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LABNOTES is a production of SECTORLAB and is designed to help people at cultural organizations to challenge conventional thinking by presenting ideas from inside and outside our sector. These ideas are also put to use in consulting.

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Season 1 / Edition 7

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It seems just about everyone these days wants to get you on a subscription plan - music, streaming services, digital professional tools, pet toys, online news, shopping, professional newsletters, “what’s for dinner”, socks…

Of course, these are quite different from the subscriptions we’re used to at arts organizations - for the most part, these are the “pay $X per month and you’ll receive access to…” type of model.

While I still believe “our” version of subscription is incredibly valuable (there are few - if any - other options giving us the amazing renewal rates & cost-of-sale it provides), that shouldn’t preclude us from experimenting. Here are two I’ve been involved in:

Experiment #1 –

At The Cleveland Orchestra, we’d been successful with our programs for young people - so much so, that we could reliably say 20% of our audience on any given night was under the age of 25 (!).

We began wondering about the next step for this segment - could we build a “young professional” (YP) program attractive enough to continue this momentum?

Our approach was made using the same philosophy we applied to our conventional audience - our goal is to get you coming regularly - we want to build loyalty!

Enter: The Circle, which featured a “Netflix-style” monthly subscription of $15-20/mo., which granted access to one (curated) event per month: alternating between concerts (with small receptions) and “other events” (networking meetups, insight into the artistic & business side, trivia nights, and more).

After 18 months, we had >300 members, making it the fastest growing YP program in Cleveland (despite little marketing). Retention was ~80%. I felt the monthly model was a big reason - it was easy to try, and easy to stay on afterwards.

Experiment #2 –

Later, this basic model was applied in a much different context - a different audience (not YP’s), a far smaller organization, and a completely different artform.

At Flamenco Vivo, a flamenco dance and music company located in NYC, there is no “season” in the traditional sense - programming ranges between “jazz club”-type shows to formal performances at major dance venues, as well as artist development showcases, and more - mostly announced on a rolling basis.

Despite performances featuring some of the world’s greatest living artists, and Flamenco Vivo’s identity as the country’s most established flamenco company, the lack of a loyalty mechanism made the development of a consistent audience base - and the strong donor base that often grows out of this - challenging.

Our solution was the NYC Flamenco Pass - a monthly subscription that bore many similarities to the Circle: one (curated) event per month (linking the company’s varied programmatic formats together), alongside community-building “other events”.

The new passholder base represented a brand new, dependable income stream for the company, and, more importantly, a new group of “bought-in” patrons (many of whom they had no prior contact with!), attending regularly, able to be ushered along on the patron development pathway to donors and beyond.  

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OBSERVATIONS

• One of the real strengths of this model was that it made the program(s) easy to try (particularly if linked to an attractive event), and patrons usually stuck around after. This helped drive faster growth than the alternative likely would have: where you’re paying for an entire year of something you’re not sure about (there was a psychological safety valve of: “I can get out of this if I need to”).
  

• I found the social aspect was valuable: the non-performative “other events” ended up helping build community (enhancing the “stickiness” of the program); while for performances, we found having a built-in social element helped reduce that sense of “outsider-ness” for new members unfamiliar with the artform.
  

• These non-performative “other events” did see lower attendance, but we found those that skipped did not view it as lost value (something we were worried about). I think positioning the events as “benefits” helped avoid this. These also helped us explore other avenues of engagement with the institutions and artforms than just “attendance at performances.”
  

• Another advantage of this package was that we could build in events on a rolling basis, helping us be flexible in our programming and take advantage of opportunities. That meant, unlike traditional subscriptions, we were always in an acquisition period.
  

• We could also continually build in value - for Flamenco Vivo, we negotiated a group discount rate for passholders to the NYC Flamenco Festival at City Center - unaffiliated with Flamenco Vivo. That was a big value add for the pass, for basically the cost of coordinating a group sale.
  

I have a lot more on these types of programs (and other models like it) to share if you’re interested in exploring this yourself – get in touch!

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• If you thought this was cool, contact me and I can share more info – and how this could be adapted in a practical way.  

• If you have an organization I should look into, please let me know.  

• If you want to see what kinds of strategies might be good for your organization, I offer a free evaluation.

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