"Sydney is a very good market for us - we have a very strong following here"
About this Quote
“Market” is the tell: Murphy isn’t talking about adoration in the abstract, he’s talking about infrastructure. In a single, tidy line he fuses two vocabularies that the arts are forced to speak at once - devotion and demand. Sydney is framed less as a hometown and more as a reliable circuit stop, a place where loyalty can be counted, scheduled, and converted into box office. That’s not crassness so much as survival; contemporary dance lives and dies on touring economics, venue relationships, and the hard arithmetic of filling seats.
The phrasing is also strategically modest. “Very good” and “very strong” are PR-safe intensifiers: positive enough to reassure presenters, sponsors, and journalists, but not so effusive that it sounds like pleading. It performs confidence. The “for us” matters, too, narrowing the claim to a particular company, repertoire, and brand - an implicit nod to Murphy’s long-built audience identity, likely tied to Sydney’s cultural institutions and its appetite for dance that feels both sophisticated and accessible.
Subtext: we belong here, and this city validates us. In a funding climate where the arts are constantly asked to justify themselves, “strong following” doubles as evidence. It signals community while quietly announcing leverage: if Sydney turns out, programmers should keep booking; if decision-makers want cultural capital, this is a proven asset. The line’s calm professionalism is the point - it’s artistry speaking in the language required to keep artistry possible.
The phrasing is also strategically modest. “Very good” and “very strong” are PR-safe intensifiers: positive enough to reassure presenters, sponsors, and journalists, but not so effusive that it sounds like pleading. It performs confidence. The “for us” matters, too, narrowing the claim to a particular company, repertoire, and brand - an implicit nod to Murphy’s long-built audience identity, likely tied to Sydney’s cultural institutions and its appetite for dance that feels both sophisticated and accessible.
Subtext: we belong here, and this city validates us. In a funding climate where the arts are constantly asked to justify themselves, “strong following” doubles as evidence. It signals community while quietly announcing leverage: if Sydney turns out, programmers should keep booking; if decision-makers want cultural capital, this is a proven asset. The line’s calm professionalism is the point - it’s artistry speaking in the language required to keep artistry possible.
Quote Details
| Topic | Marketing |
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