How do we spread the word?

When I first started in the performing arts world, marketing was easy. You'd run an ad in the paper, mail a brochure, and call it a day. The phone would ring, tickets would sell, and that was that. Now? It's a wild mix of social media, digital ads, emails, billboards, posters, and, if we're lucky, good old-fashioned word of mouth. The challenge is that everyone learns about shows differently. Some people still love flipping through a season brochure, circling what they want to see, and putting it on the fridge. Others find everything on their phones. Some rely on a friend's enthusiastic "You have to see this!" while others get their information from a Facebook event invite or a sponsored post sandwiched between cat videos and news headlines. Trying to reach all of them at once sometimes feels like conducting an orchestra where everyone's reading a different score. Social media is both a blessing and a beast. It's free, or at least inexpensive, but it takes time, attention, and a thick skin. Facebook works for one age group, Instagram for another, and we can't even keep up with what's happening on TikTok. The platforms are constantly changing, and just when you think you've figured one out, the algorithm decides to stop showing your posts to anyone who didn't "like" the last one. Print materials still have power. There's something reassuring about holding a glossy brochure, seeing the lineup laid out, and imagining yourself in those seats. But printing and mailing are expensive so we have to be strategic. Billboards are great attention-grabbers but people only have about three seconds to read it as they drive by. And digital ads? They're precise, they're measurable, and they're completely at the mercy of whether someone happens to scroll past at the right time of day. And then there's word of mouth, the best and most unpredictable marketing tool we have. At MCPA where most performances are one night only, it's often the artist's own fan base that drives the buzz. We work closely with each artist's team to make sure their fans are talking about our show. Most are wonderfully collaborative, but every now and then we run into an artist who's a little less so. In some cases, we even have to pay extra just to use their image in our marketing. We try everything. We measure what works. We listen and adjust. And we keep learning there's no single magic formula. Marketing a live event today is equal parts strategy, storytelling, and stubborn optimism. Some days, it clicks. Other days, like when someone says, "I wish I'd known about that show," the morning after a concert, it feels like pushing cold molasses uphill in January, as my grandmother used to say. However the word gets out, by email, by post, by billboard, or just a quick conversation in the coffee shop, it all leads to the same place: the lights dim, the curtain rises, and for a couple of hours the world feels a little smaller and a little brighter. And that's why we do it again and again. Heather J. Clow is the Executive Director of Marathon Center for Performing Arts. She can be reached at hclow@mcpa.org.