Audience & Expert Reviews
Standing Room Only:
Marketing Insights for Engaging Performing Arts Audiences
By Joanne Scheff Bernstein
Comments and Reviews (1st and 2nd Editions)
Bernstein's book is equally valuable to professional arts managers who are looking for solutions to their marketing problems as it is to students who want to learn arts marketing principles for the first time. But what makes this book unique is that Joanne truly believes in the fundamental greatness and power of the arts to positively affect the people and society. She challenges us to believe in it too, and then tells us how to effectively communicate that greatness to our potential audience.
-Miho Ito, Arts Bridge, Inc. (Tokyo)
The best 'crash course' in audience development in the arts there is. If you're a busy executive, you owe it to yourself to read it. You'll find compelling strategies and tried-and-true techniques, and you'll quickly see why this should be required reading for all new hires, as well as your Board. Don't reinvent the wheel - find out what really works!
-Eugene Carr, Founder & CEO, Patron Technology
The main strength of Standing Room Only is the challenge it presents to the status quo approach to marketing and its very obvious celebration of the success stories of organizations we know. It takes a realistic approach to the situation, and encourages the reader to face the crisis at hand, to face reality and to practice forward thinking. The writing style is intelligent, reflecting abundant research, the credibility of the authors and, above all, a passion for the art and the people involved in the arts. And one of the final strengths of the work is that it goes beyond marketing, to engage the reader in related topics of arts management, mission development, and fundraising.
In this Second Edition of Standing Room Only, Bernstein includes a new paradigm for engaging consumers through social media, website development, online ticketing, blogs, email and mobile phone marketing. A compelling read and a global 'call to action' - compulsory reading for all involved in marketing the arts.
-Jennifer Radbourne, Emeritus Professor
Deakin University, Australia
An extraordinary guide for every marketing manager who wants to develop arts audiences. Anyone interested in the value of marketing in the arts should not miss this book.
-Lanfranco Li Cauli, Director of Marketing and Fundraising
Teatro alla Scala, Milan, Italy
Having already devoured the first edition of Standing Room Only, there is a wealth of updated and new information in the second edition. A great guide to all aspects of marketing. It's like having your own consultant sitting on your bookshelf.
-Andreas Mitisek, Artistic & General Director
Long Beach Opera / Chicago Opera Theater
Excellent update and consolidation of the first edition of the arts marketing bible Standing Room Only and Joanne Scheff Bernstein's follow up, Arts Marketing Insights. Things are changing so quickly in our world, especially in technology, that I really appreciate having this timely and well written text.
Wende PersonsÂ
Amazon Review
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another terrific book from Joanne Scheff Bernstein. She continues to offer great insights for marketers, a reference that can be used again and again.
Lendre KearnsÂ
Amazon Review
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very well written with insightful examples.
Sean MulcahyÂ
Amazon Review
5.0 out of 5 stars
Reading Standing Room Only, I bitterly regretted that this book was not available when I would have needed it the most – in the eighties when I worked intensively with a major opera company. We had to grapple for every bit of wisdom and insight that’s in your book – and there is so much more in it that we could and should have known and used. I only hope that the people in the performing arts realize the treasure trove that’s your book and put it to work. — it’s badly needed. MANY THANKS AND TRUE GRATITUDE that your book and hope that it will be boldly performed against the treasure trove that’s ADMIRATION for your contribution to saving our cultural life and our cultural institutions – they need it badly.
Peter Drucker
Standing Room Only is both inspirational and practical. The first book that applies a full range of appropriate for-profit marketing principles to the not-for-profit institutionally based performing arts, it outlines a clear process for defining an organization's mission, as well as for selecting, analyzing, and implementing relevant marketing initiatives. Best of all, it’s full of detailed examples of actual strategies that inform and provoke new ways of approaching the age-old problem: ‘filling the house.’
Robert Orchard, Executive Director American Repertory Theatre
Finally a book that treats marketing in the arts as the profession we professionals always knew it was. If an entire MBA in arts marketing were to be captured in one volume, this exceptionally detailed, relevant, and insightful book is it. An instant ‘must have’ for anyone who is serious about marketing the arts.
Eugene Carr, President, CultureFinder and President, Patron Technology
Standing Room Only goes beyond marketing the performing arts to raise and resolve significant issues about the ongoing relevance of the arts in America, and what arts organizations must do to survive.
Henry Fogel, Former President, American Symphony Orchestra League and Former President, Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Your study is extremely comprehensive and should be a good resource for performing arts organizations as well as for the arts councils and foundations that wish to help them. Congratulations!
Ellen McCulloch Lovell, Deputy Assistant to President Clinton and deputy Chief of Staff to the First Lady
Showing clearly and in detail just how much artists and the arts can benefit from smart and innovative marketing strategies, this book will definitely close the gap between art and marketing.
Yves Evrard, Chairman, International Association for Arts and Culture Management, AIMAC, and Professor of Marketing, Groupe HEC, France
Standing Room Only: Strategies for Marketing the Performing Arts is at once an instruction manual, a sober-minded analysis, a set of case histories and a hand-holding guide to promotion.
Edward Rothstein, The New York Times
Philip Kotler and Joanne Scheff Bernstein have done impressive research for this book, and have synthesized their complex and sometimes controversial findings with exemplary clarity. Your book has made it very clear to me how widely thought the concept of the Standing Room Only principle can be and how widely it should be applied across New World situations.
Danny Newman, Author of Subscribe Now!
Your book has had a wonderful impact on helping us restructure the way we view our audience and how we market ourselves to them. It is the best single source book I have read on the subject and I have read a lot of them.
Brian Pudil, Producing Director Shattered Globe Theater, Chicago
This is a first-rate book which brings marketing alive and puts to rest, once and for all, the notion that artistic creativity and marketing are somehow incompatible. Whether you're looking for philosophical debate or practical advice, you'll find it in Kotler and Scheff's well researched and clearly presented work.
International Arts Manager
I am reading your book at the moment and think it is excellent. I would never normally say that a book on marketing was so interesting that I couldn't put it down but I have to say that in this case. The book is an invaluable resource and I will recommend it very highly.
Vanessa Rawlings, Arts Council of Great Britain
Extraordinary compendium! 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. 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.
Gordon Imrie, Arts Board Member, Hinsdale, Illinois