Where in the world am I today?: At Sea aboard the STAR Princess in the South Pacific
In Monday’s post which featured that picture of a Jone Green Apple Soda bottle, I made sure to credit my friend David Duchemin for having plastered his mug all over the bottle and it got me to thinking about a market that David very pro-actively marketed his show to – churches. Now this isn’t a market for everyone, but David happened to have studied to be a youth pastor and his show had nothing in it that could really be deemed to be at all offensive, so for him it was a perfect fit. Because of his theological training he could also put a bit of a ministry-spin on the performance and I always liked how he put it…
“We’re all made in God’s Image, and Laughter is a celebration of the image of God, so when we laugh, we’re in communion with God!”
I’m paraphrasing, but it was just the sort of message that gave his performance an edge in a market that wanted to deliver a positive message to a congregation of like-minded spiritual viewers. This was an audience full of people who didn’t want to be insulted, condescended to or made fun of because of their belief structure and David’s show was a perfect fit!
Now personally I never really felt entirely comfortable performing in a religious setting – somehow I always feel like religious people are trying to convert me – but that’s just me. The truth of the matter is that there are some very large, very powerful, very wealthy religious groups who are happy to spend money on the sort of entertainment that they feel supports and celebrates their belief structure, and this can be a very lucrative market.
I’ve been listening to a radio show put out by Alan Cross in which he discusses the ‘Ongoing History of New Music’ and although variety entertainment and rock shows are a slightly different kettle of fish, I really enjoyed his show on Christian Rock and how certain bands hit it big in the ‘Christian’ market before crossing over to the main stream. The biggest example being Creed.
Christian groups not to mention other religious groups, often have a budget to spend on entertainment, and if you can craft your performance to fit in with their sensibilities (and ideally your own) then this is a market that has a huge potential!
