Filling the seats

The PSO should use peer persuasion

There are 2,360,867 people in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area. There are 2,676 seats in Heinz Hall. If the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra could lure one out of every thousand people from the Pittsburgh area into Heinz Hall, it would have a full house for one concert. For the pairs of concerts each week during its season, it would need one out of every 500 people.

That doesn’t seem like a monumental task. Yet it seems to be beyond the capability of orchestras all over America. They complain about dwindling audiences and empty seats, and they just can’t seem to fill them. That’s because they go to the wrong people for help.

They hire consultants, who tell them they need to play more new music, ignoring the fact that any music is new if you haven’t heard it before. Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Tchaikovsky — they were all new to me the first time I heard them. Right now, the “new” composer people want to hear is Mahler; he died in 1911.

But whatever orchestras play doesn’t matter; people don’t go to concerts to hear the music. If they want to hear music, they can do it at home, via CD or DVD or streaming, listening to what they want to hear when they want to hear it, while dressed in comfortable clothes, lounging in comfortable chairs and not worrying about the babysitter.

Orchestras can fiddle with programming, dress codes, concert length and such stuff as much as they want, but it won’t motivate people to show up for concerts. Instead, they need to find the hook that drives people to go through the hassle involved in going to a concert. They need peer persuasion, employing the so-called “innovation/diffusion” technique.

Eight of 10 efforts at mass persuasion fail. One of 10 make the target population less likely to do what we want them to do. One of 10 succeed, and those that do succeed are most likely to be the campaigns based on peer persuasion. That means reaching out to people who are already on your side and recruiting them them to pass on the message to their peers, relatives, business associates, lodge members, friends and acquaintances.

This technique works. For example, campaigns to increase the use of automobile safety belts failed right and left until the campaigns began using peer persuasion.

The plan that has the best chance of getting patrons into concert halls is the plan that depends on getting the present audience members into the act. But that approach doesn’t sit well with orchestra managements.

When I retired, 26 years ago (yes, I’m that old), I figured I would spend some of my time volunteering to help my favorite orchestra at that time (not the PSO) increase audience size. I had some credentials, having studied public-persuasion campaigns during my years as a research scientist.

So, I emailed said orchestra with a suggestion; the email was returned, in due course, with a response to the effect that what I suggested was not feasible. That struck me as odd because, subsequent to sending the suggestion, I had learned that the orchestra was already doing what I was suggesting.

I submitted other suggestions. They went unanswered until, ultimately, I got back a courteous message telling me that they had already tried everything possible and didn’t want to waste time responding to my suggestions. That was obviously not true because they kept trying other stuff. But I got the message: “Shut up, go away, send money.” Then they hired a consultant who told them to play new music.

I must admit that I’ve met some consultants who agree with me. For example, Drew McManus was right on the button when he suggested TAFTO — Take A Friend To the Orchestra. Thisis an excellent example of peer persuasion. Get the concert-goers you’ve already got to round up other concert-goers. If even half of the present PSO ticket-holders brought another couple to the concert, there wouldn’t be enough seats to hold them!

What makes the patron based approach more efficient is that it is more precise. When an orchestra reaches out, it’s like a shotgun — scattershot, hoping to hit something. With peer persuasion, it’s like a rifle shot, aimed at the target.

Before we satisfying a specific need, you have to find out what it is. It may be as simple as transportation to and from a concert for people without cars or who fear traveling home alone, or setting up a social group so singles won’t feel left out or providing post-concert activities so patrons can discuss the concert together.

Peer persuasion can ferret out such needs, but it won’t be used unless orchestras can be persuaded to get the crocodiles out of the moat, lower the drawbridge, open the gates and let in the only people who can help them.