Making the most of an arts marketer’s summer
Happy summer! Depending on the kind of organization you’re with, you’re either in the thick of a summer season, or if you’re on a fall-spring calendar, (hopefully) enjoying a little downtime. I’ve got a foot in both worlds – wrapping up the 2026 summer festival with Austin Chamber Music Center and deep in planning mode with Music Worcester. I also recently finished up an engagement with Hartford Stage who closed their final show of the 2025-2026 Season just a few weeks ago.
I don’t want to be the one giving you a to-do list during the summer, but it can be a great time to get ahead. If you are in-between performance seasons or otherwise have slightly fewer time-sensitive deadlines, consider that this is a great opportunity to get to some of those things on your wish list that you don’t typically have time for – whether you’re looking back at the recently completed season or planning ahead for the next. Here are a few ideas to get you started.
Reporting on the Past
Patron geography/ZIP code analysis. Include how it may have changed over time and how it changes from show to show.
New buyer analysis. Look at how your new patrons differ from existing ones: demographically, geographically, what they buy, and whether the previous year’s new buyers came back.
Genre preference. Investigate whether your audience differs based on the genre of performance.
Discounts. Review how various discounts performed over the course of the season and how discounts impacted the average ticket yield.
Timing. Find out when people bought tickets last season and if it was different from the season before.
Dynamic Pricing. Determine the results of your price adjustments.
Planning for the Future
Goal Setting. Set some goals outside of ticket count and revenue: digital advertising ROI, dynamic pricing revenue, number and/or percent of new buyers, return rate for existing buyers, attendance rate, direct mail response rate, social media engagement metrics.
Deadline Organization. Set up all the deadlines you can for the season – designing ad creative, sending press releases, booking photographers, etc.
Marketing Plans. This one may go without saying, but now is the perfect time to be thinking ahead. Brainstorm, budget, plan. The more you do now, the easier the rest of the season will be.
And if you’re looking for more, here is a past blog posts with other ideas: Summer vacation ideas for arts marketers. Or, if you’re really planning ahead, here is my very first blog post, Fall is the new spring: preparing for new beginnings.
If you have time to do nothing else, clean up your desk. Your future self will thank you for it.
Need Help?
Don’t have a slow summer? Or realizing that no summer could be slow enough to get to everything on your list? Give me a call. I’m happy to help with projects like the ones above during the summer or anytime during the year.