Changing the Narrative needs the contact information you provide to us to contact you about our products and services. You may unsubscribe from these communications at anytime.

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Aubrey Bergauer: Hey, everyone. As I'm recording this episode, I am about to head out on my next National Parks adventure. If you've followed me for a while, or if you've listened to season one episodes, especially, I have talked about my semi recent obsession. I mean, it's a few years old now, I guess, but my semi recent obsession with the National Parks.

Like many people, I promise this eventually has to do with something arts related, but, you know, Hang on for a minute. Like many people, I got into the National Parks during lockdown, and now four years later, continue to, you know, check some off the list when I can. They are like an arts organization, the National Parks, that is, in that they have an incredibly strong product.

I always say the National Parks never disappoint. They're just always so beautiful, always blow me away. Similar to us, ticket sales or admissions do not cover the cost of what they do. So that's why, you know, the park admission fees, the park passes, campsite reservations, all that kind of stuff definitely doesn't cover the cost.

Now, here's what's different. They receive a lot more government subsidy, as we know, than we do in the arts, but also They raise a ton of money every year. This is something that I've recently learned. That's a technical term, by the way, a ton of money. Uh, but totally random fun fact as I was learning about this, their chief philanthropy officer of the National Park Foundation, that's their fundraising arm, their chief philanthropy officer is a former percussionist, went to Peabody, I think, if I [00:01:30] recall, was the head of development at Baltimore Symphony several years back.

And, and, and their past board chair was also board chair at Fort Wayne Symphony in Indiana, and their current chair is on the board of the Frye Art Museum in Seattle, which is where I used to live before here in San Francisco. None of that has to do with this episode. I just think all of these little Arts, parks connections are just very cool.

So to wrap up my story here, as this episode drops, I will be just returning from my latest national parks trip. I'm about to leave. There's a group of eight of us going. We are renting two big RVs and doing this road trip across Texas to Big Bend National Park, spending a few days there hiking. Canoeing, all that kind of stuff, and then eventually heading up to New Mexico to Carlsbad Caverns National Park, followed by a stop at White Sands National Park.

And like I said, I'll just have returned from all of that when this episode comes out. So today, to get into it, we are talking about the math of diversity, how much your audience can grow when it looks like your community. This is an episode about abundance mindset and growth, not how much things cost or how can we afford this or scarcity.

I want to say out of the gate that there is absolutely a moral imperative to diversify Not just our audience, but our staffs, our teams, our artists, [00:03:00] and our boards. But I am also a fan of the business case as well. That's really the angle we're coming at this from today. I also want to say up front, I am not an EDI /DEI expert. I do not claim to be. I am someone on a journey. And today we are talking about what the numbers look like when more of us go on that journey. And whoa, baby! Let me tell you, there is money on the table. So that's the topic of today, the math of it all. I have a free resource to give you for this episode.

It is my Demographic Revenue Calculator. It's literally a spreadsheet that walks you through the inputs. So the inputs being, what's the demographic breakdown in your community? Look up census data or Wikipedia or your local government's website. It asks, what are your annual ticket sales currently?

What's the national demographic breakdown for audiences in every artistic discipline? It gives you this. You don't have to look this up, but opera, ballet, classical music, theater, museums, art galleries. on and on. That's all in there already, so you don't have to look that up. And basically it walks you through step by step.

You input your own current audience breakdown in terms of demographics, which a lot of you have that from like grant applications and things like that already. You drop it in and then after walking you through those inputs, poof, it tells you some ticket sales potential. This can be used to help you set targets.

It can be used for future revenue projections. Everyone wants new and more. varied revenue streams, right? This can [00:04:30] help start to wrap your brain around the potential there. Or, speaking of potential, it can just help you see what it could look like. So again, we are here for abundance and growth and what the future could be when our audience looks more like our community.

Get this free download, the Demographic Revenue Calculator, that is at my website, aubreybergauer. com / 24. That's number two for for episode 24 and have some fun playing with that. I hope you do. Now we have some business to get to. You are here for season three, episode three of the Offstage Mike. The math of diversity, how much your audience can grow when it looks like your community. Coming right up.

I'm Aubrey Bergauer, and welcome to my podcast. I'm known in the arts world for being customer centric, data obsessed, and for growing revenue. The arts are my vehicle to make the change I want to see in this world, like creating places of belonging, pursuing gender and racial equality.

Developing high performing teams and leaders and leveraging technology to elevate our work. I've been called the Steve Jobs of classical music and the Sheryl Sandberg of the symphony. I've held offstage roles managing millions of dollars in revenue at major institutions and as chief executive of an orchestra where we doubled the size of the audience and nearly quadrupled the donor base.

And now I'm here to help you achieve that same kind of success. In this podcast, we are sorting through the data inside and outside the arts, applying [00:06:00] those findings to our work, leading out with our values, and bringing in some expert voices along the way. All to build the vibrant future we know is possible for our institutions and for ourselves as offstage administrators and leaders.

This podcast is about optimizing the business around the art, not sacrificing it. You're listening to the Offstage Mic.

Have you read Course Storm's, new State-of-the-Art Report, yet it's a data-driven resource for all things arts education in the past year. This one is for all the executive directors of arts organizations.

Teaching artists and other leaders in the arts and culture community. Imagine tapping into more than 10 years of exclusive class registration data to uncover invaluable insights for your organization. Course Storm has done the legwork so you can make informed decisions. Things like what day and time is best to hold your class, when do most people register, and which digital marketing channel is most effective.

Discover the successes and strategies of arts education programs that not only weathered the pandemic storm, but are thriving. Yes, you heard that right. Thriving. I love that the State of the Arts report shares exclusive data from the top class registration software company, CourseStorm. I got to see trends discovered from CourseStorm's analysis of more than 1 million class registrations.

And you'll want to see them too. So if you're ready to elevate your education program, don't miss out on the state of the arts report. Visit [00:07:30] Course Storm. com / SOAR that's slash S O A R like the acronym for state of the arts and download the free report today.

Is it just me, or does this sound terrible?

Wait, I think I heard of someone who might be able to help us. There's this company called Novo Music. They provide across the board audio solutions, from recording repair to audio editing to original music and sound design and beyond. Well, what are we waiting for? Now that's better. Novo Music. Conducting your creative vision.

Find out more at novomusic. co

There is a talk I give called The Future of Arts and Culture, Creating a Sense of Belonging. And in that presentation, I talk about user experience research and how do we design or create places where audiences feel welcome. like they belong, right? And at the top of the talk, as I'm outlining some of the challenges we face in the industry of arts and culture, I talk about how often we are asking, in my opinion at least, asking the wrong questions.

There's a few quote unquote wrong questions I think we're asking in general across the sector, but one of those that fits today's topic is, Do we serve the art or do we serve the community? I think this is the wrong question because these two things are not mutually exclusive. And in fact, one [00:09:00] begets the other.

So what I mean by that is if we don't have an audience funding our work via ticket sales and donations, we don't exist. I mean, at least if we want to get paid, we don't exist if we don't have somebody funding that work. We know we do not get tons of government subsidies here in the U. S., like the national parks or like arts organizations do in some other countries.

And I'll say more on this in a moment, but the point is right here is that if we want to pay the bills. And not just the bills, but pay our artists what they deserve, pay our staff more competitive wages, be able to program and commission the new exciting works we want to program. If we want to roll out new initiatives and projects, if we want to do any of those things or all of those things.

We need money. As we are sometimes painfully aware, that money doesn't just come freely in this sector. And by making quote unquote great art, that alone is not inherently fundable. I'm sorry if that's hard news for anybody to hear. I think it is a hard pill to swallow at some times. But I see this all the time when musicians start an ensemble and then realize, oh, I have to fundraise and market and do all these things to pay for it, right?

This support does not automatically come, is the point, and so many of us know this, like I said, as we're painfully aware. That funding does not automatically come unless you've got a big donor or sponsor footing at all, but that is rarer and rarer these days. So, um, We need audiences and broad based support, again, in the form of [00:10:30] ticket sales, and that forms the pipeline for donations.

So anybody wanting more on that, see my long haul model. It's all there of how do we move somebody from a first time buyer to a repeat subscriber and eventually to a donor and renewing donor. How do we move somebody along the journey? It's all there. It's on my website. It's on my blog. I've got other podcast episodes about it.

And it's also something we talk about a lot in my run at Like a Business Academy. But for now What I want you to know is that when we grow those sources, grow audiences, grow donors, we gain money to go right back to funding our mission, funding the art we care about so much. So this is cyclical. This is symbiotic.

It is not mutually exclusive at all, this idea of do we serve the art or do we serve the community? No, one begets the other. Really firmly believe that. Okay, another wrong question, quote unquote wrong question, related to today's topic is, how do we stay relevant? Now, I know on the surface that probably sounds like a great question, and I agree on the surface it does.

But here's the thing. We don't get to decide if we are relevant. Our community decides. The world around us decides. They decide with their wallets. So it actually is connected right back to this idea of who is coming, who's buying tickets, who eventually is donating and supporting us. I used to say it would make more sense, this question of how do we stay relevant, it would make more sense if we were publicly funded.

So I said I would come back to this idea of publicly funded and who is and who [00:12:00] isn't and all this kind of stuff. Okay. But in that case, like I used to think like if we were in Europe or something and for the European listeners right now, I used to think like if we were publicly funded, maybe we could ask how do we stay relevant.

Because we're not so beholden to the audiences and donors like is the case in the U. S. But then I've realized over the last few years, in that case, for those places that do receive a lot more government subsidy, Somebody else decides if we are relevant, still, like, it's not audiences, in this case, maybe it's legislators, which, that is true, but even to break it down even more, in these places where organizations, arts organizations, receive way more public funding than here in the U.

S., so Europe, sometimes in Australia as well, maybe some other places, where is that public money coming from? So I used to think, yes, it matters if we're relevant to legislators, but really, at the end of the day, where's that public money coming from? What's the source? Usually, the answer is taxpayers, aka the community.

So no matter, is now the conclusion I've come to, no matter how your organization is funded, in the end, that money is coming from the people in your region, in your community. So I want to put a finer point on it. The number one quality of top relevant brands to this question of, you know, how do we stay relevant?

Even if it's the wrong question, it's because other people decide this, not us. The number one quality of top relevant brands, this comes from a firm called Profit. Every year they release their [00:13:30] brand relevance index. I write about them in chapter 10 of my book. The number one quality of top relevant brands, according to this firm, is that they are Quote unquote, customer obsessed.

So when we think of companies like Netflix, Apple, Marvel, Pixar, Nike, PlayStation, Spotify, like I'm literally reading off the list of top relevant brands according to this index they produce, those brands, what they have in common is that they are customer obsessed. And to be customer obsessed is to be community obsessed.

To be community obsessed is to be customer obsessed. Trust. This is my belief. And when our audience is leaving people or money on the table, when we are leaving people or money on the table, that is a huge window of opportunity. So remember, we are here right now for, not for scarcity, definitely not here for shame, so do not hear any of that.

We are here for growth and understanding a big opportunity that lies before us here. So to get to growth, though, we first have to tackle some of the problem. Why is our current audience leaving people or money on the table? Well, the answer to that, I would say, is systemic. Systemic discrimination, racism, oppression in our country and in our industry as well.

By origin, we are a white Western European art form. Most everybody listening, especially if you were at a traditional institution or a legacy institution, that's our origin story. So again, no shame in that, but white Western European art form. Our audiences, we know this, but to state the obvious, our audiences are not reflective of the communities we serve.

So [00:15:00] now to put some numbers to that, starts to get at the very beginning of some of this math we're going to do in this episode, is this is from the NEA. NEA data says that the demographic breakdown of arts attendance for I'll do classical music just because that's my background, but I'll, I'll share a couple other disciplines in a moment.

The breakdown, by the way, I share this in chapter five of my book, if anybody wants more, it's all there, but for now, demographic breakdown for classical music, our audiences nationwide are 83 percent white, 5. 5 percent Hispanic, a little over 5 percent African American. And 7 percent other, and I just want to say the other is how the data is presented or categorized by the NEA and the report I was getting this from, so that is not me trying to minimize groups or want people together unfairly, that's just how the data is presented, so.

That's what we're working with here. Theater, just to give another discipline, very similar, 80. 7 percent white. So if classical music was 83%, this is almost 81 percent for theater. That's non musical plays specifically. 6. 4 percent Hispanic, 8. 5 percent African American, 4. 4 percent Asian and other. Let's just see, let's do museums just to get one more for the visitor based institution people listening here.

Museums, we have, this includes art galleries as well, 76 percent white, 10 percent Hispanic. 6. 5 percent African American, 7. 4 percent Asian [00:16:30] and other. None of these artistic disciplines are that different than each other, and the range according to the NEA is that audiences or attendees at these traditional, meaning white, Western art form institution, again, no shade being thrown in saying that, that's, that's just their origin story, but the range is that attendees and audiences are from 76 to 83 percent white.

Like, if I had to summarize all those numbers I just rattled off, that's the range. 76 to 83 percent white is our audiences. Okay, by comparison, let's look at U. S. census data. The U. S. census, the latest census in 2020, says that the American population is only 62 percent white. So, already we are over indexing at arts and culture institutions a minimum of of 14 percentage points, depending on your discipline, and up to, as is the case of classical music, up to 21 percentage points over indexing on white audiences.

So everyone else at a traditional or legacy organization, I'm not sure what's the best word to use here, so I'll just say everyone else at an organization based on white Western European art form as part of our origin story. is somewhere in that range between that 14 to 20 plus percentage points over indexing on white audiences.

This is not about shame. I gotta say that again. This is truly about the opportunity that lies ahead of us. So here's where it gets even more interesting in my opinion. We just looked at 2020 census data. The projection looking [00:18:00] ahead to 2045, this is where it really ratchets up a notch or 10 notches or something, is that by 2045, The United States is projected to be a minority white country.

The Brookings Institute projects that by 2045, the U. S. will be only 49 percent white. Pew Research, to put another data source to this, says that already 22 states and 109 counties across those states are already there, already majority non white, meaning majority minority is another way to say it, or majority BIPOC is yet another way to say it.

The point is that this overindexing is maybe interesting at best, but really when I say opportunity, even necessary, right? Like I said, there's moral imperative, but when we talk about the dollars and cents of it, absolutely necessary to be aware of this. And so as the world around us becomes increasingly diverse, we are.

Absolutely missing out on a large swath of audiences available to us because we are not fully reflective of that world. So what if we actually expanded our audience to look like that world around us? I get so excited by this because truly that would be a game changer. And this is where we're going to do some more math in a moment to give a specific example of just how much we are talking about here.

Because Like I said, whoa, baby, it's a lot, [00:19:30] but first I want to share a story, I guess, for lack of a better word. So one time I was having this exact conversation on this exact topic with somebody and talking about the changing demographic of the United States, et cetera, et cetera. And this was, this was with a colleague at an industry conference.

So this person said to me. that this argument I'm making that we're losing out on audiences because we don't look like the world around us and the demographics are changing doesn't really hold. Because the entire population is growing. So they said basically the potential pool of white audiences is growing too.

And I normally don't share such personal stories, especially on what can be more sensitive topics like this one. So But I'm gonna share here because I can talk strategies all day long, but I think this is a great example of where things get real, you know? So this is a real conversation on the ground with an artistic leader.

And I'll even go so far as to say is this person is actually known or at least has built some of their personal brand on being more forward thinking, inclusive, and a proponent, total proponent for representation in the field. Now, given all this context, I was a bit surprised to hear this comment from this person, first of all.

And even if they are all those things, forward thinking and a proponent of representation and all the things we want to champion, you know, on these issues, this is still a real thought they had. I share this in case anybody listening is [00:21:00] thinking, you know, I was thinking that too. Or for anyone else that may have colleagues who you know are going to have that same question or thought, this is sometimes where the rubber meets the road on this stuff.

Here's my response to that line of thinking. On one hand, they're not wrong. The overall population is growing. That is a correct statement. So I went digging in preparation for this episode. I went digging into the census data to see What exactly the growth rates are right now, and here's the answer. None of this next part is in my book, so you are getting it all here for the first time right now.

I've never shared all this before because I literally just dug into all this, uh, for this episode. The U. S. Census Bureau says 2023 was a quote unquote good year for population growth. That's their word. It was a good year for population growth. The Census Bureau also says it was still Quote unquote, historically low, though.

In 2023, what's good but still historically low is half a percent population growth. That was the growth rate in 2023. 0. 5%. That is up from 0. 4 percent in 2022. It was 0. 2 percent in 2021. So you put all that together. And let's say the audience at this person's organization was doing just fine, meaning they were making their sales goals.

They were happy with subscription levels. They had full houses, balancing their budget. Things were good. Let's just say if that were true for that organization or for yours or for [00:22:30] anybody else's, if that were true and you were happy to keep the audience proportions the same as they are currently, that means You are looking at a potential growth of half a percentage point a year to keep on pace with growing your audience at the same rate as the nation's population.

Okay, you can dig down further and say, well, maybe your area is growing a little more. Maybe you have 1 percent growth a year or 1. 5 percent or 2%. I don't know. You can look into it, but I don't know about you, regardless of what that exact population growth is in your region. Would you rather have that or a 0.

5 percent ceiling or whatever the number is, would you rather have that or a ceiling of 40 percent or higher untapped audiences right here, right now? I know my choice. And just because I want to make one more point on why this is This population growth argument isn't really the argument some think it is.

If we are talking about facts, also true is the birth rate is declining in this country. So when the population is growing, like I just shared about, that then begs the question Where is that growth coming from if the birth rate is declining? The answer is largely immigration. And who is immigrating to the U.

S.? Well, I looked that up too. Immigration is such a big topic right now, but I literally was like, where exactly are the most people coming from who are entering this country [00:24:00] and aiding with this population growth? So here you go. The top countries for adult immigrants entering the U. S. are Mexico, India, China, the Philippines, El Salvador, and Vietnam.

Now this list varies slightly depending on what source is reporting, so don't take that as like, uh, in order by gospel, but basically those are the top countries where people are immigrating from, and the headline here is that Those are not white people. So one more time, the argument that population growth somehow lessens the need to diversify your audience or somehow makes this need less urgent in order to grow is just actually incredibly circular logic.

So I want to say one more time, we are not white. 100 percent have a moral imperative to do this work. I believe we are called to dismantle the structures that have marginalized and minimized people of color and other historically marginalized groups and identities in this industry. I believe that on stage, off stage, in the galleries, exhibits, in the boardroom, and in our audience.

I believe this. This is part of my own value system. Also, though. I believe in the business case for this work, too. Both of these things can coexist. And because if we don't have an audience meeting, if we don't have customers, one more time, we don't exist. And we are sidelining a huge portion of the population when we are not creating places where everyone feels like they belong.

Okay, two more things, and then we're going to do some more math. I already [00:25:30] said this. I'm not a DEI expert. I don't claim to be. Like so many of you, I'm on a journey. I'm just sharing some of the things I've learned, what I've come to understand, and opinions I've formulated around my own personal values and beliefs on this topic.

I also want to say we do not need to be everything to everyone. That's not what I'm saying here. When any brand in any sector, any industry tries to be everything to everyone, then you're nothing to no one, right? So what I am not saying is that we need to make things so generic they appeal to no one.

What I am saying, instead what I am advocating for here, is that being inclusive, that creating places where everyone who has a proclivity to become our customer, they like our art, they want to engage with culture, they want to have a live cultural experience that they are going to tap into. into their own personal entertainment budget to purchase anyone who fits that kind of customer avatar, regardless of their background or identity, which includes race and ethnicity, of course, but our identities are multifaceted and include other things, too, like you're a mom or you're a dad, for example, in addition to you're an employee or you're a runner or whatever your hobbies may be in addition to your gender and on and on and on.

So, no matter someone's background or identity, if they fit the customer avatar for potential purchases because of their personal taste and spending habits, they need to feel safe and welcome at our organizations. That is what I'm saying here. Okay, so where do we [00:27:00] go? Where do we go from here given all of this?

Let's say you are listening and nodding your head along and you are like, yes, this all makes sense to me. No problem. How then do we begin to connect the dots from, yes, I want to be inclusive, to how does this make additional revenue and grow the audiences we so desperately need? Let's do some math. This is in the book, I will say, if you want or need the visual chart to go with it.

I also have that free download template that does all this math for you so you can save yourself a ton of time. And I'll tell you again at the end how you can get that. But first, let's talk it through here. So, for an example, let's say you are a mid sized museum. We already said the NEA data for the breakdown of audience demographics for a hypothetical city's art museum, meaning nationwide 76 percent white current audiences, current attendees, little over 10 percent Hispanic, 6.

5 percent African American, 7. 4 percent Asian or other. Those are the same stats I said earlier in the episode here. So let's say this hypothetical organization or museum sees. 15, 000 visitors a year. I'm totally making this up. Let's say they are here in my city of San Francisco. So the population breakdown for San Francisco, I looked it up online.

I'm just following the same NEA categorizations here. So for San Francisco, the population is 45 percent white, 15 percent Hispanic, 5 percent African American, and 35 percent Asian and other. So that's actually, Asians are actually the second biggest [00:28:30] population in the city here. If this museum is currently serving 76 percent white audiences, again the national average, we'll say this made up museum matches the national data.

When you do the exercise or do my download, you can input your own numbers, but for this exercise let's say they match the average. That means that out of their 15, 000 tickets a year, 76 percent of them, 11, 400 of those tickets are white attendees. And just over a thousand Asian attendees. Okay, so that's the current baseline for this made up museum here.

The total population of San Francisco, San Francisco proper, is just under a million people. So I'm not talking about the whole Bay Area, but San Francisco proper, just under a million people. The total white population per the city government is 366, 000. 840. I know this is a lot of numbers, but that's about, the important number here, is that is about a 3 percent conversion rate.

Of the white population, this museum is converting about 3 percent to ticket buyers annually. But of the Asian population, that second biggest demographic at around 285, 000 people, It's only a 0. 3 percent conversion. Okay, so this is still just their baseline. So hang with me because I know this is a lot of numbers.

Like I said, the visual is all in my book, and then the download can help you do the visualization for your own organization as well, but hang with me. Because what if this fictitious [00:30:00] museum converted, and here's the point of the whole exercise, What if they converted the second biggest demographic in San Francisco, which, like I said, is the Asian population, at the same rate, they're already successfully converting white audiences, meaning instead of converting 0.

3 of Asians to ticket buyers, they converted 3 percent of that demographic to ticket buyers. They would sell, if they did that, they would sell an additional 8, 800 tickets every year. That is just converting the Asian population in this city at the same rate of ticket sales conversions already happening for the white population.

So I'm not saying sell fewer tickets to white people or anything like that. I'm saying, no, no, no, keep that there. The same. We're happy with that number. This is about growth, remember? So, if you remember the total annual visitorship, tickets, admissions sold at the museum, that was 15, 000 tickets a year. So this is telling, to say it again, an additional 8, 000 plus tickets would be sold if they were reflective of this community, converting the second biggest demographic at the same rate.

They're converting the first largest demographic. This is incredible to me. I don't know if anybody else's mind is blown by these numbers, but when you actually look at it like this, it's amazing how much is on the table. Now, is any organization going to make this kind of leap in a year? No. Are there a lot of barriers and systemic issues and lots of things to overcome for this to ever happen?

[00:31:30] Yes. But what if a fraction, a fraction of those gains were true? This is a vision of the future. I am here for, and that vision says we see the data. We know the demographics of our city. We know the demographics of our market. We know those demographics, like most of America, are changing. And we know that if we make a concerted effort to be welcoming to the second largest demographic in our area, It's work we believe in, and it's work that we know will fundamentally change our bottom line.

And the best part of all of this, I think, is that even if we fall short of that perfect math goal, because it is math, and math is not always the same as real life, but even if we make a small fraction of progress, we are selling So many more tickets than we ever were before. Our audience will have expanded significantly.

We'll be serving more people, and that audience looks a lot more like our community than it ever did before. That is the future I want for you. That is the future I want for every arts organization. in this country and beyond. And I've seen a taste of it before, just a taste at the orchestra I used to run.

That area, the second biggest demographic was Latinos and Hispanics, so a pretty large Latinx population. And we increased Hispanic and Latino households by 50 percent, Hispanic and Latino households by 50 percent over the course of a few years. I [00:33:00] talk about this in the book a little bit too, go into more detail on how we did this and the different levers we pulled to help try to make that inclusive.

in welcoming place for that demographic, and it made the kind of difference I'm talking about here. It really was a lot of extra revenue to our bottom line. Our audience started looking different, looking more like the community. So I believe all this, not just as a mathematical exercise, but because I've seen it, and I have seen how it really, really made a difference.

in the budget and who we were serving and in more fully delivering our mission. So I just want to say one thing on programming as we wrap up here, as we start coming to the end, we do not have to change repertoire, programming, curation alone to achieve this. And in fact, should not only. be, talk about pulling levers, should not be only pulling the programming lever.

In fact, the research supports that traditional white Western art forms can and do appeal to non white and Western people. So this is actually hugely beneficial research for our legacy traditional organizations. This research called the Latin Experience, research by Skanchen that is, and there was also some radio research done by Slover Lynette that really started getting at some of these same kind of findings.

Basically, here's what it comes down to. Do we need representation in our artists? Yes. Do we need more of that? Yes, absolutely. Do we need to program works by historically marginalized and excluded groups? Yes. But that alone is not [00:34:30] what changes and expands our audience demographic. So many organizations try to, I think, only achieve diversity through programming.

That's not sufficient. The research says, in short, That one's identity does not predetermine their taste. Now think about that for yourself, too. Your identity does not predetermine your own taste in anything. People choose and make their own taste. And this is true as a broad consumer trend. People are more into their own taste making than decades before.

So this is really great news for our art forms. It means that art Even when the origin story is white Western European, can appeal, does appeal to all kinds of people. And that, my friend, goes right back to the incredible strength of our product. So I talk about this a lot more in the book. It is a whole chapter on multiculturalism, specifically in our programming, what to do, what not to do, how the research really supports programming strategy, and how to maximize that strategy.

I wish we had time to get into it here, but. For today, the main takeaway is that we have such good news and that potential audiences are here, now, ready, and available. But we have to create spaces and places where those potential audiences feel welcome, where they see others that look like them. And that, more than anything else, is what will move the needle.

More than programming, more than repertoire, more than curatorial changes alone, for [00:36:00] sure. So that is the opportunity before us and is completely achievable, both morally and according to the business case for this work as well. Okay, offstagers, that was a lot of math and numbers today, so So sorry, not sorry, but as I mentioned, I have a free resource that makes life easier because it does all the math for you.

So when I was writing my book, I had all kinds of spreadsheet tabs and data sources and percentages and formulas and I had multiple people proof all of it as a little beautiful mind action sort of going on. And. Keeping it all straight definitely made my brain hurt, even though I tend to like math. It's just a lot.

So now I'm on the other side of all that, and I have crunched all the numbers and went through that pain, so you don't have to. Visit my website, aubreybergauer. com slash 24, that's number 24, to get your free demographic revenue calculator. It's a very quick plug and play template where you first add in your local census or population data.

Two, then add in your own patron data, how many tickets you sell in a year, plus your current demographic breakdown. And three, you will then automatically see exactly how many more tickets or admissions you could sell each year if your audience or attendees were reflective of the demographics in your community or region.

When you start seeing the high end of how many more sales a year that could look like, again, even if you just achieved a fraction of that. It's pretty mind blowing in a way [00:37:30] that doesn't hurt your brain now. So one more time, like I said, even if just a fraction of those gains were realized, it is very cool to see what that would look like for your organization.

So get your free downloadable demographic revenue calculator at www.aubreyberger.com / 24. That's two four for episode number 24. That's all for today, folks. Thanks so much for listening and if you like what you heard here, hit that button to follow or subscribe to this podcast. If you're new, welcome. I am so glad you made it.

And if you've been listening for a while, I loved so much that you were getting value from this. So if that's you, please take just two seconds to leave a quick one tap rating. Full on review isn't even required if you're short on time. To all of you once more, thanks again. I'll see you next time right here.

On the offstage mic. The offstage mic was produced by me, Aubrey Bergauer, and edited by Novo Music, an audio production company of all women audio engineers and musicians. Additional podcast support comes from the Changing the Narrative team and social media brand management by Classical Content. This is a production of Changing the Narrative.