Investigating Audience Motivations to Attend Concerts
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This is a repository copy of Musical, social and moral dilemmas: investigating audience motivations to attend concerts. White Rose Research Online URL for this paper: http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/92608/ Version: Accepted Version Book Section: Pitts, S.E. (2014) Musical, social and moral dilemmas: investigating audience motivations to attend concerts. In: Burland, K. and Pitts, S.E., (eds.) Coughing and Clapping: Investigating Audience Experience. SEMPRE Studies in The Psychology of Music . Ashgate , Oxford, UK , 21 - 33. ISBN 978-1-4094-6981-0 This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge in Coughing and Clapping: Investigating Audience Experience (2014), available online: https://www.routledge.com/products/isbn/9781409469810 Reuse Unless indicated otherwise, fulltext items are protected by copyright with all rights reserved. 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[email protected] https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/ 1 Chapter 3 1 2 2 3 Musical, Social and Moral Dilemmas: 3 4 4 5 Investigating Audience Motivations to 5 6 6 7 Attend Concerts 7 8 8 9 Stephanie Pitts1 9 10 10 11 11 12 12 13 13 14 Who Goes to Concerts – and Why? 14 15 15 16 In Musicking (1998), the exploration of classical concert life that was one of the 16 17 inspirations for this book, the ethnomusicologist Christopher Small describes the 17 18 scene in the foyer of a concert hall, a few moments before a symphony orchestra 18 19 concert is about to begin: 19 20 20 21 Even if we have come alone and know nobody, we can still feel a part of the event 21 22 as we buy a cup of coffee or an alcoholic drink and look around us as we sip. 22 23 Amongst those present we might recognize celebrities – a famous violinist, the 23 24 music critic of a quality newspaper, even perhaps an eminent politician. The latter 24 25 may be taking cocktails with a group of expensively dressed men and women 25 26 whom we can assume to be executives, and their wives, of the corporation that is 26 27 sponsoring tonight’s concert. [ … ] All appear casually at home in this place. We 27 28 remember our manners and do not stare. (Small, 1998, p. 24) 28 29 29 30 Now it is entirely possible that the late Christopher Small habitually attended 30 31 concerts in a different social league to the ones that I go to; or equally possible 31 32 that times have changed since cocktails were drunk before concerts and executives 32 33 were assumed to be male and married. Certainly the surface description of this 33 34 pre-concert scene seems thankfully unfamiliar in the week by week concert life 34 35 of most regional orchestras and chamber groups. Yet within this scene are some 35 36 lasting insightsProof on the experience of concert-going Copy that transcend boundaries of 36 37 musical genre: that even individuals who attend alone do so in relation to the 37 38 larger social group, that conversation and refreshment are an important part of the 38 39 39 40 40 1 The research reported in this chapter was funded by two small grants from the 41 41 British Academy, a Knowledge Transfer grant from the University of Shefield, and a 42 42 Business Link award from Yorkshire Forward. I am grateful to the research assistants and 43 participants in each project, and to the collaborating organisations, for their involvement 43 44 and interest in the research. 44 Burland.indb 21 9/4/2014 11:22:34 AM 22 COUGHING & CLAPPING: INVESTIGATING AUDIENCE EXPERIENCE 1 social interactions surrounding live music listening, and that feeling at home in the 1 2 performance venue contributes to the pleasure of concert attendance, while risking 2 3 excluding those who stand at the edges of the event. These elements of live music 3 4 listening apply equally (though in different forms) in the jazz club, the opera 4 5 house and the pop arena, and are part of the expectations of arts events that shape 5 6 potential audience members’ motivations to attend, and cause them to maintain or 6 7 withdraw their attendance when other commitments come into competition with 7 8 their live arts preferences. 8 9 An updated attempt at Small’s foyer scene might include a hurried ofice 9 10 worker eating a sandwich from the concert hall canteen, having come to the concert 10 11 straight from work; a group of students clutching heavily discounted tickets, 11 12 who have been persuaded that attendance will help with their musical studies; a 12 13 retired couple reading their programme and waiting to secure their favourite seats 13 14 when the doors of the hall are opened; and any number of other keen recorded 14 15 music listeners, devotees of the composer or the group on the programme tonight, 15 16 habitual attenders who like to support their local arts organization, or curious 16 17 irst-timers who would feel more readily at home in the cinema or theatre.heir T 17 18 motivations for attending will overlap to an extent, inluenced by their previous18 19 attendance and musical engagement, the social choices they have made in inviting 19 20 friends or coming alone, and the level of value they are able or willing to give live 20 21 music in relation to other inancial and practical aspects of daily life. Yet each will 21 22 have made a distinctive, individual decision to attend, itting a concert i nto their 22 23 everyday consumption of music and other arts, and relating their experience to 23 24 other social and musical dimensions of their lives. 24 25 Less observable, though equally important to an understanding of the 25 26 contemporary concert hall, are the people who are not here – perhaps put off 26 27 by an expectation of feeling out of place among the ‘expensively dressed [ … 27 28 ] executives’ (Small, 1998, p. 24) that they, like Small, assume will form the 28 29 majority of the audience. Research on audience demographics has raised concerns 29 30 that classical music audiences are generally ageing, predominantly white, middle 30 31 class, and in the more educated and afluent sectors of the general population (Kolb, 31 32 2001). Furthermore, this audience appears to be declining, with each generation 32 33 participating less as they reach the equivalent age, resulting in a loss of 3.3 million 33 34 American concert-goers between 2002 and 2008 (League of American Orchestras, 34 35 2009: 11), and similar patterns in Australia and Britain of a low proportion of 35 36 potential Proofaudience members actively engaging Copy in the arts (Australia Council for 36 37 the Arts, 2010; Martin, Bunting and Oskala, 2010). 37 38 These data on declining audiences have prompted ‘audience segmentation’ 38 39 studies, in which the attitudes and arts engagement of a population are categorized 39 40 into groups towards which arts organizations can direct their marketing efforts 40 41 (Clopton, Stoddard and Dave, 2006). The Arts Council England’s (2011) groupings 41 42 include the highly engaged ‘traditional culture vultures’ (4%) and ‘urban arts 42 43 eclectic’ (3%), through those who may attend ‘dinner and a show’ (20%) or are 43 44 ‘mature explorers’ (11%), to the ‘time-poor dreamers’ (4%) and ‘older and home- 44 Burland.indb 22 9/4/2014 11:22:35 AM MUSICAL, SOCIAL AND MORAL DILEMMAS 23 1 bound’ (11%) who may be interested in the arts but limited in their opportunities 1 2 for participation. The Australia Council for the Arts (2010) labels its categories 2 3 rather more directly: ‘the lovers’ (38%) who are highly engaged, ‘the lirters’ 3 4 (26%) whose attendance is inluenced by friends, ‘the un-attached’ (19%) who 4 5 have limited recent or past experience of participation, and ‘the outsiders’ (17%) 5 6 who believe that the arts are pretentious, elitist and ‘not for them’. 6 7 While the English set of labels prioritize behaviour and the Australian ones 7 8 focus on attitude, both approaches attempt to correlate the relationship between 8 9 these two aspects of arts engagement – an interest in the art form, and an inclination 9 10 to actively engage with it. It could be argued that audience motivation rests at 10 11 the crossover between interest and inclination, capitalizing on people’s curiosity, 11 12 past experience and attitudes to the arts, and overcoming the practical, social and 12 13 inancial barriers to converting interest into attendance. 13 14 14 15 15 16 Turning Up and Fitting In: Empirical Evidence from Jazz and Classical 16 17 Music Audiences 17 18 18 19 The remainder of this chapter will draw upon empirical evidence from audiences 19 20 in a range of contexts, including new and long-standing attenders at a chamber 20 21 music festival (Pitts and Spencer, 2008; Dobson and Pitts, 2011), jazz listeners at 21 22 a festival and in a local jazz club (Burland and Pitts, 2010; 2012), and audience 22 23 members at an orchestral concert series (Pitts, Dobson, Gee and Spencer, 2013).