One of the biggest fears in the performing arts world in recent years has been about demographics. Look around the audience for a classical music concert at the Hult Center, and you see a lot of gray hair.
As a result, many performing groups — especially in the fine arts — in recent years have started talking about the need to get more young people into their audiences to fill seats as older audience members die.
Not everyone in the business agrees with this.
“We’ve been talking for five or six decades about how audiences are dying off,” says Dave Moss, executive director of Eugene Symphony. “I personally think that’s a myth.”
Moss became executive director in January 2024. Under his leadership, the symphony has been reframing the question of demographics. The problem is not, he says, to attract younger audiences. You don’t need young people at your concerts, he argues. You need their parents.
The problem with marketing entertainment to younger people, he says, is that they already have a lot going on in their lives. If they’re very young, like college age, they probably go to pop music concerts or just out for a drink with friends. A little older and they’re married and have kids.
For a young couple with children, an evening at the symphony means not only buying a pair of tickets but arranging and paying for a babysitter. The cost adds up.
“So how do you get people who are 55 years old and whose kids have gone off to college?” Moss says. “The answer is: We do the music of Journey. Or we do something like Elf. Or like Star Wars.” The symphony will feature music of the rock band Journey in a Sept. 12 concert.
Journey’s music is not exactly a youth magnet. The band got its start in the Bay Area in 1973, and is still performing more than half a century later. Its biggest years were in the early 1980s.
Moss says the challenge for symphony orchestras — and for fine art performance groups in general — is to change their attitude toward the audience. Under the traditional model, he says, “We program in a way that is, ‘We’ll tell you what you enjoy.’ And 90 percent of first-time ticket buyers don’t ever come back.”
Moss previously worked as president and CEO for the Hawai’i Symphony Orchestra in Honolulu. There, he expanded the orchestra’s classical programming to include a concert of contemporary work from Studio Ghibli, a Tokyo animation studio, with music by contemporary composer Joe Hisaishi that has attracted a cult following worldwide. The show made money for the orchestra.
He then went on to present three concerts with Hisaishi’s music last fall with Eugene Symphony, all of which sold out.
“If we had billed this as contemporary music, it would have failed,” Moss says. “Financially, it was a net positive for the symphony — not a huge margin with 500 seats and 64 musicians on stage, but still a financial success.”
EW reached out to other fine arts performance groups in and around town and asked three questions: Do you feel it’s important for you to bring in more young people? If so, what are you doing in that regard? And what else are you doing to bring more people to your shows?
Here are their emailed answers:
Craig Willis, artistic director of Oregon Contemporary Theatre
The sense that the fine arts audience is graying has been with us for many years. In my early years in this job, I remember talking about this with then-Eugene Symphony Executive Director Paul Winberg, and Paul observing that there are New York Times articles from 100 years ago on this topic. The thing that has become increasingly concerning on this matter in my lifetime has been a decline in arts education in K-12. The danger is that this education deficiency can mean a lack of exposure, which may create a declining inclination for people to engage with the performing arts when they reach the time in their lives when they have leisure time and financial resources.
We feel that it’s important to try to engage as broad of an audience as possible. The nature of our programming is not always appropriate for the very young.
We attempt to include some programming that may have teen/college-age appeal. This season, for example, our season-opening production, LIZZIE, a rock musical retelling of the Lizzie Borden mythology, has a bit of a following among younger musical theater audiences — and we hope they will create enthusiasm with their friends. OCT offers name-your-own-price performances for all of our regular season productions. We offer student-priced tickets for all performances. When appropriate, we invite college and high school classes to join us for select performances.
We’re always trying to reach new audiences. Encouraging our current patrons to act as ambassadors by inviting friends, neighbors, colleagues — especially people who may be new to our community. Our name-your-own-price performances are a way to reduce cost barriers.
Hannah Bontrager, executive director of Ballet Fantastique
At Ballet Fantastique, we believe it’s vital to welcome younger audiences (and it’s literally our mission). The next generation is what will keep the arts alive, and we want everyone to feel included. That means making ballet feel accessible, exciting, fun and even immersive — not something intimidating or exclusive. We knew we were attracting a unique audience at the Hult, but were honestly blown away to get box office stats back. Our overlap with any of the other resident companies was less than 6 percent, or fewer than 34 households in an entire year (as of the time of our last data pull, December 2024). BFan’s single biggest audience overlap was with Broadway (37 percent). We’re truly building a new audience for art in our community. Our dream — and what drives us — is that our shows make people feel like they’re experiencing art that speaks to them, that’s made for them, and that belongs to them.
We’re creating productions that audiences of all ages can truly connect with. For example, this season we’re premiering The Little Mermaid set to iconic 1980s music. In 2024, we performed our version of Aladdin as a rock opera ballet — set to the music of Queen. We’ve also partnered with local musicians, like Eugene’s High Step Society, for our electro-swing Alice in Wonderland: Remix. Beyond music, we add narration to some of our more complex story ballets, so everyone can follow along and fully enjoy what’s happening on stage. And, our season subscriptions are growing — we’re up 36 percent for the coming season!
Affordability and accessibility are key. We offer reduced-rate tickets, a Family 4-Pack designed to make attending ballet more affordable for families, and special packages like Ladies’ Night, which pairs discounted tickets to BFan shows with local restaurant tie-ins for a fun night out. In addition, we bring BFan’s radically accessible new dance theater directly to young audiences through our outreach performances, serving students across Lane County and beyond. These efforts make ballet approachable, engaging, and relevant for more people in our community.
We also want to share the stunning statistic that 50 percent of BFan’s Hult Center ticket buyers in 2024-25 were brand new to our CRM [Customer Relationship Management].
Susan Goes, executive director of Cottage Theatre
Cottage Theatre loves to introduce people of all ages to the joys of making and attending live theater. We do not currently have a strategic focus around marketing especially to young people, though we are always glad to have them in our audience.
We have learned over the years that many people in our audience (regardless of age) have some past experience doing theater, even if it was as simple as that they performed in a first-grade play. So we try to offer plenty of opportunities to build those touchstone experiences, as part of our efforts to create the theater audience of the future.
Many of our productions include intergenerational casts, and we have a robust youth education program that helps train the next generation of actors. (And we have more than a few adult volunteers who became involved after their children were participants in our summer theater camps.)
We aspire to make each production even better than the last, as our experience has shown that quality work will attract a good audience most of the time (admittedly not all of the time; there are always a few scratch-your-head exceptions). For example, our June 2025 production of Nevermore: The Imaginary Life and Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe ended up selling far better than we had dared predict for this not-at-all-well-known show. We attribute its audience success primarily to good word-of-mouth advertising following opening weekend performances.
We recognize, too, that not all shows will appeal to all people, so we deliberately build variety into our annual offerings in order to create “magnets” to attract different groups of theater-goers.
David Amado, artistic director of Oregon Mozart Players
The Oregon Mozart Players would love to see more young people at our concerts — both in the audience and on stage. But more than that, we want our concert experience to reflect the whole community: youth, elders and everyone in between.
That’s why we design programs that speak across generations — pairing timeless masterpieces with new works that will become tomorrow’s standards. We collaborate with local artists, dancers and young talent, making every concert an invitation to curiosity and connection. When our concerts reflect our community, everyone feels welcome.
Brian McWhorter, music director of Orchestra Next
For Orchestra Next, our mission isn’t about getting more young people into the hall — it’s about putting them at the center of what we do. With an average age of 23 in our training program, the culture of Orchestra Next belongs to youth, and that’s what makes the orchestra feel so alive.
Because we work through partnerships, “bringing more people” isn’t really our model. Instead, we meet people where they are — in spaces they already value — and we do it with the voices of our aspiring professional musicians.
When we partner with groups like the Eugene Ballet, Oregon Contemporary Theatre or TrackTown USA, we’re not just providing live music, we’re raising the cultural capital of the production. Our role is to amplify and energize the events we’re part of. At the same time, we recognize the barriers orchestras have built over the years, and we try to keep naming and challenging them — so that what we’re building with our partners truly feels open to the next generation.
Michelle Ferguson, marketing and development director for Eugene Ballet
We believe it is vital to welcome more young people into the world of dance and the performing arts. Experiencing live performance at a young age can foster creativity, empathy and emotional well-being. These are qualities that are especially important in today’s world, where many young people are navigating stress and mental health challenges. Dance nurtures a sense of connection, belonging and inspiration that can support people in every stage of life.
Eugene Ballet is focused on making ballet more accessible and relevant to younger audiences. We offer youth ticket pricing and student discounts to remove cost barriers, and we provide free tickets through our Access to Dance program to underserved youth and families who might not otherwise be able to attend. We are also intentional about programming, offering productions that connect with young people through cultural storytelling, fresh choreography and themes that resonate with today’s generation. Our academy provides opportunities for children and teens to experience dance firsthand, building confidence, discipline and creative expression.
We’re cultivating community partnerships that broaden our reach and highlight how ballet intersects with other art forms and cultural experiences. By collaborating with local schools, organizations and other nonprofits, we’re helping new audiences see ballet as welcoming and accessible. We also offer sensory-friendly performances to ensure families of all abilities can attend comfortably. At its heart, our goal is to make live performance an experience that more people can access.