious Louis Sullivan building at 33 S. State Street in downtown Chicago. According to the news release, the Sullivan Galleries, as it will be known, will be the largest contemporary art gallery space in the Loop. Exhibits begin on August 23, with the opening of “Ahh…Decadence!,” featuring more than 40 Chicago artists exploring the idea of “decadence associated with excessively ornamented expressions that suggest decay, the nonrational, pleasure, sex and death.” A second exhibit is “Department (Store),” a continually evolving collaborative work that makes the most of the massive scale of the Louis Sullivan windows. Both sound fascinating to me! More important, however, is the emergence of large, public contemporary art space that draws on the considerable talents within SAIC. If you love contemporary art and the newest-of-the-new (as I do!), this gallery should be top of your list for fall viewing.

Those surprising seniors

Eugene Carr over at Patron Technology has been writing some interesting posts in his eLearning blog about marketing online to people over the age of 60 (see his 8/6 post titled “More Confirmation about Seniors Online”) His key point is that, contrary to popular belief, people in this age group are highly active online–and a some eMarketer data demonstrates just that. If I am reading this chart correctly (the second one), 10.6% of current Internet users are 62 and older and this number is projected to grow to 12% by 2011. Also interesting, says Carr, a Focalyst study showed that this age group pays more attention to online ads than younger Internet users do. Which just goes to show that we can’t always trust our assumptions about where our prospective patrons and donors can be found.

Orchestra marketing membership flexibility

As we’ve all been observing for a few years, season subscription sales are on the decline, while marketers spend ever-increasing energy and money marketing to single-ticket buyers. I saw an interesting article in the Philadelphia Inquirer today about an innovative approach to orchestra subscription marketing that the Philadelphia Orchestra is rolling out as I write. For a $50 to $75 annual fee, eZseat members can buy tickets far in advance or at the last possible minute to any subscription concerts (not special events, chamber music or family concerts). Using the eZseat online program, members can buy tickets and print them out to be scanned by ushers at concerts. In addition to the ease and convenience of the program, it also offers a price incentive: members get a 25% discount on their purchases. I’m very interested to see whether eZseat takes off and I applaud the Philadelphia Orchestra for taking a fresh approach that may help other arts presenters find their own solutions. Props also to Pew Charitable Trust and Neubauer Family Foundation for investing in the research and development of eZseat. As a picky ticket-buyer, I appreciate the few arts orgs that offer what I call “frequency discounts” based on the number of tickets purchased, whether or not said tix are in a prepackaged subscription. However, I certainly recognize that smaller arts orgs don’t  have the resources that a top-tier orchestra has to manage a truly flexible ticketing and pricing structure.