Insight comes from the strangest places. The track record is that no industry or it's professional associations has lead the way to insights that transform. Transformational ideas always come from the outside the industry. In August I was in an open amphitheater in Laguna Beach California with several thousand others having a tableaux vivant experience presented by the Pageant of the Masters and the Festival of the Arts. I understand tableaux vivants were popular in medieval courts. These are live actors and scenery duplicating famous paintings and sculptures.

The Road Winter, Currier and Ives, lithograph, 1851, American

Some say the PoM is not art but it is very, very high kitsch.

I was struck with the parallels between the PoM and my art experiences in college and major in museums. Sitting in the audience at the PoM tableaux strongly reminded me of sitting in the darkened art history classroom as slides of famous paintings and sculptures were projected by a commenting expert, the professor. I see the parallels between PoM dioramas and those I visited as a child at the American Museum and so many others since. I see living history museums interpreters who bring costume, work and foodways alive as very similar to the people in PoM's tableaux vivant.

The audience was enthralled. All ages. It was an experience that captivated.

Results

PoM tickets usually sell out months in advance. Tickets for the night I attended were listed on Ebay for $300 to $400 each. The majority of the attendees also had dinner at the PoM's outdoor restaurant and many filled Laguna's hotels. The PoMs ten million dollar operating budget is entirely earned income. Five hundred volunteers donate 60,000 hours a year.

What You Can Learn

1. These folks understand what their audience values so well that $50 tickets are sold out before the summer season begins. Visitors return again and again. Some every year and the average family is likely to spend hundreds of dollars on tickets, meals, hotel. PoM understands its audience so well that they earn ten million dollars a year. Too many arts organizations, especially museums, charge less than a movie to attend. Lowering prices to attract audience is like K Mart or the Dollar Store. Yes, low prices do attract people the sometimes they bring low value.

   Understand what your audience really values; then understand your institution's true capabilities. Finally, explore how to bring these two together with integrity and create something that is valued by both sides. Read Jim Collins book "Good to Great" for his description of a team searching for this insight. This is invaluable, strategic thinking.

   You'll know you've done this well when you have the audience loyalty and earned income of PoM, and a staff doing what they do best with real passion.

2. Consider what it would take for your community to value your institution so much it would fight against its leaving town, as once happened to PoM. Most cultural organizations have the attitude that the community should support them. The opposite is the real truth. Support comes after you deliver value to your community. Too many of the movers and shakers in your community do not really believe their cultural organizations deliver value. Every community needs museums and education is good. These platitudes are woefully insufficient.

3. Commit and learn how to use volunteers like PoM. Make the volunteer experience rewarding and challenging. Treat them like employees.

4. Get with the experience economy. PoM understood this decades before Joe Tine and Jim Gilmore wrote about this emerging perspective on high value delivery. See my article on how to analyze the experience you provide.

How You Can Learn
The best way to learn for this is to plan a trip to the PoM next summer. This year is sold out. Take staff and trustees. Enjoy the destination. Then arrange to meet with PoM staff. Learn how they think and what they do. There is no cook book formula here. You must think-not only out of the box, but out of the room where the box sits. The benefit of this type of thinking is a thousand times more powerful than a strategic plans. Strategic plans usually outline the traditional goals and the steps in getting them. Strategic thinking will give you insights which shifts everything in a way that success happens. For more on this see my article on Strategic Thinking.