How can the city's cultural organizations attract new members? I vowed to tackle this dilemma at the end of last week's column when discussing an event sponsored by Avant Garde-a Museum of New Mexico Foundation auxiliary group for "younger" members. I concluded that such groups fail to accomplish their goals. In addition to the Museum Foundation, institutions like The Santa Fe Opera and SITE Santa Fe have prominent groups geared toward hair that, if blue, accompanies tattoos and torn jeans. Yet, despite a few innovative events (read free vodka), and some committed core members, not much has been accomplished as far as generating young blood for long-lasting cultural courtship.
So, why have such groups at all? The short answer is that people who go to cultural events and support such organizations are dying. Although so-called "blockbuster" museum exhibitions contributed to record museum attendance in 1998 and 1999, the public's attitude toward the culture canon has been cooling ever since, with various studies pegging the decline in, for example, museum attendance at between 25
and 34 percent. Something's got to be done to yank our bright, young minds out of the worlds of Second Life and MySpace, right? Sure, members old enough to be on the verge of death have tangible benefits ("bequest" rhymes with
Ka-Ching!
, don't ya know?), but empty institutions and opera halls can't be good and high admission tallies and youth recruiting both mean donor support and grant monies. Plus, some of us believe there's actual value to be had in encouraging a culturally engaged populace. It's as natural as monkeys using sign language to think tailoring events to the young and restless-instead of the stodgy and doddering-will result in savvy new members with fresh energy and, with luck, some kind of new, digital economy cash to throw at every institutions' rush to enter the Internet age.
So, why do these groups fail? In all fairness, they've each enjoyed limited success. Avant Garde has been energetically pumping out events all year long and rocks the Push Pin show annually. The Santa Fe Opera Group, Intermezzo, understands that tequila and croquet will turn out a crowd year after year and Studio SITE Santa Fe threw a mean New Year's bash last year. But, with few exceptions, the events are underwhelming or attract exactly who they're not supposed to-the old folks, which often means (gasp!) those in their 40s. All of these groups have an exclusionary policy, limiting age to somewhere between 18 and 45, varying by group. If the policy isn't enforced, the event fills with older folks, if the policy is enforced, attendance can get thin. The net effect is, contrary to creating an elite and exciting membership sub-group, an insult. An insult for people outside the age range to not be able to attend and a slight to those participating, suggesting their involvement is somehow "junior."
How can our cultural organizations recruit new members, then? The answer involves letting go of the pathological need to attract the young hipsters and realize that new audience is new audience. And every cultural organization needs new audience. In fact, a helluva lot of organizations need new audiences and not just in the arts. The Farmer's Market needs new audience. Santa Fe Trails and public transit need new audience. The Santa Fe Alliance and the Locals Care program need new audience. The City of Santa Fe and its tourism and marketing department need new audience. The College of Santa Fe needs new audience. This entire region's efforts to attract exciting, green business and digital post-production studios needs new audience. The Santa Fe Reporter (and its competitors) is always looking for new audience. So, cooperation is in order.
I propose the Santa Fe CityPass. A single card that functions as a membership (with full benefits) to every single cultural organization in town. Movie discounts at CCA and The Screen; member prices on opera tickets; free admission to the Santa Fe-based state museums as well as SITE Santa Fe and the Georgia O'Keeffe; discounts for Chamber Music and the Symphony; for Lensic events. But wait, that's not all-order today and I'll throw in a bus pass and 30 free rides on the RailRunner (when it's *cough* built), as well as a library card. There's more: Let's say the Santa Fe Reporter (or one of its competitors) sponsors the card-advertisers get a discount with the paper in exchange for passing on a discount to CityPass holders. Let's say the card costs $50 bucks and for many people it's absolutely free. At this point, anyone coordinating a membership program is choking on their chai. After all, a thousand members shelling out $35 annually is $35,000. How can this work? Won't everybody lose money?
Here's the catch. The card is temporary. Each person gets to possess an entry-level CityPass one time for one year, maybe two. You can't have entrée to discounts, free admission and free bus rides everywhere forever for $50. But, it would get people to get out and sample a smorgasbord of cultural offerings. Instead of having to join the Opera (or Intermezzo, if you're between 25 and 45), why not sample everything? Then, without a big investment in time and money up front, people can decide whether they want to get involved with contemporary art or folk art or chamber music. What's more is that it can be a recruiting tool for area colleges: Enroll at CSF or the Community College or St. John's or IAIA and get a CityPass for the duration of your enrollment. Locate a business in Santa Fe and the Chamber of Commerce provides a pass for all your employees. Visiting with a film or a for a major construction project? Your crew get passes. Progressive businesses will opt to include them. For the rest of us, or folks who've just moved here, we can have our temporary tasting platter for $50 and then decide where to go.
A position administrating the program and even offering token compensation to local organizations for a brief period of lost membership revenue (before subsequent membership increases) can be one of the first expenditures when we get our communal ass in gear and pass a quality of life initiative. If an inclusionary program like this doesn't ultimately generate more new members for every effectively run cultural organization in the city, not to mention more users of public transit and shoppers at the Farmers Market, I'll personally line up to volunteer for one full year on the membership committee of each and every organization that fails to be pleased by the program.
