Why Kickstarter is the "New" Audience

as posted on VisionIntoArt's blog: http://www.visionintoart.com/why-kickstarter-is-the-new-audience/

An article titled “Only Connect the Prose and the Passion- A Manifesto” by Marian Godfrey was posted on the Grantmakers in the Arts website last week (and later re-posted on Artsjournal.org). Godfrey has worked for over 30 years in artistic administration, both as a grantmaker and arts manager. As part of her manifesto she declared: “art organizations have a direct and necessary part to play in building connections among artists and the people and places and communities in which they are grounded.”  I think Kickstarter’s success is driving this point home.

Among art administrators, it’s a common frustration to seek and hold dearly onto “new audiences”. Grantmakers want us to share our strategies on how we intend to do this, the dwindling audiences have our boards in a tizzy… when quite simply-- the standard model is obsolete.

I like to recall a statement I overheard from a frustrated art administrator: “New audiences? I have been trying to find those for 30 years.” Although we all share her pain, we also may be overlooking the obvious - the new audience is the one we’ve had all along.  What’s new is how we connect with them so they keep coming back and, hopefully, support our organizations beyond the ticket price.
Human nature dictates our need to connect.  In the past, to see a performance you’d go to the concert hall, meet some friends, sit down and listen to the music and maybe, if you were lucky, meet the artist afterwards. Nowadays, music is in your pocket, art is on your phone, the newest movie or something like it is on your computer, and if you are fan of someone, you can connect with him or her on twitter or facebook. Some would think this would cause competition, when in fact; it’s proof that audiences want a more personal connection with performing arts. Moreover, what seems to be so isolating –sitting at a computer all day- is actually facilitating an easier and more efficient way to become more involved. What Kickstarter invites fans to do is to take this step further and become involved in projects from the beginning, allowing the fans to be, rightly so, part of the artistic process. These intimate connections provide artistic projects normally not funded in the standard old way- grants and people with large sums of money- to be funded by the entire audience.

On the flip side, beautifully described in Amanda Palmer’s TED talk, is that we shouldn’t worry about making people buy music; we need to let them. To this end, Kickstarter allows our audiences to know what is happening and to be part of the process. For today’s audiences, it’s our jobs as artistic managers and artists not to find these people and present our ideas to them; it’s our job to invite them to the conversation.

(And I invite you to our conversation by visiting VisionIntoArt's Kickstarter Campaign!! Please RSVP by clicking here! I also invite you to see VIA Artist, Jeffrey Zeigler’s, post on CELLOBELLO about our Kickstarter Campaign.)