Programming is dependent on consumer demand and market competition.
- Research must be done before selecting pieces to ensure that patrons will actually be interested in the particular genre that is to be performed and whether people would be willing to travel to your particular venue over competitors'.
- Even if there is a high demand for classical music in the surrounding area, symphonies must be sure to differentiate their concert programs from each other if there are multiple performing groups within a close radius.
Developing the concert program requires contribution from:
- the music director
- the artistic planning department (if the organization is established enough to have one), and
- the performers (to some extent)
As shown in the San Jose Symphony study (also mentioned in a previous post: It Takes Awareness of the Demographic in the Region), differentiating their programming was not enough to attract sufficient patrons to their concerts. They failed to realize that the demand for classical music was high, but not high enough to provide business to the very abundant supply of classical performances available in the Bay Area.
In other words, the San Jose Symphony was screwed regardless of the quality of their concert programming. One of their problems, in my opinion, was that they were not informed well enough about their audience preferences.
