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It’s common for performers and directors to eventually leave the stage and pursue entrepreneurship in theater. But others study the business side of theater in school. Regardless of how our journeys begin, the ultimate goal is to positively impact our communities through the beautiful medium of the arts! But in order to have that impact, we must first have an audience with which to share these moving stories.
Meet Aubrey Bergauer! Aubrey's expertise lies in growing audiences for arts organizations. She spent years studying the data, the organizations, and potential audience members before writing her book, Run It Like a Business. In this conversation, she shares more about the math of diversity, the untapped potential of the subscription economy for theater and the arts, and the best approach to change management. I just know you’ll enjoy the show!
In this episode, we cover:
The various ways people become entrepreneurs in the theater industry
What it was like for Aubrey transitioning from side hustle to business owner
The connection between running a business and inclusion
The importance of doing the math of diversity for your audience, community, and organization
Why we must consider the business case for diversity & inclusion in theaters and arts organizations
How arts organizations differ from the subscription economy and what opportunities exist
How we can grow audiences by addressing their concerns
The best approach to change management in arts organizations
Audience growth and making a larger impact in the community starts at home. By transforming the culture within arts organizations and theater companies, we're able to rally everyone around the same vision! We’d love to hear your ahas and takeaways—DM us on Instagram!
More About Aubrey Bergauer
Hailed as “the Steve Jobs of classical music” (Observer), Aubrey is known for her customer-centric, data-obsessed pursuit of changing the narrative for the arts. A “dynamic administrator” with an “unquenchable drive for canny innovation” (San Francisco Chronicle), she’s held offstage roles at major institutions and as chief executive of the California Symphony. Bergauer’s ability to cast and communicate vision inspires and unifies, earning her “a reputation for coming up with great ideas and then realizing them” (San Francisco Classical Voice). Her work and leadership have been covered in national publications, and she is a frequent speaker inside and outside the arts.
Links & Mentioned Resources
The Math of Diversity (Podcast Episode)
Atomic Habits (Book)
Run It Like a Business (Book)
Connect with Aubrey:
Connect with Kira:
Thanks for joining me on this episode of Inclusive Stages! If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review on Apple or Spotify to help me reach even more theater makers, theater artists, and theater lovers who want to make our industry a better place for everyone.
Thanks to our music composer, Zachary McConnell, and our producer, Leah Bryant.
More about the Inclusive Stages Podcast
Welcome to 'Inclusive Stages' -- the go-to weekly podcast for theater makers, theater artists, and theater lovers who want to make our industry a better place for everyone. We'll chat with actors, directors, designers, scholars, and more about the current landscape of the theater scene and get their thoughts on how we can do better.
Host Kira Troilo will also give you a sneak peek into live EDI coaching sessions and offer actionable tips for creating more equitable, inclusive, and empathetic theater spaces that support and value the diversity of artists and audiences. Join the conversation, and let's collectively shape the future of human-first theater, one stage at a time.
This post may contain affiliate links, so I may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through links on my site at no additional cost to you.
The unedited podcast transcript for this episode of the Inclusive Stages podcast follows:
Kira Troilo (00:02.192)
How are you doing?
Aubrey Bergauer (00:03.564)
Hi, Kira. I'm good. I'm really glad to be here.
Kira Troilo (00:08.41)
Thank you, I'm so glad that you're here. I was just saying off recording that you're the first person I'm talking to after giving birth. So thank you for being that person for me.
Aubrey Bergauer (00:18.08)
You're welcome. I'm glad to be that person for you. Exactly.
Kira Troilo (00:21.72)
I thought, fellow podcaster, fantastic. Yes. So much I wanna talk to you about and you have an incredible book, podcast, just body of work that I think is gonna be so important for theater audiences. I know your background isn't specifically theater, but I'd still love to know what's your theater origin story to start.
Aubrey Bergauer (00:43.896)
Okay, this is a question I've literally never been asked. What is my theater origin story? But I have one, I actually have one. So it's not impressive, but in high school I did some theater productions. And actually, this goes back to elementary school. I was like always the one who was like, I wanna be in the play, I wanna be in the school musical, I wanna do all that. And then in high school actually like auditioned and was cast in just a couple plays. then as you said though, my like...
Kira Troilo (00:51.12)
Amazing.
Aubrey Bergauer (01:12.236)
I was going to say my true background, the predominant background, because theater is a part of me as we are uncovering, it's classical music, as you said. And so I was also an orchestra kid and played in my local youth symphony. And that really set me on the path that I've been on ever since.
Kira Troilo (01:17.668)
Very much,
Kira Troilo (01:32.418)
yeah, and I mean, I feel like all kids, and maybe this is a generalization, but it's like you gravitate to the arts in some way and then you like find what your thing is as you go. amazing. So yeah, so how did that from high school take you to where you are now? I mean, it's a loaded question, but what's your journey in the classical music world?
Aubrey Bergauer (01:41.667)
yeah, totally.
Aubrey Bergauer (01:54.43)
So many people, you can tell me if this is true in theater as well, but so many people who end up in these offstage roles don't learn about these roles until later in life. we've, okay, yeah, you're agreeing, I see, yeah. Okay, so totally the same in classical music too. And it's normally, not always, but normally this thing that later we discover, it takes all these people offstage to help make what we do on stage possible. And...
Kira Troilo (02:03.834)
So true. Yep.
Aubrey Bergauer (02:17.296)
I am the exception to that in many ways. When I was in high school, I mentioned I played in my youth orchestra. grew up in Houston. So Houston Youth Symphony, they went through an executive director change when I was a sophomore. And I remember them before rehearsal one day introducing this new person to us kids. And they said like a sentence about what this new person is and their job is. And that was the light bulb moment for me when I realized, my gosh, there is a job.
managing this whole operation and that's the job that I want. And so from there I went to college and the best thing I could think of at age, you know, 17, 18 as I was applying for college is pursue a music performance degree and a business degree. And that's what I did knowing that I wanted to work someday as an executive director of an orchestra. And so that really became what I pursued. My first couple of jobs just to very quickly go through the bio here were
Kira Troilo (02:59.504)
Mm.
Kira Troilo (03:13.477)
Mm-hmm.
Aubrey Bergauer (03:13.88)
in fundraising first at Seattle Symphony, then I moved over to the Seattle Opera and worked in the marketing department there for several years at the Bumbersheet Music and Arts Festival, in, hired in as the director of marketing, promoted to number two there, eventually overseeing all revenue. And then in 2014, moved to California, took my first executive director job managing the California Symphony. And in all of those places,
no matter it was the big institution or later at the orchestra, I realized there are just so many things in this business that were in the category of why do we do it this way? I think there's a better way. Like there's so much for you and I to talk about, know, just baked in those statements right there. And yeah, so to wrap up kind of the journey, over my time leading the California Symphony, we doubled the audience and nearly quadrupled the donor base based on the things that we did.
Kira Troilo (03:58.596)
Yes, we'll unpack.
Aubrey Bergauer (04:12.332)
differently than kind of the way it's always been done. And then that turned into a side hustle of consulting speaking. I'd started blogging about it along the way. And that just really, I thought people need to know about this and what's working. so then in 2019, I thought, Aubrey, you have to decide, are you going to pursue like which one basically? And so I decided to make the leap and make the side hustle the main hustle. So now here we are a good five years later and I've been able to help.
hundreds of individuals and organizations start applying these same strategies that I've seen now proven many times over.
Kira Troilo (04:47.684)
Yeah, that's amazing. Wow, congratulations. Yeah, and that is very much, yeah, I think I get jealous when I hear that you got a business degree, because I think, you know, me and a lot of people who end up, you know, we go from like we're a performer or we're a director or we're in the arts in some way, and then we realize there's another path and it's business. That's the side I feel like these artists don't get until much later.
Aubrey Bergauer (04:50.658)
Thank you.
Aubrey Bergauer (05:14.68)
Yeah, I think there's truth in that, but I also think these things can be learned. It's not an MBA. A lot of people think I have an MBA. That's not true. Like I said, at 17, 18, the best I could think of was a dual undergrad degree. And so I just say that to say that these things can totally be learned. It's the theme of my book. Run it like a business. I think, I don't know, I just want to put that caveat out there because I think sometimes we tend to think, if I just had this other credential. And it's like, I don't think a credential is going to.
Kira Troilo (05:25.775)
Mm-hmm.
Aubrey Bergauer (05:42.38)
I mean, sometimes it can help, but I just wanted to, for anybody who fears or has some regret, it's like, don't think that, for what that's worth. Yeah.
Kira Troilo (05:50.362)
absolutely, no, thank you for saying that. Because yeah, it's totally learnable. And that's what I've done. I never knew I was gonna be an entrepreneur. And then it's like, there's so many, you can learn from so many books, from podcasts, from doing, yeah. Yes, I mean, you mentioned your book, Run It Like a Business. Can maybe you talk first about how you got from this is gonna be a side hustle thing to I'm gonna do this with my career. Like what were those first?
Aubrey Bergauer (05:57.354)
Absolutely.
Aubrey Bergauer (06:01.768)
Absolutely, yeah.
Kira Troilo (06:19.278)
consulting moments like for you.
Aubrey Bergauer (06:22.358)
It started really organically. I did not see this as the path. I thought I was going to run another orchestra and move on and kind of do the kind of the more traditional arts leadership path. And what was happening was I was being recruited for other, you know, once we started seeing success, I was being recruited for other CEO roles. And I found repeatedly that the boards who are, you know, the ones making these hiring decisions wanted the results I bring.
but not the change it takes to get there. And it doesn't work that way, folks. And so I know, yeah. And I don't think there was any ill will or animosity. It was just like, does not compute. And I thought, there are just some bigger issues kind of field wide.
Kira Troilo (06:54.704)
Mmm.
Kira Troilo (07:00.27)
I like want you to repeat that. Wow.
Kira Troilo (07:12.527)
Mm-hmm.
Aubrey Bergauer (07:21.954)
than I had previously thought. And that just was really gnawing on me. One, because I thought it was gonna affect my personal happiness in a job if the board doesn't wanna change, which is a very blanket way to say it. There's more nuance sometimes than that. if boards don't wanna change, then I'm like, then I can't help you. And I'm so proud of the success we had growing audiences. And my previous jobs, whatever the scope, seniority allowed for.
Kira Troilo (07:33.006)
Yeah.
Aubrey Bergauer (07:50.136)
saw that same kind of success too. And I say that to say like, it's not a one trick pony, but yet it does take doing things differently. And so that for me, the sort of like, I don't know, call it tension, call it discomfort. I thought for better or for worse, like we need to change the industry. And my whole blog that I had been writing at that point for five years now it's been 10 years, but it's called changing the narrative. And so I am a big believer in
Kira Troilo (08:17.178)
Thank
Aubrey Bergauer (08:20.028)
change, doing things differently, improving, iterating. And I just thought, I don't know, something deep inside was like Aubrey, I think you have something to offer to serve more than one organization. And that's when I decided to make the leap. And, you know, six months later, pandemic and blah, But yeah, but now here we are. And coming out of the pandemic, what's like
Kira Troilo (08:43.35)
minor minor world changes. Yeah.
Aubrey Bergauer (08:48.812)
weird and interesting at the same time is arts organizations and theater companies know this acutely, need their audiences back, need to replenish our audiences. These are trends that were, the declining audiences were in trends were in place long before lockdown that just accelerated and exacerbated the trends. But now coming out of that, what I'm known for growing audiences, creating more places of belonging where a broader swath of our community feels welcome like.
expanding the donor base, all those things like that is what we so need right now, field wide. And so, and like I said, in a weird, interesting way, the pain and challenge of the industry has been good for me and my business. anyways, and then the book came really along the way of all that, like coming out of lockdown and just was able to have the opportunity to help like.
codify a lot of the ideas I had written about before on my blog and was speaking about and things like that. And yeah, now it's a real book and out there in the world.
Kira Troilo (09:56.184)
It's out there, yes, and yeah, we're gonna share it. So for people listening, don't worry, because theaters need this, absolutely. Yeah, I wanna ask you so many questions about what we need to do, because I know there are arts administrators and theater people listening who are like, yes, I need to know the things we need to be doing differently. But first, I would love to hear you talk a bit about just the connection between running it like a business and inclusion.
Aubrey Bergauer (10:13.815)
Yeah.
Kira Troilo (10:25.824)
I came to your podcast listening to episodes like, you know, about company culture being toxic or company culture being healthy, or even you had an episode about the math of diversity, which I loved. So yeah, I know, but for everyone listening, what can you say about the connection between what you do and what I do?
Aubrey Bergauer (10:46.336)
Yeah, thank you for that. Like, how is there not a connection is what's going through my mind right now, but to break it down a bit.
we cannot grow our audiences without becoming more inclusive. Like we just can't. So you reference the math of diversity. So let me go there for a moment to help kind of like articulate this. So we absolutely have a moral imperative as arts organizations to do this work. Our origin story is that for most of us, we are white Western European art forms. And I always say no shame in the game. If that's our origin story, that's our origin story. It's just a fact. Yeah.
Kira Troilo (11:07.759)
Yeah.
Aubrey Bergauer (11:27.048)
And I know there's gonna be somebody out there listening who's like, my theater company is not that, that's okay. If that's not your origin story, that is absolutely okay. I'm just saying for a lot of us that does tend to be fact. And so what's happened though, when we talk about the math of diversity, America as a nation has really changed our demographic breakdown over the last several years. So to put some numbers behind it, let me try to see if I can do this off the top of my head.
Kira Troilo (11:36.28)
Yeah, exactly.
Aubrey Bergauer (11:56.236)
For example, the NEA, National Endowment for the Arts, they produce in all of their survey of arts participation reports, you know, the breakdown of our audiences. And classical music is around 80 % of our audiences are white. And theaters are not that far off. I forget if it's like 76 % or 78%. They're all pretty close. Pick your art form, they're all pretty close. So we know, I'm stating the obvious, but we know.
Kira Troilo (12:17.84)
close. Yep.
Aubrey Bergauer (12:23.544)
that we are over indexing on white audiences compared to the general population. And the general population of the United States, I forget, is around 60 % or so. I can verify these numbers, but something like that. But here's the kicker. As our world is so rapidly changing, and particularly the United States demographics are so rapidly changing, the projection is that by 2045, so that's 20 years from now,
America is going to be a minority white country. And I'm not trying to diminish other racial or ethnic groups. I'm just trying to kind of match how the NEA had articulated the data and be concise. So I hope that that's OK. OK, so the point is that if we continue to primarily serve and invite, even if we're saying we're trying all these other things, but like primarily serve and invite,
white audiences, we are just missing out on such a broad, broad spectrum of our communities and that it's changing so quickly before our eyes. So just the dollars and cents and the numbers of it all, I do this exercise in that podcast episode, and this is in my book as well. And I even have a download on my website for anybody who actually wants to do this for their community. If you go to AubreyBurgHour.com slash run it like a business, you can get this download to help you do the math. But in short,
If you look at whatever city you're in, whatever market you're in, take your top two demographics. So in a lot of parts of America, white audiences probably are your number one demographic, not everywhere, but a lot of places. And then I say, what's number two? And that varies wildly across the country. Is it Latinx people, Hispanics and Latinos? Is it black audiences or black community members? Is it Asian community members?
Kira Troilo (14:03.566)
Yes.
Aubrey Bergauer (14:17.45)
It varies a lot depending on where you live. But just take that number two demographic and this worksheet and calculator I have helps you figure out like what if you were converting at the same percentages? So whatever percentage you're converting your traditional white audiences to ticket buyers, what if that held true for your second largest demographic? I'm not saying be everything to everybody. I'm just saying like, what if that conversion rate was the same? And.
anytime I've done this exercise, it is like, whoa, whoa, holy cow, is there money on the table? And so then the question is, what if a fraction of those gains were true for your organization? Still, usually the answer is, whoa, holy cow, that's a lot of money on the table. So I just get really excited about the business case. I feel like that's becoming a bit of a loaded word when we talk about the business case for this work, but I don't know, I was a chief executive and our jobs are to...
Kira Troilo (14:57.594)
Yeah.
Aubrey Bergauer (15:09.876)
make the money to fund the art we produce. And so when I'm trying to figure out how to do that, I see the opportunity there. So yes, moral imperative to do this work, but I really, really do get excited about the business case as well.
Kira Troilo (15:11.972)
Yes!
Kira Troilo (15:22.084)
Yeah, absolutely. I was gonna say you started by saying moral imperative, same, I go in and I say like, if we don't have an industry, if we don't have theaters running, then how are we gonna do the inclusion work and the belonging work? How are we gonna bring new people in if there's nowhere to bring them into? Right, often there's just a lack of funding to even do this like equity, diversity, inclusion work because theaters are struggling. So we have to talk about the business case. It's just...
Aubrey Bergauer (15:34.528)
Yes, yes.
Aubrey Bergauer (15:38.892)
Exactly.
Kira Troilo (15:50.928)
I mean, it is, it's leaving. It is, uh-huh, 100%. Yeah. Yeah. And then, thank you for walking through that. We'll leave in the show notes because, the link to the download you have, because yes, I think everyone should do that. and then in terms of company culture, you know, it's like, I, I, I know you deal a lot with audiences and growth of them, but what about inside these organizations? And again, I know like classical music is its own.
Aubrey Bergauer (15:52.342)
I think it's part of the job. That's my opinion. Yeah.
Aubrey Bergauer (16:04.184)
super.
Kira Troilo (16:20.954)
thing, but it's so similar, I think, to theater and a culture of a company on the inside. So yeah, can you talk a bit about that?
Aubrey Bergauer (16:30.218)
I think we have more in common than we don't, that's for sure, in terms of just like the artistic genre, artistic discipline. So in some ways, it sounds maybe on the surface like these are two ends of the spectrum, like audience facing, public facing work, even if that's inclusion work, growing audiences, and then internal work, company culture. And yet one absolutely begets the other.
Kira Troilo (16:32.602)
I do.
Aubrey Bergauer (16:55.56)
And so this is, it's funny, like thinking through the way my book is organized, the beginning of the book is a lot of this, like how do we grow our audiences? How do we expand the donor base? And I have a lot to say on all of that. But then as the book continues, it's like, okay, well, let's talk about this. And the second half of the book really gets more into the company culture side, internal pieces of what we have to do. I...
liken it to, you if you've ever heard of like, have to show up for yourself before you can show up for others. And it's kind of that way in our organizations, if we have really toxic cultures, or even if you're like, well, my culture is not so toxic, but we are siloed, or we are, you know, pick another thing that tends to sort of plague us in our industry. That really hurts our ability to better serve our audiences. And especially when we say things like, that's marketing's job.
Kira Troilo (17:28.26)
Mm.
Kira Troilo (17:38.832)
Thank you.
Aubrey Bergauer (17:50.172)
Or when we talk about community work, how often is that the education department's job or things like that. And so it's like, I don't think like being relevant in our community is just the work of the education department. I don't think expanding audiences is just the work of the marketing department. I think it takes all of us, literally all of us on stage, off stage to effectively and successfully.
Kira Troilo (17:56.824)
Mm-hmm.
Aubrey Bergauer (18:16.204)
do these things. And sometimes in arts and culture, people are like, what are you saying? Like, I don't even understand. How could somebody not in the marketing department do this or that? And it's like, no, no, we all have a part to play. Theater analogy, we all have a part to play. So I start there by saying it's not a spectrum. It's really kind of maybe two sides of the same coin, sort of a thing. so company culture for me has become something I just care about.
Kira Troilo (18:17.252)
Mm-hmm.
Kira Troilo (18:26.858)
Mm-hmm. Yes, we do.
Aubrey Bergauer (18:47.114)
so much. I'm known for growing audiences and yet here I am saying company culture. I'm like, yeah. Because then when we talk about like so often the conversation is how do we diversify both our casting, our artists, our audiences, our staff. And then it's like, well, if we don't have great company culture or at least moving in the right direction in terms of company culture, any effort on that front is not creating environment where people want to stay.
whoever they are. so, you know, constant turnover in any of those categories, not helping us achieve these bigger goals that we have. So anyways, I could just go on and on, but it's just, I now think it's not a bonus. It's like a fundamental, critically important thing.
Kira Troilo (19:25.85)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Kira Troilo (19:32.548)
Yeah, 100%. I could go on all day too. But yeah, and I think, you know, if folks are interested, like you go through kind of like what it is in a healthy company culture, like what are the cornerstones or the keys that you see there? Yeah, yes.
Aubrey Bergauer (19:49.644)
Yeah, and this is all research based, the podcast episodes you're referring to. Yeah, so for anybody who wants like, okay, give me the details, Aubrey, like it's there, I promise it's there and it's all research back.
Kira Troilo (19:58.446)
Love that, yay. Okay, so getting to now the big thing you said in the beginning about there are, people want the results but they don't want the change. Can you talk a bit about some of those changes? And I know you go more in depth in your book, but subscriptions for example is one thing. I know people are rethinking and it's working in other industries and for some reason in the arts we're struggling with it.
But yeah, don't know if you maybe you have your like top three things that we are as a industry are not taking advantage of, I guess.
Aubrey Bergauer (20:27.522)
Yeah.
Aubrey Bergauer (20:34.742)
Yeah, you've totally done your homework. So this is all in chapter two of the book. It's all about the membership economy, subscription economy, which is prolific. And so for anybody in the arts who's been like, subscriptions are dead. I don't know if anybody's heard that or subscriptions are irreversibly on the decline or these things. I was seeing what the data shows outside the arts. you know, Netflix is not saying the subscription model is dead. And
Kira Troilo (20:36.793)
Is he?
Aubrey Bergauer (21:01.504)
In fact, there's a stat I cite in the book and it's something like 20 % of all credit card transactions globally are dedicated to subscriptions and memberships. Like true for humans on planet earth, 20 % of our credit card transactions are going to the subscription and membership economy. So I heard a stat like that and then simultaneously hear, the subscription model's dying and I'm like.
This doesn't make sense. Talk about, yeah, exactly. And so I went on like a research deep dive trying to figure out what are we doing differently? Because clearly something is happening and working for these other brands that is not working for us. And so I really went deep trying to assess what's the difference. So the three things to answer your question, I'll say three kind of big areas. The first is automatic.
Kira Troilo (21:28.72)
Something doesn't
Aubrey Bergauer (21:56.64)
renewals. And so what do we do in the art? This is one more people already, like immediately a wall goes up, like, what are you talking about? We can't automatically renew people. OK, calm down. We're going to talk it through. So. You know, Netflix is not ask me every month, do you want to renew your subscription? No way, right? And so I have to opt out if I want to cancel that. And that's true for so many of these thriving subscription brands. I'm not saying we have to move to a monthly model for giving. We should talk about it. So put a pin in that. But at least for
Kira Troilo (21:57.392)
Mm-hmm.
Kira Troilo (22:14.832)
Mm-hmm.
Kira Troilo (22:25.104)
Hmm.
season tickets. I have worked with organizations now who have made the move to that of like, what if we just move toward, we will charge your card next year when it's time. And there's a whole bunch of ways you can do that and ways you can roll that out. And how do we legacy in the long timers that everybody's so worried about it? It's okay, people like there are ways to do it. And but that's one thing, if we just make that one change, because we actually what we do is not really subscription, because we opt out everybody for them. Same thing on donations, would you like to give again?
would you like to opt in again? And so we wipe the slate clean for ourselves every year on every revenue stream we have. And so that is a huge, huge difference between how we do it in the arts and what's happening literally everywhere else in the subscription economy. So, okay, that's thing number one. Thing number two is, let's see here, where to go with this.
Kira Troilo (23:13.316)
Huge.
Aubrey Bergauer (23:22.284)
Behavioral segmentation. behavioral segmentation, this is more, like we talked more often about demographic segmentation or psychographic segmentation, usually in the arts. We already talked about demographics just a moment ago. Psychographic, that's when we're like, okay, what's gonna bring in the millennials? What are we gonna do for Gen Z? What are we gonna do for...
Kira Troilo (23:25.04)
Hmm.
Kira Troilo (23:45.839)
Amen.
Aubrey Bergauer (23:47.672)
What's the programming the boomers know and love like all of that psychographic or I don't know if anybody's done these studies. We definitely have in orchestra land where it's like, you know, you break your audience down into like these are the busy bees. They're super busy, but they like arts and culture and they fit it in their schedule or these are the the culture vores where they consume all kinds of arts and culture across artistic disciplines. Like, I don't know if anybody is like listening here like, yeah, I've seen these kind of like psychographic studies done of our
Kira Troilo (24:08.602)
Yeah.
Aubrey Bergauer (24:16.428)
consumers, that's again, that's all psychographic. However, the thriving brands doing the subscription economy well, focus primarily on behavioral segmentation and behavioral segmentation is about helping people build a habit. to give an example, when somebody comes to our theaters once, what happens typically? They get a solicitation for a donation from the phone room or the next solicitation in the mail.
Kira Troilo (24:17.456)
So. Mm-hmm.
Aubrey Bergauer (24:46.13)
or they immediately, we send them the subscription upsell trying to get them to do that. They get invited to the gala, right? We just like bombard them with all kinds of other invitations and asks. And we've learned through user experience research, but also looking at the broader membership and subscription economy that that's not the most effective. Yes, we will get some people responding to those solicitations, but every marketer and fundraiser listening to this knows like, it's not, the response rate's not that high and the dollars attached to it definitely aren't that high.
Kira Troilo (24:54.244)
So many things.
Aubrey Bergauer (25:15.85)
So the better way, more lucrative way, and more long-term way, meaning like revenue continued over time, is to focus on this behavioral segmentation. And so it's like when somebody comes one time, first time buyer, the best thing we can do is invite them back again, and only invite them back again. And so I talk in the book, there's a whole bunch of ways to do this. I have a whole method. It's called the long haul model of how do we move somebody from their first experience with us
Kira Troilo (25:34.021)
Mm-hmm.
Aubrey Bergauer (25:45.044)
as a newcomer to a repeat buyer to eventually a subscriber. And there's a time the data tells us is right to then make that ask. And then when is the time right according to the data again to invite them to subscribe. And so all of that just having the systematic patron journey. The good news is that this model applies no matter what age cohort you fall into, what racial ethnic cohort you fall into. And so it's not saying we don't care about those other.
Kira Troilo (26:07.277)
you
Aubrey Bergauer (26:12.704)
ways to slice and dice our audience. It's to say that, this actually, people ask me, what's the one size fits all model. There's not really one, but if there has, like, this is the closest thing to it because it actually serves everybody. So anyways, I can get, I get so like going on this stuff, but, but those are at least two big ways that, that we differ from the membership and subscription economy on the whole.
Kira Troilo (26:22.798)
I love that. Yeah.
Kira Troilo (26:36.174)
Yeah, no, that's, it's so, it's so important and right. You say like, marketers are gonna be listening to this and know this. just, there's so many theater leaders who don't. So this is so important. This is so important for them to think about. What are some other things do you think that theaters can be thinking of based on your work that you've been doing in the classical music area?
Aubrey Bergauer (27:00.652)
Yeah, I'll talk a little bit. I mentioned user experience research. This is the one that has, for me, it changed everything. So you all have heard my background, my story, and there is a statistic. This is definitely true in classical music, but similar in theater. I don't know the exact numbers, but you can run the numbers on your own data for everybody listening to this. So the statistic in classical music is that up to 90 % of first-time attendees never come back again.
Kira Troilo (27:03.941)
Yes.
Kira Troilo (27:20.954)
Yes.
Aubrey Bergauer (27:30.262)
So we say we need new audiences, we need younger audiences. And the reality is on the whole, we're actually pretty good, like pretty really good at getting audience, new people to come once. Like there's so much data on this and that is across disciplines, like so many new buyers coming in every year. And where we really, really struggle is to retain them. So is it 90 % not coming back? Is it 85 %? Like run the numbers at your own organization if you're not sure. But that was true for my orchestra as well.
we embarked on what I now know is called user experience research to try to uncover what that is about. user experience research, just to quickly define it, is going to your users, your customers, and in this case, was first-timers, first-time customers, and asking them about their experience, but asking them how they feel. And this is so important because I don't know if anybody's ever heard, like if...
Kira Troilo (28:06.544)
Hmm.
Aubrey Bergauer (28:27.5)
people would have asked Henry or if Henry Ford would have asked people, what do you want? They would have said faster horses, you know? And so they couldn't even, so it's not about asking people to solve our problems. It's just asking them, how do you feel about this experience? And we learned all kinds of things that were super hard to hear. Like, wow, your website reads like inside baseball. You know, you go to a landing page and this is not that different for theaters in some ways where you go to a landing page and what does the production overview page have? Like a list of artists.
Kira Troilo (28:46.213)
Mmm.
Aubrey Bergauer (28:54.776)
at a classical music concert, it's the program over to your concerto full symphonic work. And like these people, like smart grown adults, it was like eyes glazing over, like, I don't know what those composers names are. I don't know what that means. I don't know that concerto means soloist performing with the orchestra. And they told us all these kinds of things that were like, how do they feel is intimidated? How do they feel? Then they show up at the concert hall and they don't even know when to applaud because
Kira Troilo (29:19.748)
you
Aubrey Bergauer (29:23.864)
It's different for every artistic discipline. You applaud at different places in a theater performance than you do at a symphony, than you do at the opera, than you do in jazz, than you do at a dance performance. And it's like for anybody, it's very confusing to know kind of the quote unquote etiquette. And so you put all these things together and it was like, I feel intimidated. I feel like I don't belong. Let's talk about inclusivity. I feel like I don't belong. I feel...
Kira Troilo (29:38.733)
Yes.
Aubrey Bergauer (29:52.138)
here's one like ashamed, like I feel concerned. I don't know what to wear. The issue of what to wear. was like, who cares? Like truly, but they it actually was like, and we say that a lot in the arts, like, fine, just wear what you want. But truly for the consumer, it was a point of high anxiety. And I was like, I can't brush it off by say where like where what you want, like they don't know. And that's causing major, major pain points before the experience I'm trying to provide has ever even started. And so.
Kira Troilo (30:16.794)
We has.
Aubrey Bergauer (30:18.296)
And so we learned all of this. Like I said, for me, this changed everything where I was like, yeah, I also don't like going back to places where I feel intimidated and like I don't belong and like I'm, I don't know, have anxiety around. And so once we started actually taking seriously that feedback, it's so easy to be like, well, if you just knew this, if you just learned this, if blah, blah, blah, blah. And it was like, no, no, no. What if we're the ones that helped them learn these things, help them fill in those education gaps that now.
our public school system does not provide. Like that's part of the issue is that they didn't have a quote unquote baseline understanding of so many previous generations. And it's like, it's not quote unquote basic if it was never taught in the first place. And so here I am on the soapbox again about all of this. But basically when we started addressing these pretty severe pain points that people were feeling and somebody's emotions, that's their truth. So.
Kira Troilo (31:13.156)
Yeah.
Aubrey Bergauer (31:14.22)
We have a choice, like you ignore that at your peril or we respond to that. And we said, OK, this is tough, but we're going to try to respond to that. And you put these two things combined, everything I just talked about on patron retention with the membership and subscription economy, you combine that with everything now I'm saying on user experience and trying to address.
these issues and there's a whole bunch of ways in the book I talk about about how do you actually start combating some of these challenges and what do you do? And the good news is some of these things can be like super cheap, like copy changes on the website, free, free copy changes on the website. So if you like free, free improvements, there you go. Yeah. So you start putting those things together and that's when our audience started really, really, really growing. And then the more we did focusing on like,
Kira Troilo (31:44.72)
love that. Yes.
Aubrey Bergauer (31:59.052)
I would say like kind of the third prong of the success, the more we did focusing on the diversity piece, becoming more representative of our community on stage, off stage, in the office, in the boardroom, all those things. That trifecta, you heard me say it at the top, doubled the audience, nearly quadrupled the donor base.
Kira Troilo (32:15.268)
Yeah, wow. And it is truly a, I mean, inclusive stages. We're working with a trifecta approach. I love hearing the word trifecta, because it's like, people say soft skills, but it's like, no, we need to take into account feelings. We need to take into account, right, like all of these different things in order to have this industry survive, truly.
Aubrey Bergauer (32:38.658)
Yeah, yeah, it was such a big learning for me where I was like, wow, Aubrey, now you've seen it. You can't unsee it. You either stick your head in the sand or you have to address what you're hearing. And it was just a real crossroads moment for me.
Kira Troilo (32:56.688)
Amazing. Can you talk a little bit about the people, I mean not specifically maybe, but if you'd like to, the people you've helped in the last few years. Yeah, I'd just love to hear about the journey there.
Aubrey Bergauer (33:05.656)
Hmm.
Sure, at the beginning it was a lot of like going on site and doing consulting work and a lot of speaking engagements and the speaking is still a big part of my business and like revenue breakdown today. So I enjoy that. But what I realized is that the one-on-one work, two things were happening. One, it doesn't scale. So I had eventually gotten to the point where I was like, this is a great problem to have, but kind of fully booked. And I was like, well, there's a cap on that though. So that's a problem. And then,
Kira Troilo (33:34.446)
Mm-hmm.
Aubrey Bergauer (33:38.74)
Also, there's the part about repeating like 90 % the same stuff everywhere you go. And I was like, there's gotta be a better way to like address all of this. So a year and a half, maybe two years ago now, I, yeah, two years ago, would say, changed my entire business model to a one to many model. So now that's why I keep the speaking. Anytime I get on stage in front of a group of people, that's one to many. And all of the material, say all pretty much all of the material I was teaching, I now have in,
course-based curriculums and coaching-based, group coaching-based curriculums. just to very quickly share, I have the Run It Like a Business Academy, which teaches how do you do some of these things we talked about, the user experience research, the audience retention. Like if you're thinking revenue or for people who do read my book and like it and want more of like that stuff, that's the Run It Like a Business Academy. And then I have the up-level group coaching program.
which really is so much of this other stuff that we've talked about here too. Like, it's funny, I have to say this is going on a tangent, but I just have to share. The run it like a business academy, we have open office hours. So there was like a live portion with me every twice a month, we do these open office hours. And I thought when I created that, that it would be like common workout what you're learning in the video curriculum. How do we pull this report from our database or how do we segment our?
Kira Troilo (34:42.522)
Please, yes.
Kira Troilo (34:57.968)
Mm-hmm.
Aubrey Bergauer (35:02.518)
patrons to achieve these things we're talking about. And there is some of that for sure, but more and more what's happening, and this is why these two programs are so necessary. And like you were saying, it's not soft skills is because people come and they're like, I need to get my board to buy into this work. I need to, I need to bring some of my long time staffers who have learned how to do it a certain way along on this idea that we're going to have to build the muscles to do it differently.
Kira Troilo (35:17.316)
Mm-hmm.
Aubrey Bergauer (35:29.014)
That's everything I teach in the up-level program. Up-level, I teach leadership skills, change management, all these things. And so talk about two sides of the same coin. Here we are again, where I'm realizing, okay, I do have these two different product offerings, but it's like more and more, the more I do this, I'm like, it's the same. So here we are.
Kira Troilo (35:49.166)
the same. Yeah, and I'm realizing exactly the same thing with you as I go. It's it's all the same. So many questions, but before I ask you the last question, because you bring up boards and bringing people along, we struggle with this with equity, diversity, inclusion works so much. It's just like there's so many artistic people who have a passion for it. They're like, but my board won't fund it. But, you know, I can't convince, you know, these higher ups that it's worth it.
Do you have like a go-to line or pitch or a short something for those folks to kind of convince those? I know, that's I'm like. We could talk for another few hours about it, but...
Aubrey Bergauer (36:27.294)
I got lots of them, Kira. OK. I'll give you a short line, but then if I could just say one more thing to unpack a little. So the short line is, if we don't do anything differently, we cannot expect different results. We know what the graph looks like if nothing changes. So OK, that's the one liner.
Kira Troilo (36:36.688)
100 % yes!
Aubrey Bergauer (36:52.14)
The slightly longer version, and this is for everybody here who has to manage up to their board listening, is I have a whole blog post on change management. So for anybody who, again, wants more on that, it's free, it's online, you can go to my website. But change management, I've learned, this is what the research shows, it's not about like rip the bandaid off, sweeping change that's really painful. that's not, I mean, that is a way, but it's actually not effective is what the research shows.
Kira Troilo (37:18.02)
Hmm.
Aubrey Bergauer (37:18.22)
So usually resistance to change comes from a place of either fear or uncertainty, not necessarily ill will. It also comes sometimes just from exhaustion. Who here has felt exhausted in the last few years, right? Yeah. instead what the research shows, and this is such good news for all of us, is that change is actually in little small increments. I talked earlier a little bit about iteration and so many times in arts and culture,
Kira Troilo (37:30.415)
You
Aubrey Bergauer (37:47.744)
You can tell me if this is true in theater land. It's definitely true in classical music land. Like we do something once on the administrative side. And if it is not a home run full gone success out of the gate, whatever that new initiative thing was, we're like, didn't work. And like, that's not how change works. That's not how success works for any business, any brand anywhere. And even our artists know that. Like, I think we get confused because like what we put on stage is so
So wonderful and like the artistic quality is so high and it's like they had rehearsal. How many rehearsals did they have, you know? like, so as administrators, we don't have the luxury of rehearsal. Like when we put something out, it is generally public facing, but we can do it as a test first, as a pilot test, as a sample project, or pilot project. We can send an email to a small group of people and see how people respond to that. We do have that.
Kira Troilo (38:22.746)
Yes!
Aubrey Bergauer (38:45.622)
benefit that our artists don't have. They don't get to perform to just like 10 people as a test group always. So yeah. So what I'm trying to say is this idea of iterate and do something on a small scale. Boards love this. Call it a pilot test. We're just going to try this for three months, six months, and then we're going to measure. This is important too. We're going to measure, evaluate, assess. And we've already said this now is full circle of our conversation. There is a business case for this work.
Kira Troilo (38:51.92)
Unfortunately, yeah.
Kira Troilo (38:59.684)
Mmm.
Aubrey Bergauer (39:11.904)
So when organizations start doing like the tiniest, babyest steps, the pilot test steps, and then, my gosh, there was success in this. We saw some great things in our metrics that we all wanna see. And usually metrics that does usually equate to dollars, which is what the boards are certainly looking at. Then we get to say, okay, now we have.
as if we didn't have proof before, but that's change management is really, the last point is like being the cheerleader. Like we have to kind of overly be the cheerleader of like, hey, yeah, here's what we're seeing. Here's what we're over-communicating about this. And so if we do that, iterate, take small steps, like I'm just such a fan, the small steps really, really do actually add up and the research shows is more effective in turning the ship of an organization.
Kira Troilo (40:00.132)
Yeah, absolutely. Have you read Atomic Habits? James Clear, yeah, I've recommended that before on the podcast. Yeah, exactly, right. Little tiny things are like votes for who you wanna be rather than just throwing everything out and expecting things to go well. Yeah. Before I have you share where folks can find your book and everything, I wonder if you have, you you've given us so many great nuggets, but if you have kind of a,
Aubrey Bergauer (40:04.042)
yeah, classic.
Kira Troilo (40:29.092)
big overview thought of what inclusion looks like going forward in the arts.
Aubrey Bergauer (40:35.492)
this is, what's the answer to this? get really like Pollyanna about this. I'm just like, I get so happy when I look, whether it's at the audience, at the stage, at my boardroom, at the staffs and teams I'm leading. And it just looks like the world. Like when I see that I get so excited because it just feels so relevant actually. And so I don't know if that counts as a definition, but it's something that is just personally meaningful to me.
Kira Troilo (40:56.229)
Yes.
Kira Troilo (41:03.888)
Absolutely. Yeah, it's what we hope to see. And I would say, you hope that the change we're working toward is something that we'll see and not, you know, so far off. Amazing. Okay, so yes, where can folks find your book? Where can they find you? Where can they work with you in your coaching program if they'd like to? Yes.
Aubrey Bergauer (41:23.136)
Amazing. Thank you for that. It's Aubreyberghour.com. If you want the book, Aubreyberghour.com slash book, that'll send you all the different places you can buy it. We've got a whole bunch of free bonuses. If you get the book and you want all kinds of bonuses, there's all that there on the website too. My different programs are on the website. So yeah, it's all there and I'm grateful for anybody who wants to go check it out. So thank you for that.
Kira Troilo (41:47.129)
Absolutely, and please do check it out because yes, we need theatres to thrive, we need arts spaces to thrive, so... yay!
Aubrey Bergauer (41:53.772)
There are theaters in my programs too, I should say. So you won't be the only one, anybody who's like, me sniff around about this, yeah.
Kira Troilo (42:01.304)
good, okay, so that's amazing. Well thank you so much. Thank you for all the nuggets you've given. I'm so excited to read your book and definitely recommend it to everyone looking to have their spaces thrive. But yes, thank you so much for joining us today.
Aubrey Bergauer (42:18.2)
It's a total pleasure. Thank you.
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