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How COVID-19 is Impacting Intentions to Visit Cultural Entities
Episode 77
estimation...

How COVID-19 is Impacting Intentions to Visit Cultural Entities

CI to Eye with Colleen Dilenschneider

This episode is hosted by Erik Gensler.

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IN THIS EPISODE

In this episode, Erik asks Colleen to share her research about how COVID-19 is impacting intentions to visit cultural entities and which types of organizations attendees intend to visit post-crisis. They also revisit her data on why it is the absolute wrong move for cultural organizations to cut marketing budgets at the first sign of a difficult financial horizon.

Erik Gensler: Well, Colleen, welcome back to CI to Eye.

Colleen Dilenschneider: Thank you for having me. I’m thrilled to be here and talking with your audience. I love following the things that you are doing over at Capacity Interactive and I am so glad to be able to combine and help be a resource for you today.

Erik Gensler: Well, the admiration is certainly mutual. You’ve been publishing weekly updates with data about when people in the US currently anticipate returning to their regular arts and cultural attendance behaviors. I want to dig into that data and there is so much to talk about. You’ve been so prolific. Let’s first just talk about the metric, “intent to visit,” which is something you’ve been talking about a lot lately.

Colleen Dilenschneider: So first of all, the metric, “intent to visit,” is essentially a metric that quantifies when people plan to actually walk in the door to a cultural institution, be it a theater, a symphony, an art museum, or a zoo. Intent to visit is the metric that we are tracking every single week right now, especially during the time of this global pandemic, because it is among the best available metrics for reliably predicting attendance behaviors. In other words, we do see a matchup of intent to visit and when attendance bumps happen. In other words, it’s historically proven to align with attendance numbers. So, one thing that I do want to make clear for people who may be following the metric is that intent to visit is a different metric than interest in visiting something. We find that over 30% of people who have interest in doing something don’t do it and the reason for that is because when you ask somebody about their interest in doing something, it removes the tactical barriers to actually doing it. So, one example would be, I’m, right now, stuck in my guest bedroom in downtown Chicago at a “stay at home” order and if somebody were to ask me, “Do you have interest in teleporting to the beach?”

Erik Gensler: (laughs)

Colleen Dilenschneider: … I would say, “Yeah (laughs), I definitely have interest in teleporting to the beach.” But if you were to ask me, “Do you intend to teleport to the beach tomorrow?” my answer would be, “No, for several reasons: I can’t teleport. I’m on a s”tay at home” order. I have to work tomorrow.” There are many, many reasons. So, for that reason, interest is different than intent and that’s the reason why we are measuring intent as opposed to interest. It is when people are actually planning to go back. Another key difference between intent to visit and interest is that intent is necessarily measured by timeframes. We ask people when they plan to go to things and we find that it matches up when they intend to do something, whereas if you ask someone about interest, you could say, “Are you interested in going to the symphony?” They can say, “Yeah,” but that could be in 10 years. It could be tomorrow. It could be anything in between, or longer.

Erik Gensler: Got it. So, what, in your research, have you learned, particularly as this pandemic crisis has deepened? What are some of the trends you’ve learned about intent to visit?

Colleen Dilenschneider: So, right now, at IMPACTS, we track 224 visitor-serving organizations in the United States and that, as I mentioned, ranges from zoos, aquariums, museums, historic sites, symphonies, theaters, ballets … and right now, we are in market measuring intent to visit for 84 cultural entities. We are measuring it for a tad more than that but we have chosen those 84 because they are diverse but also their entity is for which we have intent to visit for this same time last year, so we can use it as a baseline. How different is intent to visit right now during this global pandemic than it was a year ago? And one of the things … Well, we’ve been doing this for three weeks. We first pulled our first data set on March 13th, which was the day that President Trump announced a national emergency, and it’s been three weeks since then. Right now, the most recent data pull we have for intensive visit was just this last Saturday, so that was March 28th. As we’re recording this, it is Thursday and the next pull will be on Saturday and it will go up on Monday. I’ll start with what’s remained the same. We see that people do not—shockingly (laughs)—intend to visit cultural organizations in the next week or the next month. Probably no surprise there. But we see that people intend to start visiting cultural organizations, in general, sometime between one to three months, with a return to normal attendance behaviors by six months. So, that’s great news. People, right now, intend to be back to normal visitation, with the way that they live their lives in terms of cultural organizations, at six months. The good news is, last week—and we’ll see what happens next week—but last week, we saw an uptick in intentions to visit within three months and right now, intentions to visit within three months is only slightly depressed compared to where it was last year. A thing to keep in mind is, again, this is changing and we pulled this data, as I mentioned, on March 28th and March 29th was when President Trump announced that we were having social distancing through the end of April. So, it will be interesting to look at the data again on Monday and see where things are tracking. But the good news is that we are not seeing long-term indication that the people who go or have interest in going to cultural organizations do not intend to fully get back to their visitation behaviors, at some point, to cultural organizations overall. We do see data—and I know you’re going to ask me about this—we do see data that some of that demand will be redistributed and they may be more likely to go to some cultural organizations more than others.

Erik Gensler: So, let’s talk about it cause you’ve learned quite a bit about that.

Colleen Dilenschneider: (laughs) Yeah!

Erik Gensler: We’ve been hearing about pent-up demand, people will be economically challenged on the other side of this, and there’ll be fear of gathering. You did look at a number of different categories of cultural organizations and I’m curious what you learned about that redistribution of where people indicate they are most likely to return.

Colleen Dilenschneider: I love that you use the word from the article, “redistributed,” because that’s exactly what the data suggests. It does not suggest—ugh, yet … I hope it changes, but right now, it does not suggest that there’s necessarily, on the whole, “pent-up demand.” What we’re seeing, instead, is exactly what you said: that the demand is being redistributed to and from certain organization types. I’ll start with how that data is collected, in order to avoid some confusion. We went out and we surveyed people who said that their usual attendance behaviors were to visit certain types of entities. You’d seen there was sporting events, community pools, the beach, symphonies, science museums, art museums and history museums, zoos. And we said, “Given that your usual behavior is to go to visit this kind of institution, when restrictions are lifted related to COVID-19, are you more likely or less likely to revisit that institution type once you’re able to do so?” and what we have found is that the demand is being distributed toward entities that tend to be openpair, such as historic sites that are predominantly outside, botanic gardens, parks, and zoos, and also places that are larger, where there’s free movement of people, so, art museums and history museums. And we find that this may be coming at the expense of, or moving away from, entities that involve many people in smaller spaces, where there’s limited movement. And unfortunately, that is entities such as ballets and theaters and symphonies and orchestras, and we’re also seeing that it’s moving away from science museums and science centers and those entities that are very touch-based.

Erik Gensler: Wow. So, the headline is that there is intent to go back. The size of the pie may not necessarily change, but the slices will.

Colleen Dilenschneider: Exactly, that’s a great point. What we find is that there certainly is some nuance between our audiences for different cultural entities, but what we find, on the whole, is that the kind of person who goes to a cultural entity is the kind of person who goes to a cultural entity. We find that the kind of person who may be interested in visiting, say, the theater, isn’t on the whole a very different person than the kind of person who’s interested in visiting, say, an art museum, and much more so than a monster truck show or something else. So, they tend to be similar people. They’re folks that tend to be of higher household incomes because that correlates with educational attainment and being educated as one of our top indicators. There’s a certain—I’m gonna air quote—”type of person” who tends to generally be more in visiting cultural organizations. So, indeed, when people want to leave their houses and they are or may fall within that category of that “type of person” who may have a higher propensity for taking part in a cultural activity, they may choose to go to something that’s outdoors with more movements than something where they may be confined indoors or worried about contracting a virus, potentially.

Erik Gensler: Mm-hmm (affirmative) and in your data it shows that sports arenas rank significantly higher than theaters or symphonies.

Colleen Dilenschneider: Yeah (laughs). Yes, that’s almost … when I got that data back, I laughed. So, what you are referring to, for anybody who’s listening who hasn’t seen the chart, is, indeed, what we’ve seen is that likelihood to visit a sporting event or a sporting arena is relatively unchanged and this seems very surprising given that it’s so dramatically changed for movie theaters and also, even, for parks, that it’s gone up so much for parks and botanic gardens. So, that’s what you’re referring to. And what’s interesting here is that it may have to do with the audience. One thing that’s interesting there is that, remember, we’re asking people who historically do these things, who have done these things within the last two years and say that they regularly do them, and the kind of person who more regularly attends a sporting event tends to be—ready?—young and male, on the whole (laughs). And if you compare that to who visits symphony is, for instance, we know that the average age of a symphony-goer in the United States hovers around 61 and that’s a very different demographic than a young male. This certainly is not to say, by any stretch of the imagination, that everyone who goes to a sporting event is a young male. It is to say that that is kind of an indicator of who’s in that audience group. And that group, there’s precedent research—not done by us—but precedent medical research that it is the perfect combination of being young and being male that makes somebody feel that they have lower—I’m air-quoting—the word is, “infectability and germ-aversion,” compared to the average population. In other words, people who visit sporting arenas, despite those being one of the first things closed down in the pandemic, the people who visit them may be people who believe, correctly or incorrectly, that it’s not as big of a concern to them.

Erik Gensler: So, it’s sort of the perfect storm for-

Colleen Dilenschneider: Yes.

Erik Gensler: … the symphony or theater or touch-based museum, really.

Colleen Dilenschneider: Yeah.

Erik Gensler: And so, if I work at one of those institutions, what do I do?

Colleen Dilenschneider: That’s a great question. Well, there’s good news. I would not call this “good news” under a normal situation, but given everything, I will say that this is good news now, and that is that we have time, at least for the moment. And by time, I mean time to be thoughtful, time not to make gut reactions, time to assess what people are worried about and figure out how to consider changes that we might make to our messaging right now and our operations, when we reopen, to help alleviate some of the things that are making people worried about coming. One thing that we’ve done is, just this last Wednesday, we published data about what would make people feel safe visiting a cultural organization again and we asked it on the whole. So, we asked it about performing arts organizations and exhibit-based organizations and the top thing that people in the United States feel will make them feel most comfortable visiting cultural entities again is the availability of a coronavirus vaccine. That’s not surprising at all, probably. And the bad news about that is that we don’t have one. The good news is that there is a global race to create one and it indicates that perhaps when that barrier—and it could be years—but when that barrier is removed, it’s a barrier that’s in the process of being lifted as we speak and one that doesn’t, of course, just impact our industry. It impacts all of them. But we also found that there are certain things that entities can do that are in their control to help people feel safer upon opening. And some of those things … nearly 50% of people said that they’d feel more comfortable being outdoors. So, we see if we can move some aspects of our programs outdoors. 43%—this made me laugh, too—said the availability of hand sanitizer.

Erik Gensler: Sure.

Colleen Dilenschneider: Hand sanitizer is a thing! Yeah, so that’s good news, too, because, just, really straightforward … We’re talking about strategy, but there’s an important tactic. Plan to make sure you have a lot of hand sanitizer and letting people know that. Even that in itself is going to be an important thing. Other items that came up were limiting the number of people—this is something that both science museums and performing arts entities can really take advantage of. Of course, it comes with some monetary consequences, but there are things to think through. It’s not allowing for standing in lines or creating operations that avoid standing in lines. And a strange 17% said taking temperatures on-site, which I only mention because I’ve never been into a cultural institution where they took my temperature upon going in. Have you, Erik? (laughs)

Erik Gensler: Uh, no. But it’s funny what you’re saying.

Colleen Dilenschneider: (laughs) We’ll see!

Erik Gensler: It really … it’s very much like going to the grocery store, where you wait outside, six feet apart. They only let a certain number of people in the door at a time.

Colleen Dilenschneider: Yep!

Erik Gensler: There’s lots of hand sanitizer everywhere, so we can take a clue.

Colleen Dilenschneider: Be the grocery store. Exactly (laughs), exactly, exactly. But another thing I wanted to mention is that we know that a sizable portion, 32%—and this is, again, the numbers that I’m saying right now, we will be posting updates to these numbers, as well, as we get them in—but 32% said that just us choosing to reopen at all will make them feel safer and more comfortable visiting. And that’s something that’s worth thinking about or talking about because that illustrates … at least a bit, it may illustrate how much trust people have in us because if you consider some of the messaging that went out when institutions closed, many of them closed before they even had to by government mandate and they were things like, “Hey, we’re helping our community flatten the curve. We’re keeping our community safe,” and it may be that that message of cultural institutions being good Samaritans, even before it was forced upon them, during a time of crisis is a reputational equity or a benefit that people may be bestowing upon us upon reopening. We closed for the betterment of our communities, so, perhaps, just the decision to reopen, in and of itself, will bring comfort because people can trust that we did that thoughtfully. And, again, that’s 32%, which I think in and of itself says something pretty important about the role that we play in our communities.

Erik Gensler: Absolutely. You’ve spoken and written extensively about how at the first sign of a potentially difficult financial horizon, cultural entities panic and cut their marketing investments and you strongly warn against it. And I think in this time, it’s a great time to revisit some of that data.

Colleen Dilenschneider: Yes, indeed. Won’t surprise any listeners—or many less listeners—that in tough times, it’s often instinctual or reactive, as opposed to responsive, for entities to cut marketing budgets. The problem with that, that pans out with the data is that we market in order to bring people through the doors. That’s why when we market. Marketing is how people know we exist. It’s how we maintain awareness. It’s how we activate a visit. It’s how people say, “Oh, wow, I would like to go to the symphony today.” That’s something that we know. The thought is linear and I believe it may come from a misunderstanding that if you cut a dollar from the marketing department, that it’s a dollar saved to the institution, as if it were linear. But as you know, as a marketer, and many people who are probably listening know, that’s not how marketing works. Marketing is an investment, wherein the money you spend often relates to the amount of people you get in the door and that drives our revenue. So, if you just think about it from that 101 marketing perspective, it makes complete sense that the data is so unassailable that when an entity cuts its marketing budget, it cuts its revenue and it’s not, “A dollar cut is a dollar saved;” it’s, “A dollar cut is many dollars lost.” And we have done quite a bit of data (laughs) analysis and data collection around what happens when entities cut their marketing budget. What we reliably find, of course, is when—especially if they cut it at or more than 15% … and this, to be clear, is different than a deferral, so I’ll articulate that first. So, right now, we’re not recommending cuts to the marketing department, but certainly a deferral because people aren’t visiting now. So, all of those messages we need to have ready to go for when we’re in a closer timeframe to reopening. So, we’re going to need the funds that we have now, but we’re going to need them at a later date. So, right now, many entities aren’t spending as much as they normally would, were people still coming in the door. So, that’s something that we’re seeing right now, is that there is a difference in deferring the budget in the time of coronavirus, versus cutting. So, what I’m talking about is what happens when you cut marketing and you don’t give it back, is we know, as a rule of thumb, that it costs five times more to acquire an audience member or a customer than it does to retain them. So, for those entities that are saying, “Right now, we can’t afford to market,” well, the reasonable response is, “Well, then you certainly can’t afford to buy them back. And if you can’t afford to buy them back later, that means that we’re already committing to lower revenue, attendance revenue, in the future.”

Erik Gensler: You’ve put actual numbers against that.

Colleen Dilenschneider: Yes, we have, actually, for those who are interested, on Know Your Own Bone, we have a case study from four different entities who cut their marketing budgets—cut, not deferred—by 15% or greater, saw a decline in attendance, and then increased their marketing budgets back to even more than they were before the cut and attendance stayed at the depleted levels. It’d be great if marketing investments worked such that it was as linear as, “What you put in this year is what you get next year.” Marketing is an ongoing wave and an ongoing strategy and what we do one year impacts who remembers us, who’s aware of us, and who actually decides to visit the next year, in a big way.

Erik Gensler: So, given the crisis now and you’re talking about deferring, you’re talking about staying active now-

Colleen Dilenschneider: Yes!

Erik Gensler: … but deferring a portion for when you really need it to actual, “put butts in seats,” for example.

Colleen Dilenschneider: Exactly. At the risk of oversimplifying, yes. The goal right now is to maintain awareness and top of mind but defer that portion of the budget that has been earmarked for “visit now” activation messages and defer it because when we get closer, you will want to deploy that messaging and you’ll need to deploy it pretty hard. But that means of course, just to your point, it’s really important, right now, to maintain awareness and especially top-of-mind awareness. I’ll distinguish between the two. Awareness: people knowing that you exist and you may be a fun place to go and spend some leisure time; and top-of-mind: “Oh, that’s front-and-center. I think I’d like to go there. I think I’d like to go there next week. I think I’d like to go there next month,” or, in our case, right now, “I think I’d like to prioritize going there when they reopen and I can leave my house again.” And that ties back to a bunch of data that we have about a metric called, “lead days to visit.” Lead days to visit is a metric that represents the average number of days between when somebody expresses their initial intention to visit and when they actually walk in the door. So, from the date that they tell us, “Hey, I intend to visit the science center in three months,” the date between when they say that and when they actually walk in the door. And the reason why this timeframe is so important is because that’s when people are aware of us and they’ve decided that they’re going to visit but we have to be top of mind during the duration of those lead days to visit for that visit to actually be realized.

Erik Gensler: It makes so much sense and it’s really why remarketing is so powerful because it allows people to stay in contact with an institution after making their first digital “hand-raise” of interest to attend. When someone comes to a page, you want to serve them, not just banner ads about it, but, like, exciting behind-the-scenes content to get them excited, so then it gets them to take the next step and then builds up the anticipation and eventual participation.

Colleen Dilenschneider: Absolutely, absolutely. And that ties back to a really important point that’s embedded in all of this, which is, yes, right now, in this moment, we are seeing intentions to visit will, in some period of time, resume its normal value and we are seeing, indeed, this increased demand for certain kinds of cultural entities. That means we have an opportunity. That doesn’t mean the opportunity will be realized. That means, right now, the amount that we’re going to yield in people actually coming through the door may be dependent on how much we keep our audiences engaged right now. Even though people are reporting increased likelihood to attend, say, zoos right now, that doesn’t mean that zoos can open their door and on day one, people will flock into all of the zoos. What that means is, “Hey, right now, people are thinking about zoos; and zoos, it’s time to make sure they keep thinking about you,” because in those lead days to visit, we have to make sure if we want that visitation to be realized, that we are getting our message out even though our doors are closed and showing our value, which, as you mentioned, is something that entities seem to be doing so well right now with having live performances or ask-the-expert or behind-the-scenes information. There’s a lot of creative things going on and that just always amazes me how creative our sector is, especially in times like these.

Erik Gensler: Absolutely, and I think it’s even more important to make sure you are showing that content to the people who are already in your universe and really making sure you’re staying in touch with the people who are already in your database, who are already in your remarketing pool, who are already raised their hands on your social feed because they’re going to be hungry to come back when the time is right. You mentioned zoos and I’m going to resist the urge to ask you if you’ve seen Tiger King.

Colleen Dilenschneider: (laughs)

Erik Gensler: That’s a different podcast. I’m sure you have lots of feelings.

Colleen Dilenschneider: (laughs) I have not seen it yet, but I ever read a lot about … especially in the zoo world, there’s a lot of frustration about how some things are depicted in that-

Erik Gensler: Oof, yeah, it’s rough.

Colleen Dilenschneider: … and overlooked. Yeah, yeah, I can … I’ve heard. Another thing to be nervous about (laughs) is Tiger King.

Erik Gensler: Right. We really don’t need … I know, I watched that and I was like, “I think this is distracting me, but it’s actually making me more anxious,” so …

Colleen Dilenschneider: (laughs) Yep!

Erik Gensler: To get back to the data, another way you segment the data around timeframe and marketing is by number of miles a person resides from a cultural institution. Can you shed a little light on those metrics?

Colleen Dilenschneider: Yeah, absolutely. So, we find that—this makes sense—the closer somebody lives to an institution, the shorter the period of time to “activate” them. The shorter the period of time it is between when they decide to visit and when they actually come in the door. So, for locals who live within 10 miles, if the average lead days to visit is four days, on average, it is four days between when somebody decides to visit and when they actually walk in the door. What that means is, that’s good news for when our doors reopened for activating local audiences. That’s where we want that deferral to come in. We want that deferral to activate those local audiences who can make those visitation decisions quickly. But we also find that, again, if you live further out, you have a longer lead days to visit, which makes sense. So, on average, people who live more than 250 miles from an institution have a lead time of 175 days. And this makes sense, right? Because to go visit an entity that’s in another state or not in your region, one that’s not close to you, requires you to, you know, book a plane or figure out the roadmap, figure out what hotels you’re going to stay in, make sure the family doesn’t have any important soccer practice it’s missing—because hopefully people will have soccer practice again in the future—all of those great things. So, that is a really important thing with marketing, is that those local audiences, those are the ones who we are going to be able, more likely, to have the ability to more immediately motivate to visit, but we have to still be keeping our eye on the prize for tourists and more national or regional or pan-regional audiences because, again, they have lead days and may right now already be thinking about their vacation to DC or to New York or to California even in the midst of this crisis because that plan could be six months out and they’re still thinking about it and fantasizing about their vacation that they intend to have.

Erik Gensler: All this data you’re giving really helps, hopefully, organizations prioritize where they’re spending their money and where they’re focusing, based on geography and relationship loyalty. It’s really, really helpful.

Colleen Dilenschneider: Thanks. I’m glad to be of service. I’m glad that it’s helpful.

Erik Gensler: Every time we speak, I learn so much from you and the last time we spoke, a month or so ago, you mentioned some data that you were working on around the impact when someone goes to a museum and they went on, say, a Monday and the museum is closed, how that impacts future revenue and engagement for that institution.

Colleen Dilenschneider: That’s really important information. Oftentimes, when a cultural institution closes unexpectedly or for reasons that were unplanned or unbeknownst to the public, they tend to predict one of two things. They’ll predict, number one, that, “Hey, everybody who was going to visit this day is just going to visit next week instead.” Well, first of all, that data doesn’t pan out (laughs). That’s not true. If you’re close a day that people think you’re going to be open, you lose the attendance for that day, of course. They don’t just come back tomorrow. We don’t choose audiences’ schedules and free time and availability. They do. Secondly, an institution would think—very linearly, of course—that, “Hey, maybe we will only lose the attendance for this day in which were closed due to a hurricane or civil unrest or a snow day, or anything else like that.” But what we find is that what actually happens in terms of attendance numbers is that people lose 1.25 visitors for every one that they anticipated losing and the reason for that is because, for everybody who’s not coming to our institution, we’re losing their Instagram stories. We’re losing their Facebook posts. We’re losing their conversation over dinner or (laughs) over video chat, now, about their great time that they had at the symphony or all of the wonderful experiences they had when they visited the museum. And we know that word of mouth endorsement plays a major role, a major role, in motivating attendance to cultural organizations. So, when we lose a person, we don’t just lose that person; we lose their stories and that stories have an added value of 0.25 of a person.

Erik Gensler: It’s like your famous stat that I quote you on all the time: “What someone says about you is 12.85 times more important than what you say about yourself as an organization.”

Colleen Dilenschneider: And that actually brings up another interesting point, is that we also found in the data that one main thing—and it was pretty high on the list—that will make people feel comfortable when institutions reopen again is simply seeing that other people are attending. Now, as I mentioned in the article, “comfort in numbers” is probably a bad phrase to use right now, but if you think about it, this is a way that we can help ourselves when we reopen. Make sure that those—I’m gonna air-quote; sorry, everyone—”Instagrammable moments” (laughs) are set up and ready to go. Make sure that your stories are emphasizing that people are having a great time on-site. If we open our doors to tumbleweeds and people know that we’re opening our doors to tumbleweeds, the risk is that we remain welcoming, well, only tumbleweeds, so that’s something we can do to help ourselves when we reopen.

Erik Gensler: That is such a great point, right. It gives … you’ve talked about what audiences to reach out to; now, you’re also talking about the kind of content to share. That’s incredibly helpful. Well, we’ve come to your last question and it’s your “CI to Eye moment” and you’re one of our very few two-time CI to Eye guests and so, I’m so honored to have you back and this is the second time you’re on the podcast. So, the first time, which was in February of 2018, some, more than two years —how time flies—you said that the CI to Eye moment was for cultural executives and people were working the arts to understand that the market determines how successful we are. We don’t determine it ourselves. And so, in light of where we are now, if you could broadcast to the executive directors, leadership teams, staff, and boards of thousands of arts organizations in this moment, what advice would you provide to them right now?

Colleen Dilenschneider: It would be to be responsive and not reactive, to take the time to look at information, accept that things are challenging and they are changing, and to make strategic decisions based on what we know, while being agile and open to that change. I also want to say that, right now, as I mentioned before, our nation is focused on surviving and, at some point—and hopefully that’s some point is soon—we will focus again on thriving and people will be looking to us to safely fulfill that need, so we want to be thoughtful now, so that we can be there for people when we’re called upon again to do that.

Erik Gensler: That’s great advice. Colleen. I can’t thank you enough.
Collen: Thank you for having me. I hope that this is helpful and thank you for all that you do both with CI to Eye and everything that you do at Capacity Interactive. You are really a great resource for the sector and I’m glad to be involved.

Erik Gensler: Oh my gosh, Colleen, I feel the same about you.

Colleen Dilenschneider: (laughs)

Erik Gensler: It’s a mutual respect and admiration and just the thoroughness and thoughtfulness and care that you put into your content is so … I just admire you so much, so thank you.

Colleen Dilenschneider: Oh, thank you. So, go, be safe, and wash your hands and I’ll hopefully I will see you at a Capacity Interactive conference very soon!


About Our Guests
Colleen Dilenschneider
Colleen Dilenschneider
Founder & Managing Member, IMPACTS Experience

Colleen Dilenschneider is the publisher of Know Your Own Bone, the powerhouse website that provides data-driven insights about marketing, fundraising, engagement and more for arts administrators and executives. It’s required reading for anyone working in the arts and culture today. Colleen is also Founder & Managing Member of IMPACTS Experience, a company providing data and analysis to visitor-serving organizations across the world.

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Choreographing Change with Data

Across a variety of artistic genres, we see persistent gender imbalances among the creatives and leaders who make the art possible. That’s especially true for dance, where women continue to hold fewer artistic director positions and receive fewer choreographic opportunities than men despite making up a significant majority of the dance workforce overall.

As full-blown data nerds here at CI, we believe you can’t change what you don’t measure. So we sat down with the team at Dance Data Project® to discuss the latest industry stats and consider how to carve a path forward for gender equity in dance.

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