I love a good concert. Crowds of people moved by music, swaying/singing/dancing/fist pumping/woohooing. Collective movements, including concerts, can power me up, even when I’m feeling as limp as a smartphone battery in the grips of a Canadian winter.
As good as a band might be, context can shift that experience. The other day, I caught some pop music backed by an orchestra, but it was full on, hip-shaking classic R&B. Music to move to. At a concert hall. Pin-droppingly proper, all of us sat primly until the singers called us to our feet. With permission, we came alive to the music. Had the musicians known us, they may have roused us earlier.
Yes, perhaps we are generally apologetic and modest. Jumping to our feet in public may not be socially wonderful, but a concert like this demanded it. We owed it to the artists. But, the venue didn’t. The venue called for decorum, for clapping at the conclusion rather than at the lifted bows of a finished movement. Is it place that held us down our own expectations, or both?
These are questions to ask ourselves when thinking through communications plans. Saying the words may feel right in the moment, until our audiences fail to do what we expect. Do our audiences know what’s expected of them? What happens when they break tradition? Or if they clap at the wrong time? Have we reached them at the right time and in the right place?
If your audiences are sitting on their hands, reach out for good advice on how to manage your message, and where and how to deliver it. Sign up for my semi-regular blog posts or, better yet, reach out to me at unspun.ca for a chat on how to move the people who matter to you.