They, the people

Over the last twenty years, the United States has experienced a shift in the profile of its art lovers. So-called highbrow entertainments have become more mainstream. According to American Demographics, “The number of Americans who visit art museums and attend operas, plays and classical music concerts has steadily increased to nearly... half the U.S. population.” The National Endowment for the Arts found that attendance at non-musical stage plays increased from 19.5 million Americans in 1982 to 25.2 million in 2002, an increase of 29.2 percent. This expanded audience is enjoying more activities while ignoring distinctions that once separated high culture from so-called pop culture: “The theater, once the most elite of institutions, now has patrons who enjoy dance music as well as classical music, and who like to go bowling as well as visit museums.”

The Twin Cities reflect this changing demographic profile. According to Scarborough Research, of the nearly two and a half million people living in the metro area, almost a third (749,406) have attended live theater in the past twelve months. As with the national numbers, these theater-goers are more likely than the average Twin Cities resident to have attended a concert, been to the zoo, gone to a sports event, and visited a museum. So while more people are seeing more theater, more theaters are competing with more venues for their audiences’ entertainment dollars.

“Wait a minute!” you’re saying. “Three-quarters of a million people in the Twin Cities have been to the theater in the past year? We only had eight audience members last night! That can’t be right.”

It is right. Demographers don’t lie.

Who are these people? According to the numbers, your typical audience member is more likely to be a woman than a man. Let’s call her Nancy. Nancy has already celebrated her fortieth birthday and has a college degree. She works full-time in management or sales, and her good job makes her more affluent than the average Twin Cities resident. She is married, has no children, owns her own home, and lives in the city of Minneapolis or a close suburb.

Nancy is busy! She does volunteer work and enjoys gardening, bicycling, and bowling. In fact, from photography to cross-country skiing, Nancy’s more active than most of her neighbors. She loves coffee and will stop by Starbucks, Caribou, or Dunn Brothers several times each week. When she can’t get coffee, she’ll take an energy drink or bottled water. She has picked up fast food ten or more times in the past month as she rushed from a sales call back to the office and from the office to her chiropractor. We should note that Nancy feels a little guilty about all the fast food and, when she gets the chance, shops for organic produce. In her car—it’s a Toyota—she surfs between news on public radio, pop music, and some hip hop. She likes the new Ne-Yo. She likes imported beer but prefers wine—Pinot noir is nice—and occasionally lets loose with a margarita on Girls’ Night Out. In the next year, she plans to buy a PDA, maybe a motorcycle, and do some remodeling around the house.

She and her husband—let’s call him David—went to Mexico last year and have been thinking about a trip to Europe. However, they’ve both lost a lot of money from their 401(k) accounts and what with Nancy’s allergies and recent weight gain and David’s high cholesterol and occasional erectile dysfunction, that romantic trip to the moors of England might have to wait.

“Whoa!” you’re saying. “This is creepy. Does he really know this stuff or is he just making it up?”

I know this stuff. Visit the raw data (PDF) and draw your own conclusions. Remember, demographers don’t lie.

What should we do with Nancy? Well, in advertising, we would look at Nancy as a “good lead.” We know she has been to live theater in the past year, so we know it is easier to get her into a theater than her neighbor who has never been to a play. But how do we get her into our theater? Maybe you’re already thinking that we should work out a cross-promotional relationship with every coffee shop in the area, or we should try to secure a PDA to auction off at our next fundraiser. Maybe we should advertise in the local co-op’s newsletter. Could we get together with a nearby restaurant and host a wine tasting or cooking class in our space? Can we do more to make Nancy comfortable parking her Toyota in our neighborhood?

“Fuck Nancy!” (You again.) “I don’t like her and I don’t want her in my theater.”

I understand.

We can certainly look at another profile—a younger, hipper, edgier profile of, say, Keith—but let me tell you, my foul-mouthed friend, your row is tough to hoe. Nancy goes to the theater. Keith doesn’t. Nancy has money. Keith doesn’t. Nancy is interested in the world. Keith is interested in Keith. You met Keith in a bar and he went on and on about a mind-blowing, totally, awesomely, fucked-up performance of some butoh thing he saw on YouTube and thinks you should totally fuck with people’s minds by doing something like that, but guess what: Keith isn’t coming to your butoh Brigadoon. Keith has decided that theater is dead and he’s going to start a band. Meanwhile, Nancy’s made reservations to see The Miracle Worker at Torch.

It’s true demographers don’t lie. But remember, these numbers are simply a tool. They are descriptive. They do not tell us what plays to do or how to do them. They simply allow us to think about Nancy and her life. They remind us that we’re not just asking Nancy to plunk down twenty bucks to see a show; we’re asking for an investment of her time. She has to find out about our production, decide to go, come up with a night she and David are both free, leave work in time to dress, figure out where our theater is, find parking, and so on. Are we making this process as easy for Nancy as possible?

You see, demographers are not soulless, art-killing philistines. We’re here to help.

However, if you still have doubts about the usefulness of demography, let me tell you something: You are not alone. There is a tiny checkbox labeled “terror” in the heart of every demographer. The system of gathering respondent data is filled with imperfections from start to finish. One flawed remembrance here, one inflated self-aggrandizement there—each insignificant on its own, but they start to add up. Then as we extrapolate the data, every imperfection becomes multiplied many times over until we have nothing left but a spider’s web of half-truths and sweat-soaked guesses. We crush this seething mess into solid-seeming charts, tables and graphs in order to give it the look of Truth, but we know: Demographers lie! And if you think this is only true of demographics, you’re kidding yourself. With most things, the closer you look, the less there is to see. The table your computer sits on—if you start looking at the molecules that it contains, and then at the atoms that make up those molecules, and then at the subatomic and subsubatomic particles—you end up with a shadow of a ghost of a nothing. So, too, with a work of art. Or a human life. The more furiously we ladle the soup of Meaning into the sieve of self-worth, the less we have. Offended by the clumsiness of my metaphor? Too frickin’ bad. It’s no more clumsy than existence. And yet, I set my coffee cup on my table and it doesn’t spill. And I’m thinking about a really great sandwich. And Bumpo, my overweight cat, trots over, offering his belly for a scratch. And we carry on.

Good luck with your marketing! ❦