David Hoppe

David Hoppe is available
for freelance writing and editing assignments; and consulting with commercial and nonprofit cultural organizations. Resume and references available upon request.

 

© 2006-2023
David Hoppe
[email protected]


Site managed by
Owl's Head Business Services

 

 

 

:: Butts in seats

Wooing Generation X

 

By David Hoppe

O, Generation X, what are we to make of you?

That's the question the Arts Council of Indianapolis has hired a consultant to try and answer. The problem is all-too-familiar: People under the age of 40 - Generation X, Generation Next, call yourselves what you will - haven't been putting certain kinds of arts events at the top of their to-do lists. This gives the people responsible for producing these events a sinking feeling. The audiences they see are getting older. Some of them are dying off. If this trend isn't reversed it might be difficult to keep the lights on.

That's where Rebecca Ryan comes in. She's with a group from Madison, Wisconsin, called Next Generation Consulting. Her specialty appears to involve telling the leaders of cities, towns and symphony orchestras that they're not cool enough. If they were cool, you see, Generation Xers would be clamoring for loft apartments and front row seats. So, under the imprimatur of the Arts Council, with funding provided by the Lilly Endowment, Ryan will be leading a group of local researchers whose job will be to ask our city's 20 and 30-somethings what it is they want.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. Generations were raised to believe that the symphony orchestra and the ballet, the museum of fine arts and what was called "the legitimate" theater were all about presenting the public with a timeless canon of human _expression - the classics - which it behooved all civilized grown-ups to have at least a passing familiarity with. The challenge for a city of any size was to have a symphony orchestra worthy of the name - not to worry about how old the people buying tickets were. The assumption was that if the orchestra could play, a sufficient audience would come because classical music was a good in and of itself. It was part of a cultural tradition passed from one generation to the next.

Alas, when it comes to passing on traditions, we Americans are notoriously butter-fingered. This has certainly been true when it comes to the fine arts. We don't teach them in our schools, nor do we make them the beneficiaries of generous sums of public money, as is the case in most European countries. Instead, we make them compete for attention with the all-you-can-eat smorgasbord of popular entertainments that, it must be added, have also established themselves on campuses as reputable subjects for study. Cop shows are taught alongside Shakespeare's history plays.

It's no wonder then, that, in her speech to the annual Start With Art luncheon at the Indiana Roof, Ryan was able to reduce the mission of arts organizations to a blunt mantra: "Butts in seats."

The idea seems to be that after the research is done, our arts institutions are going to have the information they need to make themselves more relevant to audiences of younger adults.

If that's true, this research will have cracked a code that has so far managed to confound the best minds at a number of other cultural landmarks. Ask the folks at the public library, or at public television or, for that matter, at the daily newspaper about the luck they're having attracting young adults. You'll hear the same worries and the same complaints. You Gen Xers aren't showing up. You're getting what you need and finding what you want elsewhere.

And what if the research tells us that what we need to do to get Mr. And Ms. 20-Something through the door at the Circle Theatre is lower the cost of tickets to five bucks -- and quit playing music by dead white guys. You'll get younger butts in those seats, but it's doubtful any symphony players will be left on stage.

Although some arts institutions may be thinking the end of culture is at hand, there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. In fact, people of all ages appear to be hungry for performing and visual arts. In Indianapolis and across the country, opera companies are prospering. Multimedia spectacles like Cirque de Soleil and the Blue Man Group are in constant demand. The recent Fringe Festival along Massachusetts Avenue exceeded attendance expectations and gallery happenings like Oranje, Art versus Art and events at the Harrison and Murphy Art Centers consistently draw young and enthusiastic crowds. The problem is not that people are turning from the arts, it's that they're losing interest in a few arts institutions.

It's going to take more than a new marketing plan to come to grips with this situation. But whether institutions like the symphony, the ballet or repertory theatre can - or should - reimagine themselves in order to deal with this larger cultural phenomenon remains to be seen. Like newspapers and the public library, they may be uncool for a certain demographic, but this needn't be confused with a lack of value. On the other hand, the slow-footed corporate structures these organizations have created to validate their legitimacy may be unsustainable. Absent a leaner vision for what they do and how they do it, they may have no choice but to wait for the next wave of the middle-aged to show up at the box office. Otherwise, the question isn't what are we to make of Generation X, but what, if anything, will Generation X make of us.