Last weekend, we went to a benefit for Mercy Corps relief work in Haiti in a small theater. It was an eclectic all-star cast – Thomas Lauderdale and China Forbes from Pink Martini, singer/actress Storm Large, the hip hop/rapper Cool Nutz, jazz artists Janice Scroggins and Linda Hornbuckle, and others. It was impromptu, put together in six days but sold out. We sat toward the back and when I looked out what I saw were grey and bald heads, the average age was probably 50+. But in other venues, all of these performers draw big young crowds. Tickets were $30, so price wasn’t a major barrier.
It made me remember that the previous weekend we went to a staged reading of a play by a small, semi-experimental theater company and again the audience was geezers (me included).
So I’m wondering, is there an age cultural divide in venues? It doesn’t surprise me to see mostly older folks at classical events, but these are the kind of things I went to in my 20’s. Richard wrote in Rise about the creative class’ move toward experiential entertainment. If the benefit had been in a dance venue would the crowd have been different? And if there were a DVD made of the play or it were posted on YouTube, would it get a younger audience?
I’m curious what you do when you go out, or for that matter do at home for entertainment with your computer. Do younger folks need to either experience things only virtually or viscerally? Is theater seating going the way of the print media? What does this mean for American culture?
January 29th, 2010 at 5:29 am
I was listening to Jonathan Ross on Radio 2 a couple of months ago, and he was relating how he took his pre-teen children to a museum in London which had installations only around 10 years old, but involved mechanical props springing up with recorded sound effects.
The joke was that his children were simply not scared because they were used to 3D CGI with added Dolby sound effects. They could probably see the whole mechanical processes unfurl in slow motion because their sensory reactions probably work in nanoseconds as opposed to milliseconds.
I can see it in my own children – we don’t watch TV and try never to use our computers around them. As a result, they have far, far longer attention spans that the other children at their nurseries (kindergarten), and are perfectly happy to sit and have a book read to them for a long time, whilst other kids have gradually slipped away from when the story began.
Last year Radio 3 as part of a Free Thinking festival ran a talk on visual culture and whether it was to the detriment of aural or oral culture etc. It certainly explains the lack of interest in classical music – because it relies on careful listening, and younger audiences are simply not used to listening to one thing in detail for a long time: many studies have shown how young people consume many different media at the same time: chatting on msn whilst listening to music and watching a film at the same time. It is obviously impossible to give any of these the adequate attention they each deserve. As you point out, the priority is to quantity of consumption rather than quality, so they can “tick off” on their list of what they have done. Seen “Avatar”? Yup – check. Listened to the latest whatever album? Yup – check. Chatting to lots of friends to make you feel popular? Yup, check. But can you understand in detail the content of that film or relationship or album? No because I paid it only cursory attention and my brain only parsed top level information (I’m not a psychologist, so excuse my cod neuroscience…).
The result: aggression, infantilism and consumption for its own sake.
January 29th, 2010 at 9:31 am
I think your story may have been a function of the marketing strategy, particularly if it was put together in 6 days. I mean, if your trying to raise money, it’s probably more effective to draw a “geezer” crowd… they have thicker “bill-folds”, ya know?
Another posssibility and more to your point, was that it was the kind of stuffy black tie, shush shush environment with white table cloths on circular tables with crafty centerpieces hosted in ball-room straight out of a 1980’s wedding that every 20 something walks into, looks at, feels uncomfortable in and leaves… even if they did come in the first place.
This may not be the case at all… but thats just what came to my mind from your description.
January 29th, 2010 at 11:10 am
The Orchestra of the Age of Englightenment is playing a concert in the Roundhouse in Camden (where Hendrix played) in a “no-rules” concert, precisely to challenge some of the assumptions made above.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/music/article-23800196-roll-over-beethoven-classical-concert-to-be-like-a-rock-gig.do
Alex Ross’s http://www.therestisnoise.com blog has frequent discussions on the matter, and is a great blog too.
January 29th, 2010 at 11:44 am
My daughter who is eight now has grown up listening to live music,jazz concerts weekly, her dad practicing trumpet, me singing. At 4, she could name the different instruments playing in a number of musical pieces,different genres. She plays violin and recorder now. Her TV programs are on TIVO and only allowed for a specified time (…most of the time!). As a result, I think she can listen to music quite intently for long periods of time. I also am often struck by how focused she is once she gets into reading a book. So I suspect it’s exposure and example that feed into what young people are into. She is just as crazy about Nintendo, The Suite Life of Zack and Cody etc as any other kid I know.
January 29th, 2010 at 3:17 pm
Great comments! And instructive to me, because by kids I meant 20 & 30 somethings but of course that’s a geezer point of view.
Observer, interesting take. It was the brainchild of a local musician who called his friends (he didn’t even perform). The marketing was mostly viral and press releases — we got it from Pink Martini’s e-mail list. But there was also good press because here in Puddletown these are big names and Mercy Corps is local and respected. The venue was the Aladdin Theater, an old converted moviehouse that does live acts, rock, folk, ethnic http://www.aladdin-theater.com/ . It’s genteel funky, its last incarnation was as a porn movie theater and the next door neighbor business bought it and converted it, but it still has the old movie seats, etc. The crowd was largely in jeans and plaid, but that passes for formal in Portland. Tap beer and pizza you could take to your seat. But you’re right about the wallets, their goal was $25,000 in ticket sales and it raised over $130,000.
January 29th, 2010 at 4:28 pm
Michael,
Hmmm… maybe a lot of 30-something “kids” are too busy with their own families (and the small children discussed by Monique, Observer, and Daniel) to attend events like that. And, most have careers/jobs as well.
Unless I personally knew the individuals performing or putting on the benefit, the effort required to attend an event like that would be too much for the enjoyment value (plus the opportunity cost of losing time with my kids). I can donate to Haiti relief easy enough on the internet.
I’m almost no longer a 30-something, but that would be my thought on this.
January 30th, 2010 at 9:51 pm
I’m a few months away from leaving the 30-something definition. When I was 20-something, without kids, a $30 ticket was a significant price barrier. It is even more so now that I have a family, multiply that times 4 and it is now $120 evening, maybe $110 if the kids are left home with a sitter.
I did go to a lot of theatre in my 20’s, because I worked in theatre and could get comp tickets (but couldn’t afford to buy them…) But now that I’m a stay at home mom, it just doesn’t happen.
I have made an effort to take my kids (who are 9 and 6) to children’s theatre events, but I’ve noticed that unless the event is very engaging they lose interest quickly. I don’t think it is as much about production values and competition with CGI as it is a need to feel part of the action. Productions with minimal sets and costumes are great if they are high in audience participation. Kids are more used to having control of their media.
February 5th, 2010 at 10:04 pm
This weeks New Yorker has a piece about a classical music club, run like a jazz club. It says:
“… classical music is hardly alone in watching its claim to the public dwindle. Jazz, musical plays, nonmusical plays, and movies have all fallen off since 1982. Sporting events have suffered the biggest drop: thirty-six percent. Essentially, any activity that requires us to travel to a venue, take a seat, and watch people performing in some disciplined fashion is not as popular as it used to be.”
So its not just 30-somethings, seated entertainment is apparently down for all age groups. Some of it is price — certainly professional sports and movies, the entertainment of the masses, have gotten obscenely expensive — especially if you count refreshments as part of the experience.