PERSONAL DOCENTE

As seen by Jackie’s account of decision-making, participants’ frequency of

attendance was related to how much of a priority classical music was in their lives. Most participants had some sense of a maximum amount of time and money that they were willing to spend on attending performances.

Peter I think, probably, with a Thursday subscription, and just one or two extra concerts as well, that’s probably enough. I don’t think it would be fair at home if I started going to many more concerts! Michael They talk about golfing widows, mine’s a classical concert widow!

[…] Divorce papers in the post if I’m not too careful!

Neither Peter nor Michael attend concerts with their spouses and their maximum frequency of attendance is consequently shaped by the amount of time they spend away from home. Both acknowledge that concerts take time away from their families, inferring that concert-going is somewhat self-indulgent. While they both provided a tangible reason for having a limit on their concert-going, other

Georgina We write down about 10 or 12 [concerts to go to in a season] and then say ‘come on’, you know, ‘we can’t go to that many!’

Julian We used to go [to BICS] but we found increasingly, there’s less that’s attractive. But also, I think we are booked up with the CBSO, and there’s a limit…

The reason for this upper limit was not given by Georgina or Julian, nor did they indicate what would be their maximum number of performances. Furthermore, they did not comment on the expense of tickets or a lack of free time, so their maximum limit does not seem to be directly limited by their resources. In addition, unlike Peter and Michael, Georgina and Julian always attend with their spouses so they are not conscious of being away from home too much. Their upper limit of concert- going therefore seems to reflect the priority of CBSO attendance in their lives rather than being imposed by any external limiting factors.

While many participants expressed some sense of the maximum number of concerts they would attend in a season, over the course of these interviews, there emerged a small group of participants who had a firm idea of the minimum number of concerts they wanted to attend. Again, this was determined by how much of a priority

concert-going was in their lives. As I demonstrate below, for some participants this was a numerical figure, often associated with accessing higher levels of concert package discount. For others, however, their minimum frequency was more of a vague sense of how often they would like to be at a concert. One such couple was Mark and Sandra. As described in the pen portraits (Appendix 2.2), Mark and Sandra are a married couple who started regularly going to CBSO concerts when they took semi-retirement. They go to the CBSO’s matinee series, usually with Sandra’s sister.

How often do you go to CBSO concerts?

Mark The cost is structured so if you go to more than 10 concerts [you access a better discount], so we’ve gone over 10 this time […] whereas previously, we’ve just tipped over and just had 10, just to take us into that bracket to make them cheaper. […] Partly one of the reasons why we’ve only done the 10 concerts in the past, because sometimes it’s been a struggle to think ‘well, which 10 will we like?’

Sandra I would quite like more of the, you know, popular-type music. Like the Christmas Classics, or the… you know, shows or… the more lighter ones.

Mark It doesn’t really matter too much what the programme is. I would prefer popular stuff but then the matinees are convenient for us; it’s a day out. […] It’s just I’ve got into a routine now of doing a matinee. I’ll be home by half past five, six o’clock. […] This is enough for me anyway, I come here more than once a month now.

Sandra Comes round very quickly actually, two weeks. Mark It’s sufficient.

Mark and Sandra’s concert frequency is shaped by two forces: discounted tickets and their routine. As I discussed in Chapter 3.2, the CBSO’s concert packages offer increasing levels of discount depending on how many concerts are booked. Indeed, in some instances, the additional discount could mean that the extra concert is virtually free. I believe Mark and Sandra meant that they look for 11 concerts to attend; booking 11 performances not only increases their discount from 10% to 15%, but also entitles them to free tickets to an additional concert if they book promptly. These discount brackets have encouraged Mark and Sandra to attend more concerts, even when they are not convinced about the programme of music. In other words, the package discount increases the lower limit of their concert frequency. Mark and Sandra were not alone in eventually selecting concerts to attend that they would not immediately have chosen in order to access a better level of discount on their

concert tickets (for example, Cathy in Chapter 11.1). The chance to get more concerts for their money can override misgivings about the programme.

In addition, Mark and Sandra’s routine determines their frequency of attendance. For them, concert-going is inextricably linked to having a day out in Birmingham with Sandra’s sister. Therefore, despite both wanting to see more popular

programmes, they sacrifice their preferred ‘lighter’ classical music for the sake of their routine, making the decision to only attend performances in the matinee series. This, in turn, limits them to around 12 concerts in a season. The social

routine of their attendance sets its own upper limit on concert-going, as there is only so often that Mark and Sandra want to venture into Birmingham city centre. A little more than once a month is ‘enough’. Their concert-going is therefore influenced by their home being in a regional town which lacks regular, high-quality music

performances but is within travelling distance of Birmingham. Attending a concert has become inextricably linked to the effort and reward of visiting the local big city. For Anthony, too, frequency of attendance was not conceived of as a numerical figure, but a sense of regularity and routine.

Anthony We get the email to say that the tickets are going on sale, trundle down on the list, have a look at holidays and blot out the ones you can’t do, and then we try and find, about every five or six weeks, we tend to come in.

Anthony’s concert-going routine is as much social as aesthetic; he goes to a range of arts events with his wife, sister and brother-in-law on a weekend evening. The desire for regularity implies that they would miss a concert they were interested in if it was

too close to another performance; correspondingly, they might be tempted to go to a concert they were not particularly confident about to maintain their routine.

Perhaps, therefore, for Mark, Sandra and Anthony, the value of concert-going is far more about socialising and enjoying a night out at Symphony Hall than it is about hearing specific pieces of music. I explore the idea of making a ‘night of it’ in Chapter 11.1. For these attenders, ‘extrinsic’ forms of value seem to have overtaken aesthetic considerations in the decision to attend. Concerts could be seen as having become a lifestyle choice and leisure activity, rather than a form of learning and discovery. As I discussed in the literature review (Chapter 2), aesthetic engagement has been privileged as the most important and significant means of engaging with an arts event; it may be difficult for arts organisations to reconcile their efforts to be aesthetically world-class with the notion that some audience members are

unconcerned about the music. Mark and Sandra are particularly interesting in terms of their concert routine because, as high-frequency core attenders, they may have been assumed to be driven by aesthetic value.

Due to their matinee routine, Mark and Sandra choose their concerts by a process of exclusion. Some participants who, like Mark and Sandra, had already decided that they would attend many concerts in a season selected performances by ruling out those they disliked or were unable to attend. The most obvious example of this is fixed series package bookers (see Chapter 3.2 for explanation of the CBSO’s concert packages). The fixed package booking process forces audiences to commit to buying tickets for every concert in a series, with the chance to opt-out at a later date by exchanging their tickets. The structure of the season provides fixed series bookers with around one concert per month.

Helen Booking a whole series, to say: ‘I’m going to go to everything, I’m not going to pick and choose and think “oh, no, I don’t fancy that” because I don’t know it and I have never heard of that composer’ because you don’t know until you try it. […] I very rarely swap them, because my view is to try everything.

The exact programme of a concert becomes virtually irrelevant in the decision to attend. Instead, fixed package bookers know that they will have tickets to a concert roughly once a month on a pre-determined night of the week. These concert packages by nature attract very open-minded attenders who are willing to listen to whatever music is being played. However, what is surprising is that other

Robert I’m finding that, as I get older, I can’t hear top sopranos […] anything, sort of, sung, really, I tend not to come to. But most other things, I tend to come to. [It’s] excluding rather than… […] it’s exclusion rather than choice, I think.

Gordon I think, in a season, they normally have about eight [populist concerts] and I figure I have gone to about seven out of eight in the last two or three years. […] Usually seven are quite popular and appeal to me, but there’s usually one that it’s a bit too esoteric and I just don’t fancy it.

Elaine We go [to populist concerts] as often as we can […] but we go away a lot, and an awful lot of when we’re here, or an odd night, we can’t do. It’s mostly governed by that, really.

The process of choosing by exclusion seems to once again show participants prioritising frequency of attendance over the specifics of a particular concert. It could be said that the decision to attend any one concert becomes less important with the more concerts that are booked. In Chapter 2.3, I showed that this sort of open-mindedness was often associated with high-frequency, knowledgeable, and, implicitly, core attenders. However, Gordon and Elaine challenged this by being populist attenders who choose by exclusion, filtering their options down to populist programmes where they were comfortable with the effort, risk and reward then taking risks on concerts within this safety zone. It is not possible to say whether this form of decision-making would also be found amongst London audiences. On the one hand, the enormous cultural offering in the capital suggests that there would be too many concerts available to be able to choose by exclusion. On the other hand, London audiences may go through the same process of filtering down to specific venues or orchestras. More research is needed to test the generalisability of these findings beyond a regional context.

This discussion has demonstrated that the decision to attend any particular concert cannot be understood in isolation. Most participants had a sense of a maximum number of concerts they want to attend; if there were too many appealing concerts in a season, they ruled out performances that they believed they would have enjoyed. On the other hand, participants with a lower limit on their concert

frequency selected performances that they were less confident in enjoying in order to reach their quota. Frequency of attendance is inextricably linked to routine and is determined by the priority of classical music in the lives of each attender.

Conclusion

The decision to attend is best understood as a weighing up of the effort and reward of a concert. Concert-going requires a great deal of effort on the part of the listener and enjoyment is never guaranteed. Here, ‘risk’ is therefore defined as the

uncertainty of whether the effort will be matched by the reward. This framework not only accounts for apathy as a reason for non-attendance, but is also useful for understanding how individuals value concert-going. The amount of effort

participants were prepared to make to attend a performance was indicative of how confident they were of enjoying the evening. The priority of classical music in audience member’s lives can be understood further by considering their frequency of attendance. When participants were asked how often they attended, their responses touched on ideas of routine, socialising, and shed light on the balance of extrinsic and aesthetic factors in their enjoyment. In addition, it shows that a myriad of other factors can override aesthetic considerations when choosing a concert.

This chapter detracts from the primacy of aestheticism in understanding the decision to attend for both populist and core audiences. Understanding concert- going in terms of effort, risk and reward has also highlighted the large number of factors that must be considered in deciding whether to attend. This framework is therefore employed over the next four chapters to explore how participants chose both core and populist concerts. The first two of these consider the musical programme, first looking at the interaction of familiarity and risk in participants’ assessment of a concert programme. The second focusses this discussion more firmly on populism, especially on the accounts of the five CANAs from Chapter 5.1. Following this, Chapter 9 explores how the orchestra and soloists are considered in the decision to attend, including ideas of philanthropy, community and reputation. Finally, discussion of the impact of socialising on concert choice forms Chapter 10.