Well, I don’t know exactly where we are in the pandemic, but we are somewhere…in DC, we are in Phase 1 and I couldn’t tell you what that means because a lot of businesses have had curbside pickup for the duration and there isn’t the world’s greatest shopping anyway.
As the pandemic has moved along, I’ve been keeping a notebook with some thoughts and idea that I’ve mentioned in my ticket newsletter: Talking Tickets and in some of the webinars and other things I’ve been doing during the shutdown.
Today, I want to share 10 of those thoughts with you and see which ones stick with y’all.
1. We don’t really know when it is going to be realistic for folks to get back into the stands in a meaningful way:
There are a few examples here and there of venues hosting socially distanced and drive-in type shows, but I think those are only going to be one-offs for now.
In reality, the economics don’t add up and it will be really difficult for folks to take on too much risk or financial risk to kickstart shows and attendance with so much uncertainty around the coronavirus and what the next few months are going to look like.
I’ve been looking at how countries that are in the process of opening up are handling things and my lady sent me this podcast from The Daily on Monday that may inform your thinking.
2. Baseball seems to be in serious trouble:
If we are being honest, I don’t know that baseball ever recovered from the 1994 strike that saw the World Series get canceled.
The current fight between the owners and the union seems to highlight the fact that as soon as the two sides make a deal, they begin fighting again and like a volcano every 25-30 years we get a major eruption of discord.
The reality of the situation is that baseball has lost its place as the center of the sports culture in America over the last 25 years. The average baseball fan’s age increases a year or so every year…which means that they aren’t developing enough younger fans.
And, with so many more sports and entertainment options, baseball may have already blown a great opportunity to win a whole lot of free attention.
As I’m typing this, I’m watching Arsenal v. Man City and once the Premier League is rolling…I’ll be watching nothing else.
Knowing a lot of sports fans, I’m not alone.
3. How will the business of entertainment be disrupted?
We’ve seen a lot over the last three months in the business of tickets and entertainment and a lot of it hasn’t been good.
Before the pandemic, the world of tickets and entertainment was ripe to be disrupted and nothing has changed since March.
In general, a business is open to disruption by competition when four things are evident:
- Customers don’t trust the current system.
- New tech isn’t being used.
- Product or service isn’t affordable.
- Inconvenience is high.
If we look at sports, concerts, theatre, and other forms of entertainment…all of those boxes can be checked.
The thing about this is that just knowing this is one thing. Taking action is another.
I’m not sure what the disruption will look like, but I’m pretty sure something will be coming soon.
4. What will recovery for the industry look like?
Around the world, governments have different plans to support their live entertainment industries like the arts, sports, and concerts.
In Germany, the government is offering over a billion dollars in support.
In Australia, support for all kinds of entertainment ventures is being offered and debated.
In the United States, well, um…we bailed out Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse before they were shamed into giving back the small business money.
I joke about the US response, but around the world we are seeing that theatres, sports, and entertainment have been hit harder than almost any other industry.
In the near term with a lot of uncertainty about the virus, treatment for the virus, mitigation of risks to help with any second waves, and other priorities, not a lot of attention has been paid to getting events supported so that we don’t lose our theatres, stadiums, and sports.
How this plays out will be key?
Will we see some sort of support in the US?
What makes sense?
How do we prioritize the arts were already underfunded in many countries?
The list of questions here goes on and on.
And, a whole list of ideas could be pushed off on how to reinvent your business model in the context of the pandemic like venues like the NY Philharmonic have had to go through.
5. What are our non-customers doing?
This is an essential question on my end.
I was chatting with a relatively famous marketer before the pandemic and we were discussing fame and market share.
His idea was that “in the world of marketing, he is famous. But in the rest of the world, he’s a nobody” and that this knowledge helps keep him focused on knowing the market and the world around him.
Recently when ESPN showed the Michael Jordan documentary, The Last Dance, on Twitter and in sports business circles, it was met like the event of the century…somewhere between man landing on the moon and the discovery of electricity in the importance to mankind.
But when you look at the numbers, the average first-run episode drew around 5.6 million folks.
Impressive, but during the final season of the remake of Hawaii Five-O drew 7.2 million with no pandemic and on a Friday night when TV numbers are often lower.
Why do I bring this up? Because we can often overestimate how important our events, games, and concerts are to folks and we don’t pay nearly enough attention to what folks are doing that isn’t visiting a game, show, or event.
Going forward, knowing the customer and understanding them is going to be much more important because the competition for customers is likely going to be even more intense once lockdowns end and events can go on in a more normal manner.
6. Solving the right challenges is going to be more important than ever:
In chatting with folks around the world of tickets, sports, and entertainment, a really common refrain is “once we can open back up everything will be fine” or “demand is going to be off the charts when we can open back up”.
I’d like to challenge both of those ideas because the reality is that the pandemic is an accelerant for economic and societal changes and trends that were already staring us down before the lockdowns.
Think about it like this, in the United States the average American family hadn’t seen a raise in over 40 years and consumer spending power was shrinking with an alarming number of Americans unable to withstand a $400 emergency. And, I was alarmed to find out that this isn’t just folks on the lower end of the economic scale.
In Australia, the A-League was having a ton of challenges before the pandemic and the NRL was thrown into a financial crisis when the season was paused.
In the UK, before the pandemic regional theatres were facing challenges.
I could go on.
The key is that just starting things back up isn’t going to solve all of anyone’s problems. In fact, it is likely to just create and accelerate ones we were already dealing with or trying to avoid dealing with.
That’s why it is important to make certain that we are solving for the right problems.
How’s this work?
Begin by putting your thinking in the context of what were the challenges you were working on to begin with?
Like attendance for college football or just really a lot of sports in general: reopening alone isn’t enough.
How do you get people to pick you over the TV, the club, or something else entirely?