Customer Reviews

Standing Room Only: Strategies for Marketing the Performing Arts

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Kotler touches on many subjects from customer loyalty, changing audiences to data analysis. Theories are enhanced by using various arts companies as examples.

The book is not intended give in depth answers, that is "You must do this" to save your company, but guides you through sound marketing tactics/commonsense.

I suggest you use it as a guide to refer to, but it's not a bible as every marketing situation that any arts company finds itselves in is different to the next - there is no divine answer only a helping hand.

In this book, Philip Kotler and Joanne Scheff not only proposed the marketing theories but also presented heaps of case studies to make readers more understand the application of art marketing. To be candid, I will never see it as an art marketing book only. Everyone who is interested in marketing should not miss this book.

Finally, there is a book available to those serious about arts marketing. Joanne Scheff's background in arts management and Philip Kotler's extensive marketing background provide useful and practical information for professionals in the arts who are tired of adapting literature on unrelated businesses to their projects. This book should be on every arts marketer's bookshelf.

I've been in the entertainment public relations business for 30 years and this book is one of the best I've encountered. It's accurate, up to date, well-written and thorough.

I found Standing Room only was useful as the recommended text for the Arts Management Post Graduate at UTS Sydney. It would be great for a new edition to be published that includes more recent marketing examples and methods, like e- business and contemporary arts organisations as it is really dated.

Very good book arrived before the date communicated!!
I've ordered it from Italy and it is arrived in a few days!!
Great!!

Kotler and Scheff have managed to write a textbook that is relevant, well-organized AND interesting! While the style is characteristically dry, the prose is peppered with plenty of real-life case studies that help elucidate both the marketing concepts themselves and the application thereof. The chapters are helpfully broken into sub-categories which makes for easy note-taking and comprehension. I can see why this has been the Arts Marketing bible for so long. The only thing we need is an updated version with more intense focus on internet marketing, etc.

If you want to run an arts organization or run one now, or run part of one: have a long visit with this book. As an MBA who has interviewed many performing arts managers and worked as a performing arts funder and on various boards over decades, I commend this to all people in the business except my competitors.

It wouldn't be fair to compare this to other business how-to books because it is a compendium, not just management theories-du-jour. And perhaps because not-for-profits have a "spiritual" side, the reader senses that the authors are holding nothing back out of mercenary considerations. So if you suspect you don't know everything about running a performing arts organization, this is the place to start.

The book is a gift, a mission informed by the authors' love of and belief in the arts as inherently good. Just one idea gleaned here could save your organization, especially in times of funding and subscription-ticketing stress. While a revised edition might meld more internet ideas into the fantastic array of tips-'n-tools presented, as-is, "SRO" is exhaustive but not exhausting.

This is a decent reference book if you have limited marketing experience. If you have any Graduate level marketing classes or marketing experience, you'll find it to be like the other Kotler books: stale and behind the times.

As a student of Arts Administration this book was my first encounter with Marketing the Arts. It is extremely helpful because of the many examples. You are really able to memorize these and use them in other situations.