What happens when you fear there's a difference between what the artistic directors think they want to do and what you think the public's going to buy? And I want to talk about it from two dimensions. One is, I believe the point in time when that has to be discussed and negotiated is when you hire the artistic director. And I believe that most arts organizations don't do a great job of hiring their artistic leader. And I think they go more on pedigree and personality than anything else. And what I would like you to do if you're a board member about to engage an artistic director is say show me a three year plan. What would be the art you'd want to do over three years? And then you can say, we like it, we don't like it. Rather than hiring someone, and then saying no, no, no we don't like that. We don't like this, we don't like that, we don't like this. And then you've not let the artistic director do their job. But the other thing I want to say about this notion of what does the audience like? If you go to an audience right now and ask them what they want to see, they're going to say Beethoven's Ninth, Swan Lake, and Phantom of the Opera. >> [LAUGH] >> And if you actually ask the same people, write down your most amazing arts experience of your life, it's never going to be Beethoven's Ninth, Phantom of the Opera, or Swan Lake. It's going to be, I went to this thing. I didn't even know what it was, and there was this young kid playing this thing, and I didn't even know. It was amazing. Our job is to lead taste, not to follow taste. And my favorite learning about that comes from the industry, not from the arts. It's from a big disaster called the Ford Edsel. I don't know if any of you are old enough to remember the Ford Edsel. Ford Edsel was the biggest disaster in American corporate history until new Coca-Cola. >> [LAUGH] >> Ford Motor, this is in the 1950s, decided to make the car that everyone in America was going to want. And they did it in a smart, exciting way, which is they said, this is when market research was a new thing, so they did market research, and they did focus groups across America. They had hundreds of focus groups to have people talk about which was the steering wheel they liked the best, and which was the fin of the car they liked the best, which was the headlamp they liked the best, and which seats did you like the best? And they had thousands of Americans expressing what they liked the best. And they took all this information, and they put it together, and made the car that everyone would want and no one bought it. No one wanted that car. Our job is to lead, not to follow. And that does not mean we shouldn't be cognizant of the implications of the work we choose to do. I did some consulting for a man named Richard Foreman. Richard Foreman's the leading absurdist playwright in America. And he ran a theater company in New York until very recently, and he got every grant known to mankind, because he is considered the genius of his field. I didn't understand a word of what he was talking about on stage, but that's okay, I didn't have to like it. He was considered the leader. And he did these relatively modest productions in a tiny little church in the lower east side of New York with 99 seats, and his balance sheet kept getting better, and better, and better because every foundation gave him a grant, and he got more and more money. He didn't spend it. And I went to him and I said Mr. Foreman, you have all this money, why don't you perform in a bigger theater? Why don't you spend more on your costumes or your sets or why don't you spend the money? You have it. You can't spend it on yourself. It's in your organization. He said you know Michael, I don't want to be in a bigger theater, because I know there are only 99 people a night who like my work. And he said if I go to a big theater, he said I'll have to change my work to get people to come or the theater will be empty. He said, I don't want to change my work. I love the work I do, it's 99 people a night. It's big enough for me. I learned so much from that. There are implications to our choices. If you want to do avant-garde chamber music, go for it. Just know you're not going to fill 3,000 seats. That's okay. No one said 3,000 seats is the measure of success. Just know what it is, do it great, market it well, find the family that's going to support you and do your work. There's nothing wrong with that. But, so I'm not for the, do the art that people like. I'm for the do the art we really want to do, let's to work really well. Let's see if we can build enough of an audience, and let's understand the implication for what our budget size can be, therefore. Does that make sense? And to me that's a healthier way of working than saying we better play Jingle Bells otherwise we're not going to get people to come. And you know, most people aren't fooled anyway. I got to the Kennedy Center in 2001. We have a symphony there called the National Symphony. It's our symphony. And just before I got there, the symphony decided, like so many other arts organizations, we need a younger audience. We all say that. We need a younger audience. So they said they needed a younger audience. And their solution to the younger audience was, they were going to change their subscription brochure, and they were going to make it look like a subscription brochure from a really edgy organization like the Brooklyn Academy of Music. They broke all the musicians heads up, and they had all the words going this way and everything. And that was going to get, we sold zero subscriptions, because no young person was fooled that all of a sudden you're hip because your brochure is. And the senior subscribers couldn't read the damn thing. They didn't know what was in it. And we had to do all this remedial telephone calls to get people to come back because they couldn't read the brochure. You don't fake people into buying art. And, I really want arts organizations to figure out its true calling. Why do you exist? What do you want to be? What kind of work do you really want to do? What's important to you? Do it really well, and then do a great job of your marketing, so you start to build a family that supports your kind of work and you're true to it. That's the way I think you're going to compete successfully, with the online, the 10,000 Swan Lake's that are going to be online within a few years, is not to do Swan Lake just because we want, we think it sells, but do something that's really, distinctively yours. And I think if we don't do that we're going to have real trouble in the arts. How often have I put things on this calendar and then for some reason they drop off? It's happened frequently for several reasons. The biggest reason was I realized it was a stupid project. >> [LAUGH] >> And it sounded great, and I was really excited by it, and then all of a sudden I realized that's not so good, that's the biggest reason frankly. Several times it happens because artists for some reason became unavailable. They died. They got a different project, and it just didn't work. Every now and then it was because I started to realize I couldn't get the funding. But usually, if I can't get the funding I make that the luxury for the year, and I use other, general fundraising to support that. But you know what, it's a surprisingly small percentage of what I put in this chart. And I've had funders where I got them to commit to a project, and I'd go back to them and say, you know what, can't do it, for here's the reason. I'm totally honest and open. I don't lie, and they got it. because it was always a good reason. It wasn't because like we were stupid or something. It was, we were going to do this with so and so, and they were writing a play and they died. No donor can blame you for that. >> [LAUGH] >> And so it happens. But I'll tell you it happens so infrequently compared to the others that actually we make happen, and that really that process starts to really drive the organization forward. And what we're going to ask you to do is to do a longer-term plan, to really start thinking about this. And use this as a fun opportunity rather than as dreary. Just think about, if it isn't fun then maybe this isn't the right profession. If its not fun to say I've always wanted to do this, that's why we do this work. And I want you to be thinking about this. I think It's going to enliven you. It's going to enliven your staffs. It's going to enliven the board. And it's going to enliven the people around you who care about your organization. Because they're going to be energized by the excitement you start to generate from having come up with some ideas for the future. I'd just like you to think bigger. If you think about art five years out, are you sort of, the world changes in those five years. How do you create work that responds to the needs and the relevancy of today? And maybe five years ago, something wasn't an issue. And I think the answer to that is, I don't plan all my art five years out. I'm leaving lots of room for innovation. I'm just planning some projects out. That's part one, and part two is, if you're an organization that only does contemporary work, you don't necessarily even know the works you'll do five years out, but you can at least start talking about the artists you'd like to commission. And again, you'll have a much easier chance commissioning greater artists, if you give them a much longer lead time. So even if you can't say, this is the work I want to do in three years, but say, there's this artist I've always wanted to work with. When are they available to work with us? Let's stick them on this list. You don't know what the work is they're going to come up with for you, but you know they're going to be around, that's something really to know and to plan around. So I don't think this doesn't work when you're dealing with contemporary artists. >> How do we go from where we are to doing that? We can't do it in one day, and you're exactly right. What I would ask organizations that are only looking six months to a year ahead to do right now is go to your cool calm place with your favorite drink and pick one or two projects, that's it. Don't pick 16. Don't work with every year. Just pick one or two projects you've always to do, and stick them for or five years out. All right, just do one or two. Don't do the whole thing. Grow into it. What you're going to find is you're so energized by the activity that you're going to want to put more down. This is fun. This is why we're in the field. We've forgotten that, I think. I don't mean you have, but as a group we've forgotten a lot about our creativity and our excitement and the energy of coming up with a great idea, because we are so nervous always that we're not going to have the money to do our work, so we tamp down our ambition so much. So what I am asking you to do is just think of one project and stick it five years out. And what you are going to find is you're excited by that project, you're going to want a few more, and you're going to bring people along with you. because as you start talking about these, you're going to realize that you're getting a lot of support for these ideas. And that's going to encourage you to do more and you'll grow into it.
