PHOTOGRAPHY © BY ROGER MASTORIANNI
BY ROSS BINNIE
Growing Younger Reflections on the Tenth Anniversary of Under 18s Free ticketing and The Cleveland Orchestra’s Center for Future Audiences . . . W H E N I J O I N E D The Cleveland
Orchestra in 2010, we had one very significant challenge to tackle immediately. Simply put, we needed to attract the next generation of fans. For more than three decades, my career has centered around arts marketing and ticket sales. On both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. And on both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border. Over that time, one thing I’ve learned clearly is good products make a world of difference. And tickets to The Cleveland Orchestra are, without question, the best, most quality-filled and satisfying experience I’ve ever been tasked to sell.
SPOTLIGHT — Summer 2021
But selling concert tickets isn’t like selling cars or clothing. Buying a seat to a concert marks an investment in an artform that requires constant nurturing and cultivation.
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This responsibility brings me not only enormous joy, but also feelings of intense anxiety. How do we share this extraordinary experience of 100 distinctly talented musicians coming together as one singular and magnificent entity, particularly among younger audiences? And thus, ten years ago, we launched our Under 18s Free ticketing program for our annual Blossom Music Festival,
to make concerts more affordable for families.
budget and getting too many used to attending for free?
At this point I should rightly mention (or admit) that my wife Liz is actually the brains who came up with the basic concept for Under 18s Free, on our very first trip to Blossom. I vividly remember picnicking on the Lawn with our young family of six, when she turned to me and said, “Ross, this ought to be free for the kids! Think about it… for $50 a family should enjoy some real memories together for less than the price of a movie . . . you need to get it done!”
Soon enough, however, strategy came into focus — and funding for the tickets became the scenario. Each free ticket is offset through proceeds from an extraordinary endowment fund, given by Milton and Tamar Maltz to create the Center for Future Audiences. Words cannot adequately express how grateful we all are for the Maltzes’ generosity, support, and trust in making these kinds of ideas and programs come to life. Their $20 million gift, alongside a $5 million gift from Alexander and Sarah Cutler for student initiatives, ensures generations of young concertgoers for The Cleveland Orchestra in the years to come.
It sounded intriguing, as well as a little foolhardy — and yet possibly spot on. Give away thousands of tickets for free??? The more I thought about it, the more sense it made, especially given that The Cleveland Orchestra had one the oldest audiences in the country when I joined in 2010. Could this idea help point toward a true audience renewal for the long term? Might this rightly be an important key in unlocking future audiences? Could the audience actually . . . grow younger? The appeal for families was obvious, but the risk for the Orchestra? That took a bit more time to calculate. How to make it work without bankrupting the marketing
And thus, one young person at a time, we are building a new reality — secured with many evenings of families together on the Blossom Lawn, together with additional programs and off-shoots we have year-round and at Severance Hall. WAITING IN LINE I first knew we were really onto something during a countryside traffic jam on Saturday, August 31, 2013. The weather was exactly right. By early afternoon, the temperature reached its peak of 84° that day and
