What is your conversation about?
By Robbie DaleMy Friday night was spent perched at one end of the O2 arena with beer in hand cheering as some poor soul was flung at high speed from his chariot. This was, of course, the arena spectacular ‘Ben Hur‘, finally realised after 15 years inside the head of one Franz Abraham.
If you’re based in the UK (or even Europe and beyond), and do not dwell in the hollow of a tree, I’m going to guess you’ve heard about the show. You’ve probably even talked about it, and mused on where it sits in the spectrum of the arts. You might even have considered looking into tickets, what with all the chat.
When I looked around that arena on Friday however, I saw several things. An eagle (or some other bird of prey, part of the show fortunately); a man with a horrendous choice in Hawaiian shirts (you couldn’t miss him) and empty seats. Quite a few of them.
Despite all the conversation about Ben Hur - my dad, girlfriend and local publican all mentioned it, and that’s a fair cross-section of society, believe me - it wasn’t translating into sales.
What could be the reason for this? Could it be that they were talking to the wrong people. That’s a possibility, but unlikely given the spread of coverage. Could it be that the economic situation was seeing people stay at home? I doubt that too, theatre ticket sales and other entertainments have been defying the usual trends and ‘booming’.
Or, in a much more straight forward way, could it be that the product just wasn’t right in the first place? Maybe no matter how many horses you fling into a live chariot race, or how many fireworks or doves you let off in one go, there is only a finite amount of interest.
Conversation is a great thing, just trundle round the rest of the site to find out just how much we like it (it’s a lot, but not a disturbing amount). The thing is, conversation need to be about something, and that something decides whether the conversation will be long lasting, or one off. It decides if it will inspire new conversations branching out from the original. It decides if it will polarise opinion, or simply generating a few nods.
Above all the subject of your conversation determines whether that discussion can grow into something more concrete. In Ben Hur’s case, a ticket sale. It looks like it could, sometimes. Just not often enough. Could they have done more? Maybe. Coming home Friday night however, I was asked for a review of the show:
“The Show?” I asked. “4 Stars probably, it was pretty much everything you expected it to be”
“So it was really good then?” asked my girlfriend.
“Maybe”
She looked puzzled.
“I’m just not sure it was even worth doing in the first place…”
Generating conversation is important. As Oscar Wilde noted, it’s better than the silent treatment. You should remember however that just because people are talking about you, it doesn’t mean things are sorted. When people talk, you need to listen and, if you can, adapt. What you put at the heart of that conversation is just as important as it happening in the first place.
