Growing Younger: Refl ections on “Under 18s Free”

PHOTOGRAPHY ©BY ROGER MASTORIANNI

BY ROSS BINNIE B Y RO R SS B I IN N NI IN E Growing Younger

Refl ections on the Tenth Anniversary of Under 18s Free ticketing and The Cleveland Orchestra’s Center for Future Audiences . . .

WHEN I JOINED The Cleveland Orchestra in 2010, we had one very signifi cant 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 diff erence. And tickets to The Cleveland Orchestra are, without question, the best, most quality-fi lled and satisfying experience I’ve ever been tasked to sell.

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.

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 magnifi cent 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 aff ordable for families.

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 fi rst 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!” 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 budget and getting too many used to attending for free? Soon enough, however, strategy came into focus — and funding for the tickets became the scenario. Each free ticket is off set 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. 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 fi rst knew we were really onto something during a countryside traffi c jam on Saturday, August 31, 2013. The weather was exactly right. By early afternoon, the temperature reached its peak of 84° that day and

there was hardly a cloud in the sky. All was right for a perfect night at Blossom on that Labor Day weekend. The stage was set for a special evening with my family to enjoy The Cleveland Orchestra performing the music of Pixar. On the way, as we rolled to a halt behind a long line of cars about a mile from the Steels Corners exit off State Highway 8, my 13-year-old daughter said, “These cars can’t be going to your concert, can they?! You are just not this popular!” I laughed. Then I began to think to myself that the line was as long as going to something really popular, like The Who! And suddenly I realized that our programs to develop future audiences, begun just two years earlier, might actually be a hit. Popularity is as popularity becomes. Building new audiences begins with welcoming new families. And that particular weekend, it appeared, we’d hit the jackpot.

MAKING A DIFFERENCE

With Under 18s Free, I am hopeful that we have made a real diff erence in the lives of the many families who love Blossom, who want to experience special moments together surrounded by the very best music ever written, played by the greatest musicians on the planet, in the most idyllic outdoor venue I can imagine. Of the million overall tickets we have sold across the past decade to Blossom, 175,000 of them were issued free to those under 18. That’s a big number, representing a lot of young people at a lot of concerts. On that 2013 Labor Day weekend, despite traffi c jams two nights in a row, we entertained almost 30,000 people, of which over 10,000 were under 18 — and, we hope, beginning a lifelong journey of fandom with our orchestra. Sometimes you just have to go for it, believing in things that you feel really matter in life — in my case: family, music, hope, and the young people who will follow us tomorrow.

From those beginnings, where are we now? “Under 18s” was just the beginning. And is but one part of a multifaceted eff ort to ensure that The Cleveland Orchestra and music remain a vibrant part of our community for all ages. I fi rmly believe we are changing lives. We are heartened that, as our “Under 18s” grow older, many continue to interact with the Orchestra through newer ticketing programs for high school and college students. And some have even joined our group for young professionals.

But there is no silver bullet in guaranteeing future generations of audiences. We have work to do and more ideas to roll out.

“Sometimes you just have to go for it, Sometimes you just have to go for it, believing in things that you feel really matter in life believing in things that you feel really matter in life —— in my case: family, music, hope, and the —— in my case: family, music, hope, and the young people who will follow us tomorrow. young people who will follow us tomorrow.”

Orchestra concerts more aff ordable for families and — in a related program — for schools. Twenty percent of our audiences each year are now under the age of 25. Within that fact, I’m particularly proud that more people hear this Orchestra in live performance than ever before — with the largest number of diff erent households tracked as ticketbuyers than at anytime in our storied history. By a wide margin. We are not just growing younger, we are growing overall. Most importantly, we’ve done this without aff ecting the Orchestra’s bottomline, which has also grown thanks to the generosity of some visionary donors willing to sign on and support experimenting with new ideas for the long-term operations of our wonderful institution.

Yes, there is much more we can do — and will do — to make the concert experience at both Blossom and Severance Hall as fulfi lling and welcoming as possible. But above all, my dream is for The Cleveland Orchestra to have the youngest audience in the country by selling more tickets to more people each and every year. Thinking back to the evening in 2013, waiting in line in our car to get to a concert, I see that if ever sitting in a traffi c jam felt good, it was that night for me. And, by experiencing that feeling, we were well on our way to realizing the dream!

Ross Binnie serves as Chief Brand Offi cer for Th e Cleveland Orchestra.