Wednesday, March 3, 2010

A Bunch of Cobblers, Eh?

Lord love producer Ken Davenport. He and his staff got into a discussion about what the words "Broadway" and "Off-Broadway" mean to his ticket buyers and, rather than indulge in long-distance mind-reading or repeat chatter from the lobby, they went out and, in extremely unscientific form, you know, asked. The results are here and they are...well...

Broadway fares well. Congrats, Wicked, Chicago, and The Lion King. When people think "Broadway," they think of you. At the top of the list, though: "shows," "plays," "musicals," in that order. Most everything else was either, well, accurate (Broadway does involve "lights" and "theater") or positive.

Off-Broadway, though...got it a bit rougher. Well, a lot rougher.

For the 91% who could actually come up with a word, at the top of the list? "Plays," "cheap," and "not as fun." Ah. Now, again, granted, this is Pew Polling here. But this part stings a little:
And not only were there negative associations in this top group, as opposed to Broadway's survey which had only positive, but these negatives continued on with the rest of the sample. Words like "sad" and "meh" and "wannabes" were amongst the single responses we recorded. In total, over 30% of the people surveyed had a negative first thought about Off-Broadway.
Emphasis, for cruelty's sake, added.

Ken concludes that Off-Broadway has a brand problem. I simply say, maybe we should sell more shoes.

Sigh.

4 comments:

joshcon80 said...

I love to emphasize things for cruelty's sake. Some might say I've made a whole career of it.

Scott Walters said...

This is the Broadway Myth writ large.

RLewis said...

Do you really think that the TKTS booth is the right place to get feedback on Off Broadway? And that female tourists on line are the best people to ask?

99 said...

Do I? Not exactly. And I don't really think Ken thinks it's a perfect survey or anything. But it's an interesting snapshot.