The juggling of audience development time with residency planning was
the biggest challenge here. There just was not enough time for both
inside of the five weeks, some overlapping of marketing occurred while
Congreso was in town. Decisions on ticket pricing and residency plans
delayed the marketing. In reality, we had only three weeks for audience
development prior to their arrival.
Audience attendance at the Contemporary Arts Center was terribly low.
Scheduling conflicts plus an unfavorable or lukewarm perception of hip
hop greatly caused serious problems before audience development began.
No video was available of the artists' work so it was interpreted
solely through newspaper articles. This led to misperceptions about the
nature of the work and how best to market it. Once the performance was
seen, audience members responded very positively, but by then it was too
late.
