Everyone and their mother it seems are talking about how to sell classical music concerts. Whether it’s worth it to sell concerts. If they care, they will come, if not, they don’t, too bad. People are more likely to come to a concert which has been advertised with smiling soloist headshots rather than with ones which make them look dangerous and sexy. Don’t mix and match your fonts or everyone will hate you. Don’t make a social networking site separate from other social networking sites, that’s retarded. Make a social networking site, it will connect with young and hip people and they will buy expensive tickets.

Students don’t need deals, students need to network: introduce them to your board! Students don’t have any money, so provide a reasonably cheap pass their parents can buy them for the year – or one that they can buy when OSAP comes in.

Get a consultant. Consultants are morons, especially if they make up words. Work harder. Don’t try so hard. No one actually cares about the music, they go for the status. Music makes people happy. Sex sells, even classical music. Only really quality music will bring people out – nothing else matters. Arts Administration matters. Make sure there’s a verb in your slogan. Digital is the future. Blogs are the future.

People associate computers with work - stay off the computer. Showmanship is important! Buzzwords! Let the music speak for itself. The audience is old people, don’t offend them. Old people don’t use the internet. They like orgasms too. And pictures of fire. Pose your conductor in places around town one week he’s in so it looks like he’s Local and Connected – people know who he is, but they won’t care about the musicians (who actually live in town). Increase the mystique and hype around that conductor, actually. 

Don’t tell people about the music, they don’t care. People don’t know what they like, they know what they know – give them new things to like! Use lots of exclamation points. Tell people it’s family friendly, a night out for you and your spouse, romantic, edgy, spectacular, educational, elite, alternative, casual, accessible. Play exciting music. Play music everyone knows. Wear your sneakers to the concert. Get all gussied up. Look, we made a package for you including concert, dinner, parking, and manservant. Maybe people like to do it themselves. Take care of their kids, and they’ll come.

You’ll disorient people if you rejig concert setup.  No you won’t. Don’t talk down to people. Spell things out for the uneducated masses. Don’t discount. Discount.  Photoshop things. Don’t photoshop things. Lie. Be honest.*

Marketing: it’s not in my long-term future.

It’s also: Terrifying. Just saying.

Here’s what I think: I think the people who will come to concerts need to be reminded why a particular concert is kind of cool. I think people who don’t come to concerts need to be told why a concert is kind of cool! Like, “Hey, check out this piece, it is probably the hardest thing for violins to play because they have to stand on their heads” or “Dudes, TRIANGLE” or “Carmina Burana, you know, it’s that Big Ad piece, it’s like…giant and epic and monks gettin’ all disillusioned and one with their Base Natures (if you know what I mean)” or “What do you mean opera is boring? Check out friggin’ Don Giovanni!”. I figure I ask myself, “Why do I want to go to Concert X?” and then, when I figure out the answer, tell everyone else and hope they think like me.
Reason #1 why I am not especially Good At This. People don’t think like me. I basically live for new music and would never ever pay to go see Tchaikovsky or Mozart and New Music Doesn’t Sell and Tchaikovsky And Mozart Do.

But I suspect there is some truth in this: the way to get people excited about something is to get excited about it yourself and then rock it Kindergarten-style and share.

Consider how you find out about the movies you want to see be they old or new: perhaps you see a trailer that piques your interest, or maybe it wins an award or features an actor you like and you’re curious, or perhaps you’re a loser like me and watch movies that are referenced in culture for educational/self-bettering reasons, but I bet the vast majority of the films I watch are a result of someone going, “this movie was amazing/hilarious/really bad, you should go see it!” N’est-ce pas?

Anyhoooooo it’s all nebulous and stuff. Anyone have the answers? Right.

*I could have found links for all the rest of these too, but some of them are straight from the horse’s mouth and some are pretty common ideas. And also I’m a bit lazy.

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I haven’t blogged in such a long time! I don’t feel too badly, though, seeing as I have been updating comics twice a week. Lately I’ve been working (I signed my contract for a full-time position next year! I’m a real person!) and moving (out and on my own at last – plus cat (he is pretty needy, but likes to play fetch, which is weird for a cat?)) and writing exams (now done! I have a degree!) so things have been what we like to refer to as Crazy Busy. But now it is the summer, my first summer (ever, it feels like) in which I am working 9-5, I have weekends free, and I will have a full week of vacation time (at least), so I am taking advantage of the time to go festival-ing this summer. Hillside, Electric Eclectics, Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music, the Bang on a Can Marathon, Ottawa Bluesfest, Luminato, maybe even Lollapalooza – it will be a good (great!) summer.

I’m working on making my grad school portfolio and polishing it to a high shine this summer too. Anyone have any tips? What are grad schools looking for in a composer? If I have really good reference letters and a sparkly portfolio, will my 3.something GPA matter?

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I’ve had the good fortune of getting to hang out with Miss Mussel every now and again lately. I took part in #operaplot this year! And not completely lamely like last year, but with a touch of, you know, cleverness (I even jumped on the #operacronym bandwagon for a few!). Here are my entries from this year.

1. K: Look I’m a tree! P: Oh that’s hot. But weird. Marry me? S: Too bad you’re a freak now P: I’ll die without you weird tree thing.

2. He’s a heretic, but naïve and useful. Death wins his soul and turns him into a Brutal Anglican, to the dismay of the White Abbott

3. No Dick or Harry would leave his Trulove for money, for a bearded Baba, for heroism – but Tom will go to Bedlam in the morning.

4. Vassili, I love you, but we can only be together if you can pretend to be a woman and avoid close shaves!

5. Sing Another Time, Yes, About Gandhi’s Resistance: A Holy Apostasy #operacronym

6. Mac cleans Trinasteeth, experiences avarice – gold usurps ethics. #operacronym

7. Tosca’s lova hides-a prisona. She’s-a betraya, he’s-a-rrested. Tosca plans-a bold escape, but in the end a fall she takes-a

8. Rustics simplistic, lovers romantic. Fairies ethereal, “Come! A Roundel!” Tytania is quelled, all shall be well.

9. Dreadfully Evil Visions Indicate Lustful Sins. Oh Fiends! Lady Occultists! Unanswered Desire! Offended Nuns! #operacronym

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