Orchestras need to be ready for a drop off in digital
As the end of 2020 comes into sight, plenty of orchestras now have a digital concert season of some sorts. It’s been great to see orchestras embrace the potential of digital, with some even having great initial success in selling season passes. But, as I’m ever the pragmatist, we need to all be ready for one thing… a big drop in engagement for orchestras digital output. Here’s why.
Back at the very beginning of April and COVID restrictions in the UK, I wrote a blog called “classical music in crisis - this what the future looks like” which pretty accurately predicted how the pandemic would affect the sector. A mini summary of part of this, is that orchestras would see great initial success with their digital content which was mainly driven by the generosity and support of audiences, and then see a drop off as audiences became fatigued with a saturated market and would stop engaging with poor or average quality content.
And you know what… it happened! As I’m a nerd with these things, I keep track of orchestras social media output in the UK, USA, Europe, and even Australia. This means that there is now data that shows that there was a huge spike in engagement for orchestras on social media in April as they received lots of support from their audience, followed by a steady drop off as audiences became fatigued, disinterested, and stopped engaging in poor or average quality content. (For this blog, I’ll be talking in terms of industry average trends, not individual orchestras’ data)
The thing is, I don’t think the majority orchestras spotted that their success on digital was fading fast and that there were lessons to be learnt from this. The first reason for this is that this dip coincided with the end of the traditional season. As we hit July, most orchestras would normally be winding down and so the drop off in digital audience mirrored what they would experience with in person audiences, hiding the true cause of the drop off.
The second reason for spotting it is actually more important, as it involves how orchestras analyse success on social media and which metrics they choose to do this. As most reporting tools present a nice easy to see figure of “number of engagements”, this is usually used as a main metric for success. However, this can be very misleading as to the quality of content being produced. To show this, we’re going to look at some sophisticated, high tech graphs of engagement for orchestras on social media in 2020.
No expense spared right?
Anyway, in general, orchestras had a big boost in engagement around April, which sort of stuck around in May and then started to drop off, but was still higher (or just higher) than pre COVID.
But, looking at this metric doesn’t really give the full picture as to how good content is, and if it is actually working. A better way of getting a picture of this is the “engagements per post”, and looking at the overall trend for if this is increasing or not. Most basic reporting tools, especially the native ones from Facebook and Twitter etc, don’t given this information so can often be missed off by orchestras. But, when looking at the general theme for orchestras, it shows something quite telling.
No expense spared right?
Anyway, in general, orchestras had a big boost in engagement around April, which sort of stuck around in May and then started to drop off, but was still higher (or just higher) than pre COVID.
But, looking at this metric doesn’t really give the full picture as to how good content is, and if it is actually working. A better way of getting a picture of this is the “engagements per post”, and looking at the overall trend for if this is increasing or not. Most basic reporting tools, especially the native ones from Facebook and Twitter etc, don’t given this information so can often be missed off by orchestras. But, when looking at the general theme for orchestras, it shows something quite telling.
So fast forward to the here and now, why is any of this important or of use? Well, I think that the trend from this period has plenty of parallels as to what’s happening now.
Orchestras can’t launch traditional season and perform in person concerts
Initial outpouring of support from audiences, many buying season passes to help
Early impression of success with high season pass purchases and concert views
Drop off in views as audiences mainly purchased to support, not to view
Significant drop off in ticket purchases as harder to connect to new audiences when behind a paywall, and most digital content is of poor to average quality
As I’m writing this in November, the first three of these of happened. We’re currently riding the high as we’ve launched to initial success, both in ticket numbers and views. But, as time goes on, we have to be prepared for the drop.
Another thing to consider that will accelerate the drop off is that we’re now largely putting content behind a paywall. This means we’re moving into a very different and competitive marketplace.
The argument we now have to answer directly is why would an audience member pay £14 to watch a single performance of our orchestra, when they could pay £9.90 for a whole month of Medici.TV and watch as many performances as they like of orchestras all over the world? (other classical music subscription model streaming services are available)
In some cases, orchestras are charging for a single performance when their other performances are on Medici.TV too! This when combined with the large amounts of free concerts that are on YouTube make it a very hard case to convince audiences to continue to purchase and engage with digital concert seasons when the same identical product is available elsewhere either cheaper or for free.
And this argument is even before we even get into the realisation that we’re now in the online entertainment streaming business and we have to compete with Netflix, Disney Plus, Amazon Prime etc.
(Side note, I’m not a fan of paywalls for digital concert seasons. If you’re interested in my thoughts on an alternative model to monetise digital concerts you can read about that here)
For me, the drop off in digital is inevitable. This will affect both our social media content and our digital concert season, including sales.
So, what can we learn from the period April to August that can help us now?
For a start, we need to look back historically, and both identify and evaluate what content was working for audiences online. Asking those questions of “what did we do well?” and “why was it successful?”.
Then from there, create content that replicates and builds on these successes. They may well be unique to each orchestra based on their existing audience. Some may be simple things that apply to everyone by using pictures that aren’t crap and having a consistent hashtag strategy. Either way, do things differently going forward.
For me, the main thing is that we need to realise and accept that things are going to get hard. We can’t rely on our old way of marketing where we announced that we have a concert and ask people to buy it in a single post. In the competitive digital space, this method simply isn’t good enough and doesn’t work. We need to roll up our sleeves, honestly analyse our previous output, and create a pragmatic and audience focussed plan of what to do next that is based on our earlier successes.
To survive the drop off, we need to start doing things differently.
