Sixteenth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

In 2018, classical music represented just 2.1% of digital and 2.7% of physical album sales worldwide. The classical music industry continues to rely on its live sector for economic sustainability. However, the proliferation of other live music genres and entertainment choices means that classical music venues need to take more strategic approaches to growing audiences and remaining relevant in today’s competitive digital climate. Consequently, gaining a better understanding of how classical music venues develop marketing strategies for their live events would have pragmatic implications for practitioners and venues, whilst raising the economic profile of the classical music industry on the world stage. The current study addresses existing gaps in the literature by investigating the event marketing strategies used by classical music venues. Specifically, it draws upon experiential marketing theory to explore how audience engagement can help co-create events that are more educational, entertaining, aesthetic or immersive, and how these types of experiences can be integrated into event marketing strategies. Using a grounded theory approach, the case study methodology consists of semi-structured interviews with senior marketing management and audience members at a renowned classical music concert venue. The findings will advance arts marketing literature by offering new insights into the event marketing strategies of classical music performance venues, whilst developing new theories of experiential marketing and arts marketing strategy. Ultimately, the findings will help classical music venues develop more efficient marketing strategies to facilitate economic sustainability and contribute towards reversing downward GDP caused by the Covid19 pandemic.

Presenters

Jordan Gamble
Assistant Professor of Cultural and Creative Industry Management, USC-SJTU Institute of Cultural and Creative Industry, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China