Orchestra to Lure Listeners Through Personalized Packages

The Philadelphia Orchestra is luring audiences through an innovative new tactic for its 2008-9 season — it is tailoring concerts and events to the needs and experiences of different audiences. Peter Dobrin, a music critic for The Philadelphia Inquirer writes that while many challenges remain for the orchestra in the coming year, it is a fundamentally sound strategy.

The Philadelphia Orchestra has already made adjustments to the changing market realities through the use of live video screens, guest speakers and discussions, social events for singles, and even talks and postlude concerts to reward audiences for their loyalty. But for the forthcoming season, Mr. Dobrin writes, “for the first time these experiments have been organized into packages with a lot of forethought about who the customer is and what her level of musical education might be.”

After hiring nonprofit consultants WolfBrown, the orchestra committed to crafting “collections,” or series of concerts and events aimed at constituencies with distinct tastes and levels of expertise. The orchestra hopes that not only will the strategy hook long-term listeners through packages, which include concert projection screens, parties, or on-stage discussions, but also that young and first-time listeners will be persuaded to become regular customers.

While it may be “easy to criticize the glacial pace of change,” Mr. Dobrin writes, the most crucial aspect of the new strategy may simply be that “the orchestra is now saying that you can experience it any way you want.”