Gratitude, With A Dash of Hucksterism

I don't know whether it's the hectic pace that this fall seems to have brought to Orchestra Hall, or just the fact that Sarah and I are three years into our Inside the Classics careers at this point, but we've done shockingly little blogging about our season-opening concerts coming up this week.

Actually, a big part of the reason for the lack of pre-concert promotion is that we're feeling less pressure to personally beg people to come to our concerts this season, and for that, we have all of you to thank. In what is arguably the toughest year in several generations for performing arts organizations, you guys have boosted us to a whopping 95% subscriber renewal rate, and a better than 15% boost in subscription sales year over year! And that's before we even begin to count the single-ticket sales for our Beethoven show, which are looking unprecedented for this series. So before I say anything else, I just want to say that y'all are absolutely the best, and we're blown away by the support you continue to show this orchestra in general, and Inside the Classics in particular.

That having been said, we've still got some seats left for this Thursday and Friday (yes, Friday - it's a little experiment we're trying,) and if some of you who haven't made it out to a concert before wanted to snap those up in the rush line, well, that'd make our day. We can promise you a broad take on Beethoven that you likely haven't heard before, a very unexpected detour into the early days of the American avant garde, and one of the sweetest coloratura soprano voices that you've ever heard at Orchestra Hall. And now that my beloved Philadelphia Phillies have pretty much sewn up a second consecutive World Series title, there's clearly no need to waste your time staying in and watching Game 2...

If you can't join us in person, however, we're very excited that, for the first time ever, an Inside the Classics concert will be carried live by Minnesota Public Radio (KSJN 99.5fm in Minneapolis/St. Paul, or find your local affiliate here) and you can listen in across the Upper Midwest, or online at Classical MPR's website. This is a live stream only, so tune in Friday night at 8pm Central (9E, 6P) and help us make our first broadcast the kind of event that MPR will want to repeat!

As always, we'll be soliciting your feedback after each of the concerts in our After Hours blog posts, and this week, for the first time, we'll also be asking you to chime in at the concert hall, as our videographers will be scouring the lobby for comments at intermission and after the shows. And for those of you who'd rather produce your own video feedback, we've set up a special page for you to upload your comments. (There are even prizes! And I'm pretty sure you're eligible for them even if you upload a video laying out everything you hated about the concert.)

All kidding aside, we really do take the comments we hear about ItC seriously, and we've used a lot of your feedback to develop the always-evolving feel of the concerts. So thanks again for all the support you've shown us up to this point, and we'll see you at Orchestra Hall this week to start it all over again...