Surviving on the fringe: Tips for arts groups

Science fiction. Soccer. Classical music. I've written about all three eccentricities for Broad Street Review.

What characteristic do they share in common? They're all fringe interests.

My life, you see, is a patchwork of fringe interests. In a nation infatuated with cars and suburban shopping malls, I've spent 57 years as a committed city dweller and 15 years as a bicycle commuter. I've also dabbled in activities like amateur astronomy and pursued lifelong interests in science and some of the odd byways of history.

Come to think of it, another passion of mine— reading— has also become a fringe activity in our society. Pundits like to complain that the Internet, video games and other distractions have pulled people away from reading, but reading has never been a mass activity, if only because of low literacy rates. (As recently as 1900 only 51% of school-age Americans were actually enrolled in school.) I've read compulsively since I was seven, and I can assure you: Children who were captivated by the printed word were just as rare in the 1940s as they are today.

We Americans may be impressed when a publisher tells us a book has sold 3 million copies, but a film like Cowboys and Aliens sold more than 4 million tickets last weekend alone. And most commercially successful books sell in the thousands, not the millions. Until William Faulkner received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949, none of his novels sold more than 6,000 copies.

For that matter, all the arts are fringe activities. With that thought in mind, I've assembled a few tips on the art of surviving on the margins. Most of them could serve as useful guides for arts advocates.

You don't have to replace football. The current attempt to build a professional soccer league in America seems to be succeeding because its organizers aren't wasting resources trying to oust football from its position at the apex. Arts promoters should be just as realistic.

Don't fret because classical music commands a mere 3% share of the recorded music market. You don't have to capture a majority. You're trying to keep a minority interest alive and healthy. Before its current success with the iPhone and the iPad, Apple survived for two decades with a loyal customer base that constituted less
than 8% of the U.S. personal computer market. Mercedes-Benz and BMW each command less than 2% of the U.S. auto market.

Bach didn't reach a mass audience in his own day. He doesn't need a mass audience in ours.

Technological advance favors niche markets. As communication technologies mature, they can appeal, profitably, to smaller and smaller markets. Mass market magazines like the Saturday Evening Post yielded to specialized magazines aimed at specialized audiences, like Runner's World, Hot Rod magazine and This Old House. Sports Illustrated outlasted its mass-market parent, Life magazine. Cable TV offers so many channels that cable companies can broadcast soccer games and softball World Cups—events broadcasters would never have considered back in the days when we only had three networks.

Artists enjoy new opportunities, too. Small music groups now produce their own CDs and sell them at concerts. Poets can self-publish on the Web. Computers reduce the time and labor that small organizations must devote to chores like ticketing and fund raising.

Avoid confrontation. You may think romance novels are absurd fantasies and rock music consists of undertalented prancers whining adolescent nonsense to overamplified basic chords. Don't say it. Concentrate on the virtues of your own obsession. Never suggest that you doubt the sanity of the other inmates.

Emphasize the joy factor. Don't tell potential recruits that classical music is good for the planet. Don't tell them that riding a bike to work reduces pollution. Instead, tell them Shostakovich's Second Piano Trio is incredibly wild, that cities are where the action is, and that arts mavens hang around with neat people and get invited to great parties. Point out that bicyclists can spend their commute to work racking up exercise that keeps them slim and sexually attractive.

Participation is the best promotion. Soccer promoters are currently exploiting the fact that millions of Americans have played soccer over the last 30 years. Half the people I meet at chamber music concerts play an instrument themselves. Science educators are discovering that science fairs and robotics competitions lure innocent young minds into lifelong addictions to research and engineering.

Create communities. People like to socialize. Science fiction fans have created a network of clubs and conventions. Sports build communities with clubs and paraphernalia. Everybody is building communities on the Web. I even know people who go to origami conventions.

The first item above is the most important. There's nothing wrong with belonging to a minority group. You can even remind yourself, now and then, that a minority can sometimes be an elite. Just don't say it out loud.♦


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