By Jim McCarthy Jun 18, 2009 5 comments

The Banana Split Test

Most people like banana splits, wouldn’t you agree?  If you don’t, think of something else that just about everyone likes that’s an indulgence.  Use your imagination, and pick something that’s really delicious but that you wouldn’t eat very often because it’s fundamentally unwholesome.

Ok, got something?

Now, if you’re marketing a show, do the following thought experiment to find out how much appeal your show really has .  (Actually, you could do it for real, but I leave that up to you.)

Here’s the banana split test:

Bring your ideal ticket buyer into a room with no other distractions, sit him or her down at a table and close the door.

Briefly describe your show, using videos, imagery, whatever you want.  In other words, put it in the best, most appealing light possible.

Then offer the person two free tickets in good seats to your show two weeks from today, and when he or she is just about to take the tickets out of your hand, tell the person that instead, he or she can have a big, fat banana split right now.

At that point, one of your experiment minions should walk in with an extremely tasty looking banana split and put it on the table.

I can tell you from experience that for a lot of shows, the banana split would win most of the time.  In other cases, you could put a short stack of $20 bills on the table and people wouldn’t care.  They’d still want to go to the show.

So do this thought experiment with your own show, and see what you come up with.  Of course, some people delay gratification better than others, and some will fret about calories, so try in your thought experiment to factor all that out.

The point of the experiment is this: you have to make your show better than a banana split.  Not just good, or solid, or fine entertainment, but to be truly successful in live entertainment (or anything, really), it’s got to be tastier and more indulgent than dessert.

I’d love to hear the results of your thought experiments!

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