Arts groups must learn to sell themselves in a competitive field

THERE'S no point creating a masterpiece if nobody knows about it and there's no audience for it.' To Youth Arts Festival founder Lindsey McAlister, effective marketing of the arts has always been a critical issue, crucial to the festival's year-round success.

She is not alone in her priorities. Paul Tam, the assistant general manager of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, feels good marketing is essential for the simple reason that people cannot attend every concert: they do not have the time or the money.

'So we have to think about how to promote each concert, because each has a slightly different target market,' he said. 'You have to have a high-quality product to start with, but you also have to put yourself in the audience's shoes, to understand how they perceive it.' Despite that, many people in the arts world clearly remain uncomfortable associating the arts with concepts such as marketing, selling, products and customers - concepts that are accepted in the business world. 'Marketing doesn't apply to the arts,' said one woman at a seminar about arts marketing that I presented at the Fringe Club earlier this year.

But in these days of economic belt-tightening, and faced with competing against the lure of other recreational activities such as surfing the Net, there is more of a need now to improve marketing skills and be more creative in order to put more 'bums on seats'.

This is about to become even more important. Many arts organisations face uncertainty over the continuity of their funding with this year's pending abolition of the urban and regional councils, the main providers of arts funding and venues. Clear guidelines about the operation of the replacement Culture and Heritage Commission and its relationship to the Arts Development Council (ADC) have not yet been released. In his Policy Address earlier this month, Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa finally rubber-stamped corporatisation of three performing arts groups - the Hong Kong Repertory Theatre, the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra and the Hong Kong Dance Company. In the coming months, it is looking increasingly likely many arts groups will have to step up awareness of where the money is coming from and how to get it.

Funding confusion makes it difficult for groups to plan programmes, book venues and soloists, and implement marketing campaigns beyond the short term. Yet for many artists and arts organisations in Hong Kong, 'marketing' seems to mean nothing more than sending a press release to the newspapers, distributing a few flyers and hoping people will attend their events.