The golf industry has reinvented itself. Can the classical music industry do the same?
Classical music isn’t the only industry that’s been experiencing an existential crisis in recent decades. Since the early 2000s, American golf participation has seen a consistent decline. The number of golf players dropped 22% between 2003 and 2018, and golf course closings have outnumbered openings since 2006, while the average golfer age has risen to 44.
Theories about these trends abound—and the parallels with the classical music industry are striking:
Is the game too slow for millennials, who prefer more socially interactive activities?
Are American parents just too busy?
Is there a disconnect between golf’s exclusionary reputation and the millennial aversion to elitism, racism, and sexism?
Is golf simply too expensive for millennials, who face more financial challenges than their parents’ generation?
Or perhaps the rules of etiquette and attire are just too old-fashioned for today’s society? (In 2008, golfers lauded Arnold Palmer’s 10 Rules for Good Golf Etiquette, which included the following admonition: “The best players have been meticulous about their appearance. The neatly appointed golfer, like a businessman or someone headed to church, gives the impression he thinks the golf course and the people there are special.”)
Causation aside, industry analysts realized that the survival of the sport would require a shift from tradition to innovation. “The golf industry will need to change to stay in play,” warned Bloomberg in 2017.
Source: Pellucid
Source: National Endowment for the Arts
It appears the golf industry took the warning to heart. This month, the New York Times hailed a “new golf” that has driven three successive years of growth and “just might save old golf from itself.” Not only are more golfers participating, but the younger golfer is now four times as likely to be non-white and twice as likely to be female—and the average age of golfers has dropped to 31.
It’s an impressive turnaround. Aside from the pandemic driving an increase in outdoor activity last year, what’s behind this three-year rebound?
Looking through the lens of business theory, golf courses have made a number of changes that have removed barriers for target customers. They’ve also added features designed to help their target customers with their “Jobs to Be Done” or needs. In other words, they have made it easier for the uninitiated to participate, and have redesigned the experience to provide more benefits to participants beyond pure enjoyment of the sport. In short, the new value proposition is simply more appealing.
What does the ‘new golf’ look like? Interactive, social, and entertainment elements have increased exponentially through a combination of the sports bar vibe (think beer, fries, and burgers) and the driving range setting. The time commitment for playing a round has been reduced from 18 holes to 12 (and sometimes just six.) Protocols that have lent a formality to the sport for decades have been relaxed (no eyebrows are raised if a golfer eschews the ubiquitous polo shirt—or even shoes.) Some golf courses now play music over built-in sound systems, and keeping score is optional (or is tabulated by microchips in the golf balls themselves.)
It’s a striking contrast:
New Golf
Music and laughter abound
Come as you are
All are welcome
Driving ranges have the potential to turn newbies into loyalists
Floodlights allow for nighttime play
Public courses attract bulk of players
Cocktails/food are delivered to players
Cell phone apps add value, interactivity
Keeping score is optional
Technology is central
Old Golf
Silence required on the course
Polo, golf shoes, and trousers expected
Traditional customers are white, wealthy
Driving ranges aren’t considered “real golf” by insiders
It’s a daytime sport
Country club membership required
Food/drink is not allowed on the course
Cell phones are off
Players keep score meticulously
Just me and my clubs
Is this a pivot that the classical music industry can learn from? Or is the sector too invested in its traditional self image as the epitome of refinement?
It’s an important lesson: When the metaphorical doors into our organization don’t align with how the uninitiated interact with the world, our art—no matter how beautiful, life-changing, or important to us as insiders—becomes irrelevant to them.
But change is hard.
Imagine the response if League of American Orchestras or Opera America advised its members to welcome cellphone usage, clapping at any time, jeans and T-shirts, and cocktail-drinking during performances; encouraged regular departures from formal concert halls; advised conductors and musicians to interact with the audience; and recommended a shift from programming primarily “music by dead white men” to contemporary music by diverse composers. “You’re dumbing down our art!” would be the outcry.
No, argues Nina Simon in The Art of Relevance, this is not a dumbing down. This is an opening up. It’s not a loss—it’s a gain. “It doesn’t transform what’s inside the room. It just changes who can get in.”
When insiders build in new ways of accessing their world, everyone benefits. This is the lesson that the golf industry has learned and put into practice.
If a centuries-old, tradition-laden sport can build new ways to be more accessible and more relevant for outsiders (and, in so doing, reverse its downward slide), our centuries-old, tradition-laden arts sector can too.
Try this at home
Start centering the perspective of your outsiders with these four practices laid out in The Art of Relevance:
Build your ability to empathize with the uninitiated. Seek out ways to understand what it feels like to be an outsider. Visit an unfamiliar institution that makes you uncomfortable. Notice what intimidates you, what makes you squirm, what doesn’t make sense. Pay attention to what you gravitate to as safe, comfortable, or familiar.
Don’t assume that your traditional programs and marketing strategies are relevant to outsiders. Consider what nontraditional ways of marketing and connecting feel familiar (relevant, comfortable) to outsiders. Invite outsiders to experience your world and find out what they liked and disliked. Ask outsiders to be on your board and in your community advisory group. Embrace the haters and you’ll uncover some surprising new insights.
Get to know your neighbors. Experiment with bringing your art out of the concert hall and into community spaces—not events that you are headlining, but events where community members are actively participating; events where you can give back to the community. Use these opportunities to get to know the classical music outsiders in that community. Find outsiders who share a thread of common interest (social justice? environmental conservation? child hunger?) with whom you might collaborate in new and innovative ways.
Don’t emphasize what you see as deficits. Stop insisting that your audiences have a deep understanding of music theory or music history. Build ownership by emphasizing and encouraging the expertise and skills that your target audiences are proud of. Create new ways of interacting with your art.
