The very next day, Colleen Dilenschneider and IMPACTS Experience released data arguing against discounting admission. They have shared data on this topic before, but this is some of their best work yet. A subscription is required if you want to read it, but it is worth it if you are having conversations about this in your organization and want some hard data to back it up.

They address the fact that discounting seems good and effective because it responds to a need. However, it is trading long term success for short term results.

One of the biggest issues is that discounting appears to impact satisfaction with the experience. The bigger the discount, the less satisfaction people experience.

Note that in the course of 10 years, there is a variation of .3-.4 points.

The same holds true in terms of willingness to recommend the experience to friends–something that is far more powerful than any advertising an organization can mobilize. The bigger a discount, the less likely people are to recommend it to friends.

In 2026 full price visitors had a baseline score of 73.9 when it came to likely to recommend and fully free visitors had a score of 65. In 2017 this was 74.5 and 65.4.

Despite the social, political, and economic environment changing a fair bit in 10 years, the behavior has barely budged.

Note, these numbers aren’t percentages, they are scalar variables where a difference of 1 point is statically significant. An 8-9 point gap between full price and free admission visitors is meaningful.

So you may appreciate when it comes to intent to revisit, a 33.2 point difference between full price and free admission visitors is pretty mind blowing.

Again, the difference between Q2 2026 and Q2 2017 is a few tenths of a point.

One of the things they emphasize is that discounting is not the same as affordable access.

Dilenschneider emphasizes that affordable access programs are very intentional, targeted, and mission-connected and shouldn’t be lumped together with board promotional discounting.

She notes there are appropriate times to discount like shifting attendance to lower demand time, when trying to measure interest in a newly rolled out program, or trying to reactivate lapsed attendees for whom price has been a barrier.

Near the end they list what executive leaders should do in relation to price with some explanations. I am only including the header here for brevity. I felt like this section, along with all the data and insights they offered is what made this post so valuable for the busy arts leader who may be thinking, how do I move forward knowing all this.

According to Angela Meleca the student made an argument on the basis of well-being, belonging, and social connection after conducting a survey of 177 residents “five civic outcome categories: well-being, belonging, social connection, personal relevance, and perspective shift.”

In a separate post about a week later, Meleca said framing public art in the lens of the five civic outcomes is what shifted the perception from “nice to have” toward “must have.”

For over a decade now I have been arguing that economic impact and attendance aren’t a valid measure of the value of arts and culture. Just as Ruth Hartt notes that demographic data about your visitors doesn’t tell you about why people are participating and what they seek from an experience, economic impact doesn’t tell you how enjoyable the experience was and where the friction points might have been.

Billions are spent on construction new stadiums based on the projected economic impact. But does any of that tell you about a sense of well-being and social connection being engendered in your community? You might as well try to measure the value of a baseball game by the number of hot dogs sold.

I have been to some minor league baseball games in really small stadiums that may have cost $1 million to build, but maybe not. People are able to chat and mingle with others throughout the town and region. They feel comfortable letting their kids run around or hang out with other kids in the area foul balls are known to go.

It is much easier to lean over the railing to get something signed by the players. The fact you can get an all you can eat pass for popcorn and hot dogs for the season is part of the experience, but it isn’t the measure of value of the experience.

A minor league team logo on clothing might not have as broad a geographical cachet as the majors, but the presence of those stadiums and the experience they provide have a lot of value to the communities in which they are located for reasons other than economic impact.

There are a lot of factors discussed but one of the things that caught my eye was the suggestion that free admission alone isn’t necessarily going to increase attendance and participation, there has to be a change in the programming to align with the interests of the audiences you are trying to reach.

The piece opens with the example of  Baltimore’s Walters Art Museum and Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) which eliminated their admission fees around the same time.

A little later the article mentions Walters collection

It goes on to mention that BMA recognized the community has changed and controversially sold off some of their collection to purchase works by “under-represented, non-white and African American artists.”

They compare that with Detroit Institute of Arts which eliminated admission for residents of the surrounding three counties in exchange for a share of property taxes to support their operation. They pretty quickly changed their programming mix and the visitor experience to meet the expectations of a fuller range of whose taxes they were now receiving:

The lenses don’t completely provide an accurate viewing of color the way eye glasses can allow people to see things in sharp detail. Rather, they allow people to see gradients and nuances between colors that had previously all appeared to be the same.

The Albuquerque Museum Foundation provides the glasses to visitors for free to help people experience their collection. The Creative West piece provides a link to a story David Lee wrote about his experience.

He had been a frequent visitor to the museum so was familiar with the collection and hoped to have his socks knocked off by the difference with the glasses the same way his nearsighted grandfather had been when he realized he could see individual leaves on trees.

It wasn’t that extreme, but he did notice differences. Also, it apparently takes 15-30 minutes to get used to viewing things through the glasses.

David Lee writes:

Because those with color blindness have it in different degrees and relation to difference colors, the museum reports the lens result in a wide range of visitor experiences. Some don’t really see any change while others experience a more marked change.

Given that around 10% of males and a smaller number of females are color blind, this is an underserved population of immense numbers that museums could potentially serve and welcome.

I am excerpting heavily here because he says a lot of things about price, but I have a narrative I am going to focus on. So read the full post if you want all his thoughts.

What I really appreciate about these thoughts, (as well as those I didn’t include), is that they emphasize that pricing doesn’t exist in a vacuum isolated and unrelated to story and reputation.

Every price has at least one story associated with it, and one of those stories may be one being told by a customer.

I have made a number of posts over the years citing research that shows free admission or low prices often damages brand perception rather than helping new audiences and visitors discover and become invested in your organization.

Which is not to say low prices don’t lower a barrier to entry for new audiences. There has to be some form of communication that connects the preferred rate to an identity group the person belongs to -resident of a neighborhood, member of a club, etc. Essentially, there is a story attached to the pricing.

Similarly, there are companies out there who will work with you on pricing who emphasize pricing based on the purchaser’s perceived value rather than yours. You may think a section of seats are the most mediocre in your venue, but there are a lot of people who will pay much more than you’re charging. Likewise, you may think an artist is the most gifted of their generation, but low awareness outside professional circles will translate into few buying tickets to a special exhibit.

Godin’s line about convenience being an underappreciated component of value reminds me that many of the barriers to participation arts and culture visitors identify are often outside the control of the organization – things like parking, traffic, restaurant reservations, perception of crime, etc.

Though elements like the ticket purchase path, wayfinding to and through the venue, feeling of welcome, are all within the control of the organization.

The ease of navigating all these elements contributes to an often intangible perception of value associated with an experience.

Those first and last lines I quoted had the most impact on me when I read them.

I hadn’t considered them before. Especially the idea it is better to explain the value behind the pricing rather than apologize for poor quality.

I sort of feel like the brand promise of paying a bit more but getting a bit more has permeated a lot of the work I have done and facilitated and has been echoed back by participant comments. But working to consciously embody that as an individual and organization dovetails well into the core missions of a lot of arts and cultural organizations

But later that day or the next, Artsjournal.com had a WBEZ story about Chicago venues that were requiring people to stow their phones in pouches and specifically mentioned that musicians Phoebe Bridgers and David Byrne were requiring concert attendees to check their phones at the door.

The WBEZ story was reporting on a broader attempt to create an environment where people interacted and socialized to a greater degree than they are.

Because the story shifts quickly between discussing the environment in which this efforts are occurring, I made the mistake of thinking theaters were providing games and activities for audiences. That was actually a program by a marketing group called Little Council in response to clients seeking unplugged spaces where people could engage with each other.

They have an area in a co-working space labeled “Fulfillment Center” whose goal is to assist the achievement of personal fulfillment.

Even though I was mistaken about where the Fulfillment Center materials were being used, something along these lines might be something a performance space/group with the right vibe might employ. (Probably won’t be found in Lincoln Center in NYC, but maybe the Lincoln Center in Fort Collins, CO)

Ideally, you wouldn’t use this in conjunction with confiscating phones but rather as a social lubricant to get people in a communal space chatting with each other and asking to borrow the purple markers. Though in some places people may be so entrenched with their phones there may be little to no movement away from them after offering alternatives for a year.

Activities like these can make experiences feel more welcoming. One venue I ran, I created a visual arts fair that occurred twice a year. I partnered with a local creative group who helped arrange for music and different themed activities. I was a little concerned that people might not think a visual arts fair was for someone like themselves so having music and activities was one way to make the experience more welcoming.

The turn out and participation wasn’t too bad. I haven’t really tried something like that in connection with a performance but it could definitely work after some trial and error in design and execution.

The same questions apply to front of house staff for arts and cultural organizations. Whether they are paid or volunteer, have people been trained and empowered to address issues and concerns that arise? If they don’t have the experience or consistency to effect a solution, are they able to summon someone who can help? And can they see that issuing that summons results in a satisfying solution for the customer?

This can be extended to all staff that may encounter customers be it maintenance staff passing through with a ladder or marketing staff returning from a meeting. Is there an organizational culture that rewards people for noticing someone may be lost or have questions and offering to help?

Because we certainly don’t want people feeling like they checked into the Hotel California.

One thing I haven’t really addressed is divine intervention.

Admittedly this situation is a bit less problematic than ticketing scams, price gouging, and the ridiculous litany of fees being added to purchases I usually write about. I figured the topic could use an injection of relative lightheartedness.

The BBC recently reported on 9th century Shinto shrine in Tokyo dedicated to the deity Inari. Originally, people prayed at the shrine for abundant rice harvests and prosperity. At one point the shrine was permitted to host lotteries to generate funds to support itself. In time people started to make offerings for success in lotteries of all types.

And that is where the connection to concert tickets comes in.

There is such a demand for tickets to some concerts, fans need to enter a lottery in order to get a chance to purchase a limited number of tickets.

So many people believe that a show of devotion will boost their odds that the street outside the shrine had to be closed due to the masses who gathered when bands started touring again once Covid restrictions were lifted.

I suspect if I did deeper research I might find there are methods to secure tickets outside of the ticket lottery and praying to kami. From what I have read, there are Fan Club and Pre-Public lotteries where you have to have paid a membership fee or have purchased merchandise of some sort to be entered in a lottery to purchase tickets.

Though many concerts go straight to the Public Lottery phase. While there may be a fee involved, apparently it is relatively small unlike the thousands of dollars people in the US have to donate just to be entered for a chance to buy season tickets to a college or professional sports event.

These camps provide the opportunity for adults of all ages to perform a whole range of music styles from folk, rock, klezmer, orchestral, etc., As well as participate in traditional camp activities like kayaking, yoga, and -erm cocktail hours.

It occurred to me that this might be a niche interest more arts organizations may find success in pursuing. Based on some of those interviewed for the story it appeared many had an interest in reconnecting with their musical practice without the obligations that community orchestras, choral groups, or bands represent.

The camp experience provides opportunities to discuss topics like performance anxiety which one may not feel comfortable broaching in a more formal ensemble setting. Many people also seem to prioritize the social connections over developing a higher degree of mastery.

That is why I was thinking some form of the music camp concept might be a program option for some arts organizations.

I think back to the TED Talk Jamie Bennett made where he discusses how people who played sports in high school have an easier time seeing themselves on a continuum with professional players than people who perform in a choir every week have seeing themselves as artists.

So if attending an adult music camp helps more people recognize their capacity for creativity, it is worth pursuing.

In fact, the funding distributed from that tax is almost six times as much as the entire state of OH has received from the National Endowment for the Arts in the same period.

You may feel a little uneasy at the prospect of being in a position to even subconsciously hope people smoke more in order to ensure your arts organization’s financial health. You probably aren’t alone.

In fact, when Arts Midwest introduced their Creating Connection program to Build Public Will For Arts And Culture, one of the parallels they drew was the gradually growing effort to eliminate smoking in public places. Their goal was the opposite — cultivating a social environment in which people gradually expressed a desire for arts and cultural experiences.

Smoking rates in Cleveland, which were apparently far above the national average have dropped from 37% to 19% in the last decade. (Recall the tax has been in effect for nearly two decades.) While the revenue has fallen by half, voters supported doubling the tax on cigarettes last year.

One of the biggest benefits mentioned is that an artist could create an A-Corp for themselves without the need to hire a lawyer as they would when creating an LLC. That would gain them the protection of isolating their personal assets from their professional assets. The article suggests creators of public art might find that particularly important.

As I had mentioned in my earlier post, another important benefit of an A-Corp would be to allow the artist to retain 51% controlling share of their work. Hyperallergic gives some examples of the types of groups which may value this protection.

I hadn’t realized Meow Wolf was organized as a large collective of artists until I read this.

One thing I had been wondering when I read the initial reporting on A-Corps was how they would allow artists to leverage their numbers to get healthcare. I could see how an entity as large as Meow Wolf might benefit, but what about artists operating on a smaller scale?

In fact, Yancey Strickler, the person who has been central to advocating for the creation of the A-Corp form has been thinking about that. In the Hyperallergic piece he is quoted tracing the arc of business development from social media giants laying waste to the media environment, the trend toward everything being a subscription, and then an emerging trend toward smaller, private communities.

Paddy Johnson quotes a piece in the Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal which points out that how Strickler might envision the new corporate structure being used and how artists actually use it may not match. Artists being both non-conformist and creative may not avail themselves of some features but may flourish in unexpected ways thanks to other opportunities the structure provides.

About a month ago I became aware of their Usher Rusher game where you have to seat people as fast as you can while watching out for VIP or special access patrons. It wasn’t until the last week or so I discovered they have a whole series of games, including one where you play as a ticket speculator where you try to buy low and sell high and a wack-a-mole style game where you try to smackdown ticket touts.

There is even a theater management game where you set ticket prices, marketing budget, and “balance public interest with customer satisfaction.”

I feel so seen!

But also, this may be way too close to what I do at work to be fun.

Check out the whole arcade of six games

Recently, Illinois had joined the effort. In particular, they wanted to address the problem of speculative ticket sales:

In some cases, the seats people purchase don’t exist either. The pavilion in which the Ravinia Festival occurs recently completed a renovation that changed their seating chart. However, the entities masquerading as the Festival’s ticket sales site are still selling tickets based on the old map which includes tickets that no longer exist.

I have run into the same issue at two venues for which I worked for the same reason. For a year or two after a renovation people show up with tickets for seats that no longer exist. It can be difficult to suppress a grimace and remain optimistic as you tell people they have been scammed and try to suggest options.

The story mentions that the Lyric Opera sets seats aside for those who arrive with fake tickets so they can see the show. But say this practice results in losses of $2500 to $5000. I am not clear if these losses are due to providing them seats at no cost rather than making them pay on top of what they already paid the scammer. If they feel the need to hold tickets aside that may mean the performances are well-attended and they are forgoing advance sales revenue and losing out when those tickets remain unused the day of the performance.

This made me think of a mini case study regarding the efforts of the New Bedford Symphony (NBS) Ruth Hartt has been sharing via her newsletter and LinkedIn posts. Hartt relates how NBS learned about what motivated their patrons by speaking and surveying them directly rather than making assumptions about them based on demographic data.

She says that people can feel uncomfortable collecting data in this manner because you end up having some very personal conversations with audience members.

What NBS has done is create a handful of personalized landing pages that align with audience motivations (i.e. seeking to relax/recharge, learn something new/expand horizons, spend time with family and friends). They sent emails that connected people to personalized landing pages that best aligned with their desired outcomes.

For the last 14 weeks NBS has been doing a little experiment sending personalized emails to those they surveyed and general non-personalized emails about concerts to the rest of their mailing list. The personalized emails have been out performing the non-personalized ones handily.

Hartt says it is the fact the marketing messaging is focused on the customer needs and interests rather than on the organization or the work being performed that makes the difference.

According to the article author, Marcus Buckingham, the wrong way to turn around a problematic environment whether it be customer or employee disengagement/dissatisfaction isn’t to fix what is broken but rather to invest more effort into the organization’s strengths. And those strengths are only found within the areas identified as extremely positive experiences.

This obviously makes sense but what I was really surprised to learn is that the experience has to indeed be rated as extremely positive to effect the sought for change. Only 5/5 is effective, 4/5 won’t do. Apparently combining the 4s and 5s results to arrive at a satisfaction score doesn’t provide an accurate measure. People cram more satisfaction between 4 and 5 than 3 and 4.

Buckingham cites the example of Kroger supermarkets when rival Publix supermarket chain was opening stores in the Cincinnati market. Based on feedback from customers, Kroger redoubled their efforts to have their employees focus on adding and improving personal interactions with customers, including training them to take groceries to shoppers’ cars and load them safely.

After surveying employees about things that improved their satisfaction, they ended up identifying people who really enjoyed and were invested in cleaning. Kroger management arranged things so that those people were protected in doing that work. In other words, they created an environment and process where these employees were not interrupted or reassigned from performing this work.

I should note Buckingham mentioned he consults for Kroger. He may not be entirely unbiased in his account of their success. On the other hand, Kroger is headquartered in Cincinnati so any loss of market share to Publix on their home turf would be an assault on their pride. They were likely highly motivated to achieve great results.

It seems they did. Leaning into those things that rated highly with both employees and customers, they saw some positive results. Their loss of business to Publix was reduced to 48% of what they projected and some of the stores in the Cincinnati-Dayton district had revenue increases.

Perhaps even more important was the improvement in job satisfaction for employees.

I thought back to the survey years ago where corporate CEOs said that the top skill new hires needed to move their companies forward is creativity.

To me the increased push toward only granting degrees for a unitarian result measured in wages represented a disconnect between the federal government and the stated needs of corporations.

Though granted, that survey was about a decade ago and now many companies are laying people off in favor of AI. It should be no surprise to anyone that short term profit tops long term corporate goals.

Seth Godin addressed this to a degree in a post he made in early March where he said society is increasingly focused on the question, “Will This Be On The Test?” vs. “What If..”.

He says exercising creativity and imagination is actually harder work than people credit.

So you may want to check to see if there are donation pages created in your organization’s name that you did not ask for.

Carter explains some of the issues with this:

Additionally, Carter says she has actually had clients ran into trouble when they decided to stop soliciting donations in states only to have state regulators point to these unauthorized pages and question whether the organization had truly stopped soliciting.

One of the reasons why the possibility of this situation hadn’t been on my radar is because I assumed sites like GoFundMe has a process for verifying a page was actually created by the non-profit named. The fact they are creating pages without an organization’s knowledge leads me to suspect it would be easy for an imposter to create fake pages in a non-profit’s name as well.

Which again, suggests it may be wise to check for unauthorized fund raising efforts on some of these websites.

Roy talked about the succession planning San Jose Taiko undertook when he and his wife PJ, the Executive Director and Artistic Director, respectively, decided to retire.

I recall hearing when they retired but I was unaware they had started their succession planning seven years prior. What I found valuable about Roy’s presentation was his discussion of all the things they considered. It wasn’t just internal factors like who would succeed them, what records and information needed to be passed on, and what the impact of losing the institutional memory of two of the founders departing at the same time.

They were also concerned about the local community, including the Japantown community in San Jose. Their relationship with taiko groups in Japan and across the US, relationships with donors and funders. They worked across the succession preparation years to cultivate relationships between their successors and these external entities so that there was a level of comfort and familiarity.

They also recognized that there was a need to pay attention to cultural stewardship elements, including musical instruments, scores, and preservation of cultural expression which they embodied.

Tom Clareson’s presentation was more focused on the perspective of what do you do when you don’t have a lot of time to prepare for leadership transitions. Many of his suggestions fell into the general practice of regularly documenting and updating plans, descriptions of procedures, using a standard filing and naming process so that successors have an easier time accessing and understanding what needs to be done.

Emergencies and disasters played a big part in his presentation as well. Even if there is no loss of personnel, having back-ups, redundancies, plans of action for continuing operations in the face of natural disasters, emergencies and technological crises is important.

He said they have added a new category known as Administrative Disasters which includes funding changes/cuts; reputational disasters, event cancellations, socio-political shifts, and succession planning, as areas non-profit organizations should prepare for.

His slide deck had a lot of resources and links related to these issues. Due to recent events he had a couple slides devoted to questions about how small organizations can do succession planning and maintain programmatic and collections management continuity during staffing/leadership gaps caused by the loss of federal funding.

I am curious to learn what people’s perception of these thoughts are.

There is already a recognition that external audiences and communities often have a different perception and experience of our organizations than those of us who work within the non-profit sector.

For example, many aren’t able to easily discern between commercial and non-profit performing arts organizations and venues. While some people recognize the difference and are invested in the success of a non-profit’s mission, a fair number of people are engaged by whatever interests them at the time.

Is it the same with fundraising? Are people willing to give if they view what they get in return, be it tangible or intangible rewards, to be worth the price they pay?

It is no wonder I hadn’t heard the term before. If it passes the full legislature, Colorado will be the first state to offer this corporate structure. Artists living anywhere would be able to incorporate themselves in Colorado.

According to Colorado Public Radio the goal is to make it easier for artists to incorporate versus a traditional LLC. Though the A-Corp website has a tool to help people determine whether an A-Corp or LLC would be better financially.

The A-Corp structure ensures artists maintain at least 51% ownership in order to protect their interests and the work they produce.

It also provides an option that falls between a traditional LLC and the reporting burden of a 501 (c) (3) non-profit structure:

This feature appealed to a senator representing a rural district as enabling creatives to thrive while offering programs and opportunities to smaller communities.

Another possible benefit providing leverage in negotiating health insurance.