Recap: So far this week we've looked at the fundamental facility problems, the Tuna issue, the current season's programming, and the vexing problems with booking music acts. Now I'd like to talk about marketing. One repeated criticism, even going back to the time that I was there, was that we were not doing enough to get the word out about the shows.

First, I'll run down all of the things that we were doing while I was there that were still somehow not considered a sufficient job of promoting the shows. For each event we made it prominent and visible on our website, we put radio commercials on Star 92.9FM, we put television commercials on five channels with Time Warner Cable and five channels with Grande Cable, we put television commercials on KCEN-TV, we put ads in the Wacoan magazine, we put ads in Waco Today Magazine, we put ads in the Waco Tribune-Herald, we put posters up in shops and restaurants around town, we sent out mass marketing emails, we created Facebook events, we Twittered about the shows, and in my final season there we even put up billboards. And these efforts were greeted frequently with people telling me that we weren't doing enough to get the word out. Apart from stringing up banners across Austin Avenue or wearing a sandwich board at the Waco Drive/Valley Mills intersection, I'm not sure what more we could have done.

But before going in to the nuts and bolts of how the marketing was done and the challenges presented by it, I have a question: Does none of the burden for finding out what is going on at the Hippodrome or anywhere in Waco fall on the shoulders of the citizenry? I'm being absolutely serious. I live in Nashville, Tennessee now. There is something going on here all the time. I don't know this because they are all telling me about it; I know it because I investigate what there is to see and do. I go to Arts groups' websites. I read local magazines. I sign up for performance venues' email distribution lists. I don't rely on them to tell me when and what is showing. That said, they do get to me sometimes. And, on occasion, it is information that I didn't have about a surprise performer. But if I miss out on something that I would have liked to see, I regard it as my fault for not paying attention or doing my homework. So, to answer my question at the top of this paragraph, yes, I believe the audience bears just as much responsibility for knowing what is going on as the organization does for telling people about it.

Recently, gossip and comments on websites revealed a large number of people saying that the cure to the WPAC's lack of money and audiences was to do more marketing. Let's go over some of the costs of marketing a show, shall we? First of all, it was asserted a few times that surely all of the advertisers in Waco would do things for us for free. Umm... yes and no. Not for free. Some would work out a trade agreement with us for sponsorship of a season or an event. Let me begin by thanking the few who would. The Waco Tribune-Herald, Time Warner Cable, and Grande did. We got significant discounts from Star 92.9FM, The Trib, and Swift Outdoor Media. And we got a non-profit rate from KCEN-TV, Waco Today, and The Wacoan. But the idea that all of these organizations either just threw unlimited free advertising or would be willing to do so is absurd. They're for-profit businesses who have to make money. And all of those businesses have my gratitude and respect. None of the advertisers with whom we worked, with the notable exception of Lamar Advertising, ever failed to treat us with anything less than patience, respect, concern, and friendship.

So what does advertising cost? Well without saying exactly what any business actually charged us out of respect for their privacy, print ads in any publication run between $250 - $1000+ for an ad of a size that would be seen. Radio ads run between $5 - $20 per commercial. Television commercials cost between $30 - $250 per commercial depending on which show it is being run in. Billboards cost between $250 - $1500 per month. It all adds up. It really wasn't possible to promote a show on less than $4500, and that bill could easily exceed $6000+ just to get adequate coverage. So at the low price of $4500 with an average ticket price of $40, it took selling 113 seats just to pay for the marketing expenses. That's 113 out of a usable 700, which leaves only 587 seats left to sell to cover the artistic, administrative, and facility costs just to break even. If those 587 seats also averaged $40 per ticket, (and remember that these can't all be prime seats because comps have to be taken out for sponsors and for the touring company), that means all of the other costs could not add up to more than $23,480 if you wanted to break even. Since the other costs for an average Broadway musical easily tallied over $28,000+ you can begin to appreciate why just "advertising more" wasn't exactly an option.

I will spare you the particulars of the stories with Clear Channel and Lamar. Suffice it to say that they had fantastic opportunities to partner with us, work with us, and support us but instead chose to do business in such a way that actually hurt us and proved quite definitively that they were far more interested in seeming to be supportive of their community than in actually supporting it. And with such fantastic locally-owned options available to us in Star 92.9FM and Swift Outdoor, why would we continue to do business with the other type? We were fortunate to have the latter two as partners along with the other advertising avenues mentioned above. They all displayed a real sense of care and concern for the things that make Waco a better place in which to live, like the WPAC.

The stories of advertising entities being hostile towards us are few. Most were very helpful. But even under optimal circumstances, advertising shows is an expensive, time-consuming, difficult proposition. And it is made more difficult when many people don't take the responsibility of finding out what is going on in town for themselves. Those same people seem to be the ones who want to blame the non-profit for not spending more money, (that it doesn't have), to promote the shows. So while many people want to point the finger at a lack of marketing, as we've seen numerous times already, the problem is far more complicated than that.

I think I'll take the weekend off and return on Monday with a look at the Board of Directors and their role in all of this. After that I'll be taking a look at some non-profit Arts math and the future of the organization. Hopefully I'll be laying out an achievable bright tomorrow for the Arts in Waco. Have a good weekend.