They're Not the Same.

Your toothbrush subscription and a subscription to, say, the San Francisco Symphony.

Over at the S.F. Chronicle, Joshua Kosman interviewed Aubrey Bergauer, who has published a book about  how arts organizations can succeed in the current climate.

Bergauer is smart and practical; she made an enormous impact on the California Symphony, where she was executive director from 2014 to 2019. But in this interview she says the following, which I disagree with:

“So much of our lives as consumers is based on a membership economy, things like Netflix and Amazon. My toothbrush literally gets delivered to my door on subscription. As I was researching the book, I found that 20 percent of all global credit card transactions go toward a subscription or membership.

“And yet in the arts, we’re told that the subscription model doesn’t work! These two things just don’t compute.”

I'd say that there is a significant difference between an object that arrives at your door (or in your smart TV) on a particular schedule and an experience where you have to be at a particular location at the correct time.

My Peet's subscription (don't look at me that way; you can no longer get Garuda Blend in the stores) arrives on my front porch roughly once a month, but the date and time of day vary. That's okay! I mostly care about whether, if we're about to run out, we need to change the delivery date or get a pound of beans elsewhere. I don't have to be there to sign for the delivery. If it came at 2 a.m., that would be fine.

In other words, once it's set up, it's a passive process. I can make changes to suit my convenience, but the coffee will get there every month regardless.

But my San Francisco Symphony subscription places a lot of responsibility on me. I have to be at Davies Symphony Hall, in my seat, on most Fridays at 7:30 p.m. I can exchange for another date, to be sure, but that'll cost me $15. (Yes, I find this incredibly annoying and I'm sure Bergauer has something to say about these damned fees.) The difference is that I must be active about this: get to the scheduled concert at the right time* and place, and if I can't make the date, swap the ticket or donate it back.

Look at this this way:

• Toothbrush subscription: Your toothbrush magically appears on your doorstep! Once it's set up, you don't need to do much.
• Orchestra subscription: You have to dress, leave your house, and get yourself to the concert venue, which can take from ten minutes, if you live around the block, to a lot more, if, say, you live in the East Bay.

One issue Bergauer doesn't address: generational differences. There's a general belief, and it might be the truth, that younger people want more flexibility and spontaneity in their activities than older generations, who were willing to commit to subscriptions. This is in part because there is so much to choose from. It is absolutely the truth that the percentage of income to arts orgs from ticket sales has declined radically since the 1960s. Matthew Shilvock, general director of SF Opera, has recently quoted 60% down to 16%. I should have asked about the change in percentage of subscribers, but it's well known that there's been a big decline there as well.

So: how do you get more people to subscribe? I'd love to know that.

* I've been tripped up at least once by accidentally getting a ticket to a Thursday matinee performance.