Artists are the most underused asset in tourism
Artists do more than perform. They absorb, interpret, and reflect the places they move through. In doing so, they create…
Not everything that matters in the arts can be easily measured—and not everything that can be measured reflects what really matters. Streaming numbers, reach, and clicks can signal growth, but they don’t always reflect meaningful engagement.
Meanwhile, what matters most—audience loyalty, depth of connection, community presence—is harder to measure and slower to emerge. As a result, we risk building strategies around the wrong signals.
In the performing arts, we tend to evaluate success at the level of a single show.
Did it sell? Did it break even? Did we lose money?
These are reasonable questions. Most presenters are working with limited resources, and the pressure to make each event financially viable is real.
But when every show is expected to justify itself on its own, presenters become more cautious. Artists scale back ambition. Programming becomes more predictable.
And over time, audiences stop growing.
This isn’t a failure of imagination. It’s a predictable outcome of how “success” is measured.
In most industries, success isn’t evaluated one transaction at a time. It’s evaluated across a portfolio. Some investments lose money. Some break even. Some outperform expectations. What matters is how the system performs over time.
In the arts, we often apply a different standard. Each show must succeed. Each risk must be justified immediately. Each outcome is judged in isolation.
The result? Stability in the short term—and stagnation in the long term.
When success is measured at the level of a single event, the system naturally optimizes for:
These choices make sense. They reduce risk. They protect relationships with boards and stakeholders. They make outcomes more predictable.
But they also narrow the range of what’s possible.
New work struggles to find space. Emerging artists have fewer opportunities to connect with audiences. And audiences themselves are rarely invited to expand their tastes or expectations.
Over time, this creates a quiet feedback loop: safe programming → stable audiences → limited growth → continued caution
If the goal is to build audiences—to deepen engagement, expand reach, and create lasting relationships—then evaluating success one show at a time is fundamentally misaligned with that goal.
Audience growth doesn’t happen in a single night.
It happens through:
These are slower, harder to measure, and less immediately visible than ticket sales or streaming numbers.
But they are far more meaningful indicators of long-term sustainability.
This dynamic isn’t limited to live performance.
Across the cultural sector, we are increasingly guided by metrics that are:
Streaming numbers, social media reach, click-through rates—these offer the appearance of growth, but don’t always reflect meaningful engagement.
Meanwhile, the indicators that matter most—audience loyalty, depth of connection, community presence—are harder to quantify and slower to reveal themselves.
So we optimize for what we can measure.
And in doing so, we risk distorting the very outcomes we’re trying to achieve.
This doesn’t mean financial sustainability doesn’t matter. It does. But we also need to think carefully about where and how we evaluate success.
What if:
These aren’t radical ideas. They’re standard practice in many sectors.
But in the arts, they require a shift—from short-term validation to long-term thinking.
If we want to grow audiences, support more ambitious artistic work, and build more resilient cultural ecosystems, we need to align how we measure success with what we actually value.
Because until we change what we measure, we will keep getting the same results.
