Re-branding Classical Music: How the genre needs to be re-branded to attract young culturally aware non-attenders for classical music concerts in the Netherlands

Abstract

This study presents a re-branding strategy for classical music concerts in the Netherlands for young culturally-aware non-attenders by combining insights of musicology, sociology and marketing to those of the music industry. It points out the changes that the genre went through since the uprising of new concert formats composed for this target group and elaborates on their needs and preferences. Combining this with interviews with seven marketers, one programmer and one audience worker of Dutch concert halls which focussed on audience composition and the new concert formats, this study concludes that it is important to program contemporary music and younger performers, that classical music should connect to lifestyles and social group formations of the target group and that classical concerts needs to be adapted to the cultural framework that young people use. This thesis provides advices and insights for both the academic world and the music industry that are needed to create new images, associations and stories for classical music that help to attract and secure attendance of this future audience for classical concerts.