Musical Microtrend

This post was written by Peter Gilmour, and posted on October 25, 2007  | Filed Under culture, music | Double-click any word for more info | View other posts by Peter Gilmour | | For info on this author, visit http://homepages.luc.edu/~pgilmou/

The book, Microtrends by Mark J. Penn (New York: Twelve, Hachette Book Group USA, 2007) offers a fascinating glimpse into “the small forces behind tomorrow’s big changes.” The author is best known for identifying a group of women he named, “Soccer Moms” who were critical swing voters in the 1996 presidential election.

The author defines a microtrend as “an intense identity group, that is growing, which has needs and wants unmet by the current crop of companies, marketers, policymakers, and others who would influence society’s behavior.” One microtrend Mark J. Penn identifies is the “Neo-Classicals.” He claims that “classical music is growing in popularity, not shrinking. And in the coming years, we should expect it to grow even more.” He points to the fact that in the 2000-1 season, concert tickets were up 10% from a decade earlier. In one city, even though season subscribers dropped 5%, single ticket sales increased by 46%. Likewise, the total number of classical music performances in the United States in the year 2000 grew 10% from the previous year, and increased 45% from ten years earlier. “Most industries would call that growth.”

The news gets even better: the number of students majoring in music is up by half since 1992; classical music is more popular through the Internet than in stores; half of www.classicalarchives.com subscribers are under 50 years of age; the number of Americans 55 years or older, a staple of classical music enthusiasts, will double in the next 25 years.There are other big encouraging signs and statistics for the future of classical music in this little section in Microtrends (pp. 285-288).

This microtrend is music to our ears!

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