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So, our inaugural year of running a small Early Music ensemble has gone surprisingly well.... the first three main chamber concerts had sold way beyond our expectation, and we were a little bit hopeful that the last one of the year would follow a similar trend.
However, a week out from the concert, we are at a bit of a surprisingly weak state of ticket sales! Well... I guess that expectation has a lot to do with it! At the start of the year for our first concert, we would have been overjoyed with the current ticket sales! But given that the previous three concerts had much stronger trajectories of ticket sales... well, it has me a little bit worried... and more importantly, trying to think about what we can adjust for the coming year to avoid a concert with weak sales.
But... like most things, information on why things AREN'T working is always going to be much more difficult to get than information about why things ARE working. Despite the fact that this sort of information is much more important than the other in trying to run a small business.
So, before I get into a bit of an introspective post about what factors might have contributed to sluggish sales... I'll just say that seeing as we run a very tight operation, even the slow sales won't really have too much effect on our ongoing finances. We made significant gains on the previous concerts along with a small grant... so, there is nothing to worry about on that front. But it has been a good reminder that we should still keep things tight for the coming years whilst we are still in the growing the audience base phase, and not to over-reach based on overconfidence.
So... first the elephant in the room... is it "cost of living"? This is pretty much the only factor that is completely out of our control. But if it does turn out that that is the case, we are more than happy to start experimenting with a "pay what you want" model for some concerts. Like I said, we are in a pretty decent financial situation at the moment, and for us, it matters more that people are coming to the concerts and experiencing our particular (and hopefully engaging...) take on what Baroque and Classical music is, instead of staying at home. Plus, if we can be a little bit of entertainment in an economy where that is being cut out in favour for essentials, then we are more than happy to provide quality entertainment at a low price.
After this, we get into many other untestable hypotheticals... the marketing schedule and reach was very similar to previous concerts... a different image and a different concert title. In hindsight, I think that the image was too different to our previous concerts, which were more eye catching and interesting... this was a touch too "pleasant", and I think I will avoid that in the future. It still looks good, but on flyers, screens, and posters, it just doesn't have that "second look" factor. Meanwhile, I had gone with a title that was more descriptive of what the concert was doing... instead of the silly joke/play on words that previous concerts had. Again... not quite as interesting or eye catching or memorable.
Then there was the cross-disciplinary aspect of this concert... an experiment again. But perhaps our audiences wanted music... and not music with something else?
... and finally, this is November. People are tired, burnt out, and ready for the end of the year... perhaps this is a bad time to put on concerts? I did notice that another group that I play with winds up already in October. Perhaps this is a known thing for smaller groups? The larger ones will go all the way to December, but maybe that isn't the best idea for little ones? Speaking of burnt out... I'm feeling a bit like that already!
Anyway, we still have a week to go, and there were a bunch of sales today... so, things aren't looking dire, but I did have higher hopes for this one! But, it is a bit of a learning experience... and we can't have an endless line of success either! We need a little bit of a reality kick to give us some grounding!
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