Building New Audiences Through Cyberspace

This month, I want to talk about Web sites. I've discovered that building a Web site that offers a potential visitor something worth bookmarking is a tall order for artists. This isn't because performing artists don't have much to offer in cyberspace—quite the opposite. It's because performing artists haven't quite realized how incredibly propitious this medium can be for engaging new audiences in the creative process. If our united goal is to reach new audiences who will attend our performances and support the arts, we need to begin thinking about how to do this … in cyberspace.

Beginning in 1993, I spent many of my days on a soap-box holding forth on the importance of the Internet to friends and colleagues. I envisioned sugar-plum fairies, chocolate-covered rainbows, and a world more spectacular than Oz once the true potential of the Internet was realized. Well, I was partly right. I was young, naïve, and more than a little wet behind the ears. It didn't take long for me to learn that if I wanted to survive in arts administration, I'd better keep my mouth shut about new technologies.

Build yourself a cyber-audience through the Internet by providing a window into the creative process … and draw new fans to your performances.

I also learned something else: many established artists and thinkers in the performing arts are diametrically opposed to technological advances. It's natural to look with suspicion at anything that threatens the fragile ecosystem of a dimly lit theater. The conventional wisdom among these minds is that technology—and specifically the Internet—is antithetical to the truly enriching experience of the live performance. I couldn't agree more with the truth that nothing compares to the experience of a live performance. But I don't agree with the position that technology is antithetical to the performing arts. Here's why: The Internet offers unprecedented opportunities to engage a world-community in the creative process. If you think about the Internet as a way to reach new audiences by opening a window into the developmental stages of a program, work, choreography, or play, you've given your cyber-audience something more to look forward to and experience at the final performance. You've also inadvertently revealed the incredibly complicated but intriguing world known as the "creative process."

Technology today has evolved to a point that affords the performing artist powerful tools in video streaming, project development updates, interviews, blogs, broadcasting, downloading, newsletters, messaging, and more. The micro-perspective reveals an artist who is choosing a set of Internet tools that engage a cyber-audience in a creative process. The macro perspective is that these more engaging Web sites are powerful arguments for arts advocacy. Imagine that every person who randomly stumbles across your Web site is a potential audience member—just as the person randomly walking by a community center decides to sit down and watch your performance. If what they find there enriches them, they will stick around. If what they find there impresses them, they might tell their friends (or forward the link to your Web site to them). And if what they find there changes their life, they will tune in to your activities as often as you give them something new to check out.

Of those three statements, the last one is our goal: giving your audience a reason to return to your site on a regular schedule. The key to achieving this goal is to think about what you do, and how you can present it so that people will want to tune in frequently to learn more. An easy example is to imagine a project that evolves over several months. Each week, a segment of the project is uploaded with video, interviews, sample sound-bites, descriptions, etc. In this example, a cyber-audience is tuning in to, and becoming a part of, the creative process. Remember that this new cyber-audience will be first in line to purchase tickets when the performance date is announced. They will also be your most ardent fans.

Building a site that engages an audience frequently is not for the technologically faint-of-heart. Although there are many do-it-yourself Web-site packages on the market, most of the templates do not allow the flexibility needed to create and recreate content on a daily basis. Fortunately, there is good news. There are many Web-site designers eagerly awaiting your call, and the competition for your business is quite fierce. But don't expect that the work needed to create these more flexible Web sites is cheap. For this added flexibility, you'll likely need what's called a content management system or "CMS" for short. Using a CMS for a site that employs Flash technology is tricky business—but worth its weight in gold. This new programming software enables even the most technologically illiterate to add information and have it posted/displayed correctly on their Web site without needing to understand HTML code. Ultimately, what you'll need to do is hire a Web designer to build a site that you can operate independently.

For more complete information and samples of Web sites that some of our more adventurous alumni are building, please schedule a Web-site consulting appointment with either me or Jane Cho, the associate director in the Office of Career Development.

Derek Mithaug, director of career development, is a Juilliard faculty member and alumnus.