The version of Mark Ravenhill who seems to think that arts organisation marketing departments should be targeted as examples of wasteful spending might want to have a chat with the Mark Ravenhill who wrote the following, 14 months ago:
Those of us who started working in the arts during the Thatcherite 1980s were taught that the economics was easy. It was all about supply and demand, in the arts as in everything else: you had to identify who your audience was, work out what they wanted, market yourself to them – and all would be well.
We’ve learned to do this brilliantly. [...] The occasional play would capture the public’s imagination and, largely through word of mouth, the theatre would be packed. The rest of the time, there was row upon row of empty seats. Now there is a regular, and large, audience. Many artists are reluctant to acknowledge it, but this is largely the result of new developments in marketing. Theatres have got much better at building loyal audiences, and at bringing in new audiences – people who might not have previously considered theatre part of their cultural life.
In other words, not just a soulless exercise in gaining market share – the ‘arms race’ setting one organisation against another – but part of bringing art to a broader audience. So what has changed?
Hat-tip to Tim Wood for catching Ravenhill’s earlier comment piece.
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