There was electricity in the air Monday evening as a lively crowd swarmed into Costa Mesa’s Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall.

Subscribers to the Segerstrom Center for the Arts’ Broadway season, together with potential ticket buyers, were arriving to get a sneak peak at the lineup for 2012-13, a scant few weeks before the beginning of the cultural season.

Inside, the atmosphere was a cross between a sales seminar and a rock concert. Segerstrom Center President Terry Dwyer talked enthusiastically about the musicals and plays to come. Stars with major touring productions performed songs from “Memphis” and a perennial favorite, “Wicked.”

The Segerstrom Center even managed to fly in three puppeteers who operate Joey, the amazingly lifelike horse that’s the undisputed star of “War Horse,” a harrowing but heartwarming tale of a boy and his steed as they fight to survive in World War I.

The season preview show, which was first tried last year, is typical of the innovative marketing approaches that big arts organizations unleash to draw in ticket buyers. Orange County’s biggest cultural institution is trying other ploys as well, such as a summertime free Monday movie series on the plaza, where brochures and other material are distributed.

But there is disagreement in the live-arts realm about the best way to find and capture audiences at a time when Americans guard their disposable income more carefully than ever and generational shifts in taste jeopardize future ticket sales.

How can presenters and producers persuade an often reluctant populace to take the plunge and see a show, often at considerable cost? And how important is it to “upgrade” the casual theatergoer – whose trip to the concert hall is limited to an annual “Phantom of the Opera” or “Wicked” pilgrimage – to the world of season-ticket commitments and seats in the orchestra instead of the third tier?

AVOIDING TIRED CLICHÉS

In his 2011 book, “Marketing the Arts to Death: How Lazy Language Is Killing Culture,” arts consultant Trevor O’Donnell argues that arts organizations continue to use tired clichés and worn-out marketing techniques at a time when old audiences are dying off and younger fans-to-be aren’t connecting with the message.

In the past, “It didn’t matter much what we said or if we said it in a frivolous, nonsensical or overly cute, coy, clever way as long as we got the information in front of the right people,” O’Donnell writes about arts marketers.

“The question we have to ask today, though, is what happens when those pre-motivated people die and their heirs aren’t sitting around waiting for the next season brochure? What happens if younger fence-sitting audiences don’t understand the language or, worse, do understand it but think it’s goofy or hopelessly out of touch?”

Some arts administrators think programming and other factors are just as important as marketing in the effort to capture new audiences.

“The field is shifting around us,” said South Coast Repertory artistic director Marc Masterson. “The way that people go to the theater and buy tickets, the kinds of things people are interested in, their attention spans … are changing. And if we don’t anticipate those changes and get out in front, we’ll be left behind.”

Masterson differs with O’Donnell and others, though, on the notion that a generation of season-ticket subscribers will all disappear soon. “The type of people who commit to season tickets haven’t changed in the many years that I’ve been in the business.”

Masterson believes that buying season tickets corresponds to a life phase that most of us experience: “The kids move out, you have more time on your hands and a little money. It’s always been that way.”

NOVEL MARKETING TACTICS

John Forsyte, president of the Pacific Symphony, sees more of a young-old divide and general decline in subscribership than Masterson does.

” ‘The Greatest Generation’ and early boomers have a greater comfort with institutional belonging than later generations.”

Forsyte thinks the key to marketing successfully is identifying and connecting with the disparate audiences his organization serves.

“Our goal is to champion symphonic music in all its forms and to give each (audience) what it expects. The crossover between our outdoor summer and winter season is not great. I’m not troubled by that necessarily, and I don’t rank our classical series subscriber differently than I do our summer series subscriber.”

Forsyte’s organization has recently tried novel marketing tactics such as live Twitter feeds during concerts and other social-media outreach.

So has the Segerstrom Center. Todd Bentjen, the center’s vice president of marketing and communications, thinks Monday’s sneak preview event connected with subscribers and potential ticket buyers in new and effective ways.

“If you look at some of the Facebook comments following the event, it made the shows real to people. Someone said that now that he’d seen Joey onstage he knew he had to see ‘War Horse.'”

The purpose of the Segerstrom Center’s season preview event is twofold, Bentjen said.

“We want to do everything we can to make (season ticket subscribers) feel valued. And another objective is to get them to talk about the season to others and get them to buy a ticket.”

Though his organization is always experimenting with new mehods of selling its shows, Bentjen said the oldest marketing method of all, word of mouth, still works as well as anything else, especially if the enthusiastic ones are in highly social positions — cab drivers, hair stylists, concierges.

“If the right people create a buzz at the right time, that can make a huge difference.”

Contact the writer: 714-796-7979 or phodgins@ocregister.com