Hi All
In my last post before leaving the industry I thought I'd share the Access presentation from the 2013 Ticketing Professionals Conference.
It should be fairly self explanatory but happy to answer any questions left on comments.
Enjoy.
http://www.slideshare.net/rdbryan1/tix-prof-access
PS: I will still post to the blog but expect lots of Tertiary Industry vs Arts Industry comparisons!
Thursday 27 June 2013
Wednesday 12 June 2013
mARTsketing: The Skywhale and social media
mARTsketing: The Skywhale and social media: Recently we Canberrans witnessed that most rarest of beasts, an artistic undertaking with genuine cut-through into the mainstream and massiv...
Tuesday 11 June 2013
The Skywhale and social media
Recently we Canberrans witnessed that most rarest of beasts, an artistic undertaking with genuine cut-through into the mainstream and massive social media buzz.
I speak of course of the Skywhale. (Video here )
The major artistic commission for the Centenary of Canberra, this incredibly bold and successful artwork was revealed over the last few weeks to an unsuspecting Canberra public and boy did it get people talking! And not just locally, nationally and internationally as well.
I've posted a list of the coverage below but from the UK, to Europe, Lebanon, Brazil, China and beyond the reach of this work across social media, MSM and more was truly staggering.
But my interest was less about do I like it (yes), do I think its successful public art (yes) and do I think its value for money (yes) but more about whether the work was commissioned in part because of the social and MSM stir it was likely to cause, (and whether any artistic director would ever openly admit this possibility!) or was it purely the result of brave artistic decision making and the coverage followed.
I am also interested in exploring if factoring in "conversation-start-ability" from the outset is good (us marketing types are always pleading for more consideration of audience at the early stages of artistic creation) or unwise (in that it may led to compromised artistic decisions or doing things for the wrong reasons).
I posed the question of being motivated by the possibility of a 'buzz' from the start to Robyn Archer, Artistic Director of the Centenary, amazingly she responded to my within 24 hours with a very considered response. I publish her full response here:
So there you have it in the most eloquent and verbose of terms - No Archer does not pre-suppose reactions to a work when curating artistic output. And I for one firmly believe her.
But this work is a visual art piece and most of my readers (yes there ARE some I'm told!) come from the performing arts realm. Interested in a theatre programmer's response to the Skywhale and the central premise of considering conversation-start-ability from the outset I asked Simon Hinton CEO and AD of Merrigong Theatre Company, one of the best thinkers in business and a good mate for his thoughts.
So there you have it make brave artistic choices that connect with people and the world will beat a path to your door and in the age of social media they will beat that path faster than ever.
SKYWHALE COVERAGE INCLUDES (not a complete list!):
I speak of course of the Skywhale. (Video here )
The major artistic commission for the Centenary of Canberra, this incredibly bold and successful artwork was revealed over the last few weeks to an unsuspecting Canberra public and boy did it get people talking! And not just locally, nationally and internationally as well.
I've posted a list of the coverage below but from the UK, to Europe, Lebanon, Brazil, China and beyond the reach of this work across social media, MSM and more was truly staggering.
But my interest was less about do I like it (yes), do I think its successful public art (yes) and do I think its value for money (yes) but more about whether the work was commissioned in part because of the social and MSM stir it was likely to cause, (and whether any artistic director would ever openly admit this possibility!) or was it purely the result of brave artistic decision making and the coverage followed.
I am also interested in exploring if factoring in "conversation-start-ability" from the outset is good (us marketing types are always pleading for more consideration of audience at the early stages of artistic creation) or unwise (in that it may led to compromised artistic decisions or doing things for the wrong reasons).
I posed the question of being motivated by the possibility of a 'buzz' from the start to Robyn Archer, Artistic Director of the Centenary, amazingly she responded to my within 24 hours with a very considered response. I publish her full response here:
“I am wholly familiar with media attention of this order. I commissioned Rafael Lozano Hemmer for a major work at Federation Square for The Light in Winter. Entitled Solar Equation, it had worldwide coverage in old and new media. We were delighted in the role that social media played in extending the conversation about that work beyond just Fed Square , Melbourne and Australia. We quantified it at around A$4.2 million. So I’m aware that this kind of interest can happen. At no time do I aim for this. Others may feel the need to consider either markets or reactions, but I don’t.
When I have the privilege of commissioning new works from internationally recognised artists, the only aim is to invite them to use their immense skills and creative powers to bring a new work into the world. For the Centenary, composer Andrew Schultz researched and was inspired by the Canberra story for Symphony No 3: Century, visual artist Jyll Bradley was inspired by Canberra’s history and love of trees for City of Trees , choreographer Garry Stewart has researched and been inspired by Aldo Giurgola’s democratic Griffin-inspired approach to New Parliament House for the new ballet, Monument, which will premiere end May, and Patricia Piccinnini has launched her next major sculpture, The Skywhale, which is not only a continuation of the themes of evolution which permeate all her works, but was inspired by Patricia’s years growing up in Canberra where she perceived an ‘artificial city’ set in a natural landscape: she has created an ‘artifical’ , yet in evolutionary terms quite imaginable, creature to fly ( this is a very great feat) in a natural landscape. It evokes so many thoughts, if people are just able to open their minds, lift their curiosity, and use The Skywhale to stimulate their imaginations. If lifeforms, like whales, had not turned back to the sea to evolve and adapt, they might have gone into the air, and something like The Skywhale might have emerged - it is no ‘uglier’ than a camel or a rhinocerous might appear if you’d never seen one before.
Also I love to consider Canberra as the ‘artificial city’ now having grown into a real city: The Skywhale first appeared as an artificial creature, but amongst her millions of followers ( the coverage has now reached more than thirty countries, hundreds of media outlets, and many thousands of social media responses) she is already ‘real’. I’m also delighted that Canberra is now known by so many more people throughout the world, and known again for its courage in boldness and innovation ( as it was in 1912 for choosing an unlikely winner for its design in Walter Burley Griffin) ; and that the name of the Canberra raised and educated artist Patricia Piccinnini has spread throughout the nation, and the world, through this commission.”
So there you have it in the most eloquent and verbose of terms - No Archer does not pre-suppose reactions to a work when curating artistic output. And I for one firmly believe her.
But this work is a visual art piece and most of my readers (yes there ARE some I'm told!) come from the performing arts realm. Interested in a theatre programmer's response to the Skywhale and the central premise of considering conversation-start-ability from the outset I asked Simon Hinton CEO and AD of Merrigong Theatre Company, one of the best thinkers in business and a good mate for his thoughts.
"I honestly can't say I've ever really thought about a work "that's sure to get some twitter / facebook chatter". I do think the natural focus is on securing the best artists to make and show the most exciting work they can, and hope the response and it's echoes take care of themselves. I do think though that the worst thing for a programmer is a lack of audience response. I don't mean a lack of bums on seats (though that's also obviously a problem), I mean that sometimes we don't get a good box office response but the audience that does come has a big response to the work - whether positive or negative - and I guess then we know we have connected with them.
Social media is really just an extension of word of mouth, which has always been our most important marketing tool. Silence is, I guess, the worst possible response - we need people to react one way or the other, to have a way of gauging success. We are starting to have more internal conversations about identifying works that we think are great but almost impossible to communicate to an audience - you know, "those that come will love it, but how do we make them understand that they will love it?". These are the shows that really need the social media response.
I would see Sky Whale as a huge success - it got a big response, and given the conceptual nature of the work, debate about what it means, what is its worth as a piece of art etc. is the desired response. I would see that as "mission accomplished". The "what a waste of money" crowd won't ever understand that their response is kind of the point - in debating the merits of the work, they've contributed to helping define who we are, what we value as a society etc. The irony, I guess, is that in trying to attack the work, they unwittingly make it successful, not only in being part of the desired debate, but of course in bringing attention to it in social media, which is now always echoed in MSM."
So there you have it make brave artistic choices that connect with people and the world will beat a path to your door and in the age of social media they will beat that path faster than ever.
SKYWHALE COVERAGE INCLUDES (not a complete list!):
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Skywhale
Gulf News: http://gulfnews.com/news/world/other-world/gigantic-skywhale-splits-opinion-in-australia-1.1182066
Huffington Post France: http://www.huffingtonpost.fr/2013/05/10/montgolfiere-skywhale-patricia-piccinini_n_3251825.html?utm_hp_ref=france
Lavenir.net (France): http://www.lavenir.net/article/detail.aspx?articleid=DMF20130510_00308495
Liberation (France): http://www.liberation.fr/culture/2013/05/12/une-baleine-flotte-sur-canberra_902343
Daily Star Lebanon: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Culture/Art/2013/May-11/216685-aussie-opinion-split-over-the-skywhale.ashx#axzz2T7xGch9V
Australiatimes.com.uk: http://www.australiantimes.co.uk/news/in-australia/canberra-skywhale-birthday-balloon-floats-into-critical-storm.htm
Telegraph UK: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/10048688/Canberras-Skywhale-splits-opinion.html
Bigpond news: http://bigpondnews.com/articles/OddSpot/2013/05/11/Canberrans_flock_to_see_Skywhale_fly_871301.html
Metafilter: www.metafilter.com/127918/Meet-the-Skywhale
Designyoutrust.com: http://designyoutrust.com/2013/05/the-skywhale/
Stromfront.com (white pride world wide): http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t965993/
Heart Radio Bristol: http://www.heart.co.uk/bristol/news/local/skywhale-inflates-west/
Getty images: http://www.google.com/hostednews/getty/article/ALeqM5jOXajVgMMFdHimG39eUJnOlTQraA?docId=168532563
iPress.hr (Croatia): http://www.ipress.hr/magazin/kontroverzni-skywhale-poletio-iznad-canberre-27435.html
New Tang Dynasty Television: http://ntdtv.org/en/news/world/asia/2013-05-11/giant-flying-whale-seen-over-canberra-on-100th-anniversary.html
News Talk ZB (New Zealand): http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/auckland/news/nbint/1072443119-big--busty-whale-takes-to-canberra-s-skies
Metro UK (best news pics from around the world): http://metro.co.uk/2013/05/10/gallery-window-on-the-world-10th-may-2013-3754501/
Wow Keren (Indonesia): http://www.wowkeren.com/berita/tampil/00035039.html
Die Welt (Germany): http://www.welt.de/print/die_welt/debatte/article116075457/Australisches-Flugobjekt.html
International Business Times (Japan): http://jp.ibtimes.com/articles/44047/20130511/305064.htm
Thanh Niem (Vietnam) http://www.thanhnien.com.vn/pages/20130512/khinh-khi-cau-ca-voi.aspx
De Redeactie.be (Belgium): http://www.deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws/videozone/ookdatnog/MV_130511_R_skywhale%2B%2B
Hoboktn (Russia): http://www.novosti.rs/vesti/naslovna/reportaze/aktuelno.293.html:433165-Dzinovska-kornjaca-za-100-godisnjicu-Kanbere
Novinky(Czech Republic): http://www.novinky.cz/koktejl/301597-nemravny-balon-s-poprsim-preletel-australii-provokoval-lidi.html
Schwabische(Germany): http://www.schwaebische.de/journal/vermischtes/aus-aller-welt_artikel,-Kunstwerk-als-Wal-mit-zehn-Bruesten-verunglimpft-_arid,5435857.html
World Journal (China): http://www.worldjournal.com/view/full_news/22546742/article-%E6%BE%B3%E9%A6%96%E9%83%BD%E7%99%BE%E6%AD%B2-%E9%80%81%E5%A4%A9%E9%AF%A8%E5%8D%87%E7%A9%BA?instance=news_pics
National
Daily Telegraph: http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/why-whale-over-an-ugly-turtle-full-of-hot-air/story-fni0cwl5-1226640612585
Fairfax regional: http://www.thecourier.com.au/story/1494424/skywhale-over-canberra/?cs=70
Australia glory: http://www.australiaglory.com/news/act-doesnt-own-skywhale
Urban dictionary: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Skywhale&defid=7049053
UnexplainedMysteries.com: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Skywhale&defid=7049053
Local
Blogs:
Blondeinc: http://blondeink.net/?p=2921
In The Taratory: http://inthetaratory.wordpress.com/2013/05/11/skywhale-launch/
Saturday 8 June 2013
mARTsketing: Aust Perf Arts Centres: How we failed and don't ev...
mARTsketing: Aust Perf Arts Centres: How we failed and don't ev...: Canberra recently hosted three performing arts conferences, the APACA Forum, The Australia Council's Marketing Summit and the Australian...
Aust Perf Arts Centres: How we failed and don't even realise it
Canberra recently hosted three performing arts conferences, the APACA Forum, The Australia Council's Marketing Summit and the Australian Theatre Forum.
I attended parts of each forum and it was during the middle of the week that it dawned on me, the subset of the performing arts industry that I work in (Government funded venues) have almost universally failed in our mission to be centres of creativity and culture for our respective communities and what's more, no one even realises this or even cares.
This is a pretty sweeping and damning statement and I make it not to pour scorn on the many, many dedicated professionals all over the country who are fighting the good fight and trying their best, I say that we have failed only because our overarching eco-system is fundamentally flawed.
Let me start with what I believe every subsidised venue across the country was probably designed for.
Pre WWII, there was no such thing as a performing arts centre, towns and cities had town halls, larger ones had commercial theatres and schools and universities had theatre spaces too. Their were thriving audiences for the works of JC Williamson, small touring opera companies and popular vaudeville entertainment.
Over the course of the Twentieth Century audiences for live performing arts were eroded by new initiatives, recorded sound, radio, movies, television, video and the Internet. People still saw something special in the art of live entertainment but it's numbers declined to the point where these forms of art began to disappear from our communities. So Governments did what Governments usually do when popular markets fail, they intervene in the hope that there is a vote in it.
And so this idea began to take hold, old run down Town Halls were gradually replaced by new state-of-the-art Performing Arts Centres, a couple in the Sixties, a few more in the Seventies and a veritable flood throughout the land as bicentennial projects in the Eighties. But why? Why build such structures?
For most Governments the stated rationale is "To create a place where the community can come together and share culture and experiences" .
Now this is where I believe most venue have failed especially those Council funded venues. Leaving aside the number of nights of community hire (Not because it not important, it is and should definitely be a KPI, but because Centre's don't have to do anything to get them other that offer a rate), you would be flat out finding a venue in the country that devoted any more than 15% of its activity to genuine community engagement programs - by this I mean the commissioning of local works, education programs, community out reach programs and the like. What should be the main gain for Arts Centres has become the sideline, the thing we do when we have time and spare money.
We sell our venues out to anyone who wants to rent them and stand up comics and licensed cartoon characters with foam heads swing through town and take our money and leave. But what of our subscription seasons you ask? Well I cannot see much difference between a touring show funded by Playing Australia swinging through town on a 1-3 night stand, playing, maybe offering up a Q and A forum, taking our money and leaving anymore than I do Ben 10 with a foam head and taped dialogue doing the same thing.
Each impacts on its desired audience in a certain way, but their is no engagement, no lasting legacy there is only the momentary impact of a nice night out and the McDonalds Touring Franchise that is the APACA touring route rolls on into the next town.
Venue hire and the snobbish belief that Season work is somehow more special, more impactful and more beneficial than other artforms have not just become the main game, for most venues across the country it has become the only game.
Instead of being genuine centres for the the betterment of the local population, each one unique with its own demographics and challenges, we all all just Subway outlets peddling the same menu - Happy Meals for the kids and 'posh' Angus burgers for the grown ups. And like a lot of fast food a short while later you are hungry again, for without genuine community involvement these meals lack nourishment.
You can't blame the Centre's of course they have budgets to meet, community programs generally come at a cost and the entire ecosystem is geared toward providing a nice little earner for the production companies. Without knowing it we have become subservient to the Opera Australia's and the The Bell Shakespeare's of our world, rolling into town in the belief that they will enlighten the unwashed masses and in 12 months time they will come back and do it all again.
There is also another reason why the model has failed and that is apart from a handful of indigenous touring production companies the works funded for touring almost universally exist within the European cannon of arts and culture. Think about this, how relevant is a Noel Coward play in the West of Sydney, where 55% of the population don't speak English at home? And most don't have butlers or apartments in Paris. And yet year after year the work is offered up and funded is WASP theatre. Again there are many many dedicated arts professionals working against the tide in the West of Sydney but when the ecosystem throws up works that are not relevant even in the slightest to the bulk of their population, those venues run the risk of being an anachronism. Forced to cater for an ever decreasing population of ageing white folk in a sea of people who never attend the venue except for school speech night, because there's nothing there for them.
So what to do? Overseas there are great companies such as Roadside Theater who only present work drawn directly from it's Appalachian community. Appalachia is an incredibly unique part of the US being dirt poor, rural and white, people in this part of the US really are different to the rest of the Country and culture runs deep in their veins, like the Welsh, music is a part of every home, the Carter Family came out of this region (Daughter June Carter married Johnny Cash) and practically invented country music as a genre. As a theatre they only produce work drawn from the community, the work is produced with the engagement of the community and one story about a court case had so much engagement that people stood up in the middle of the performance to argue about what took place. (Source: Counting New Beans)
This is an extreme example of course, 100% locally produced work and a clearly defined community and singular aim. However its lessons are there for us, unless our regional and suburban PAC's can invert the model and start making local engagement the main game rather than a sideline and unless they start to truly represent the diversity of their population and stop serving up theatre for WASPs. Our relevance will only continue to diminish.
A very good start would be to stop voting for franchise theatre at our annual show cases each year and say that unless your company is willing to invest something more that 3 nights on a 20 venue national tour we don't want you. We as venues need to demand more from our production companies, local acting workshops, school visits, the engagement of locals within certain parts of the performances (Another Counting New Beans example has a touring show that requires each venue to put to together a multi-racial local church choir together for the musical numbers otherwise it doesn't go there)
Anyhow, I'm sure I will offend some people with this post, but before you fire back with all the great programs you are running in your venue - tell this is it more than 15% of your total activity? Do you schedule any work in your season that isn't either European at heart or indigenous? Explain how your subscription season represents and impacts upon your local community.
The challenge is there, either convince me the model isn't broken or tell me how your venue is working to change the model because I'd love to hear about it.
I attended parts of each forum and it was during the middle of the week that it dawned on me, the subset of the performing arts industry that I work in (Government funded venues) have almost universally failed in our mission to be centres of creativity and culture for our respective communities and what's more, no one even realises this or even cares.
This is a pretty sweeping and damning statement and I make it not to pour scorn on the many, many dedicated professionals all over the country who are fighting the good fight and trying their best, I say that we have failed only because our overarching eco-system is fundamentally flawed.
Let me start with what I believe every subsidised venue across the country was probably designed for.
Pre WWII, there was no such thing as a performing arts centre, towns and cities had town halls, larger ones had commercial theatres and schools and universities had theatre spaces too. Their were thriving audiences for the works of JC Williamson, small touring opera companies and popular vaudeville entertainment.
Over the course of the Twentieth Century audiences for live performing arts were eroded by new initiatives, recorded sound, radio, movies, television, video and the Internet. People still saw something special in the art of live entertainment but it's numbers declined to the point where these forms of art began to disappear from our communities. So Governments did what Governments usually do when popular markets fail, they intervene in the hope that there is a vote in it.
And so this idea began to take hold, old run down Town Halls were gradually replaced by new state-of-the-art Performing Arts Centres, a couple in the Sixties, a few more in the Seventies and a veritable flood throughout the land as bicentennial projects in the Eighties. But why? Why build such structures?
For most Governments the stated rationale is "To create a place where the community can come together and share culture and experiences" .
Now this is where I believe most venue have failed especially those Council funded venues. Leaving aside the number of nights of community hire (Not because it not important, it is and should definitely be a KPI, but because Centre's don't have to do anything to get them other that offer a rate), you would be flat out finding a venue in the country that devoted any more than 15% of its activity to genuine community engagement programs - by this I mean the commissioning of local works, education programs, community out reach programs and the like. What should be the main gain for Arts Centres has become the sideline, the thing we do when we have time and spare money.
We sell our venues out to anyone who wants to rent them and stand up comics and licensed cartoon characters with foam heads swing through town and take our money and leave. But what of our subscription seasons you ask? Well I cannot see much difference between a touring show funded by Playing Australia swinging through town on a 1-3 night stand, playing, maybe offering up a Q and A forum, taking our money and leaving anymore than I do Ben 10 with a foam head and taped dialogue doing the same thing.
Each impacts on its desired audience in a certain way, but their is no engagement, no lasting legacy there is only the momentary impact of a nice night out and the McDonalds Touring Franchise that is the APACA touring route rolls on into the next town.
Venue hire and the snobbish belief that Season work is somehow more special, more impactful and more beneficial than other artforms have not just become the main game, for most venues across the country it has become the only game.
Instead of being genuine centres for the the betterment of the local population, each one unique with its own demographics and challenges, we all all just Subway outlets peddling the same menu - Happy Meals for the kids and 'posh' Angus burgers for the grown ups. And like a lot of fast food a short while later you are hungry again, for without genuine community involvement these meals lack nourishment.
You can't blame the Centre's of course they have budgets to meet, community programs generally come at a cost and the entire ecosystem is geared toward providing a nice little earner for the production companies. Without knowing it we have become subservient to the Opera Australia's and the The Bell Shakespeare's of our world, rolling into town in the belief that they will enlighten the unwashed masses and in 12 months time they will come back and do it all again.
There is also another reason why the model has failed and that is apart from a handful of indigenous touring production companies the works funded for touring almost universally exist within the European cannon of arts and culture. Think about this, how relevant is a Noel Coward play in the West of Sydney, where 55% of the population don't speak English at home? And most don't have butlers or apartments in Paris. And yet year after year the work is offered up and funded is WASP theatre. Again there are many many dedicated arts professionals working against the tide in the West of Sydney but when the ecosystem throws up works that are not relevant even in the slightest to the bulk of their population, those venues run the risk of being an anachronism. Forced to cater for an ever decreasing population of ageing white folk in a sea of people who never attend the venue except for school speech night, because there's nothing there for them.
So what to do? Overseas there are great companies such as Roadside Theater who only present work drawn directly from it's Appalachian community. Appalachia is an incredibly unique part of the US being dirt poor, rural and white, people in this part of the US really are different to the rest of the Country and culture runs deep in their veins, like the Welsh, music is a part of every home, the Carter Family came out of this region (Daughter June Carter married Johnny Cash) and practically invented country music as a genre. As a theatre they only produce work drawn from the community, the work is produced with the engagement of the community and one story about a court case had so much engagement that people stood up in the middle of the performance to argue about what took place. (Source: Counting New Beans)
This is an extreme example of course, 100% locally produced work and a clearly defined community and singular aim. However its lessons are there for us, unless our regional and suburban PAC's can invert the model and start making local engagement the main game rather than a sideline and unless they start to truly represent the diversity of their population and stop serving up theatre for WASPs. Our relevance will only continue to diminish.
A very good start would be to stop voting for franchise theatre at our annual show cases each year and say that unless your company is willing to invest something more that 3 nights on a 20 venue national tour we don't want you. We as venues need to demand more from our production companies, local acting workshops, school visits, the engagement of locals within certain parts of the performances (Another Counting New Beans example has a touring show that requires each venue to put to together a multi-racial local church choir together for the musical numbers otherwise it doesn't go there)
Anyhow, I'm sure I will offend some people with this post, but before you fire back with all the great programs you are running in your venue - tell this is it more than 15% of your total activity? Do you schedule any work in your season that isn't either European at heart or indigenous? Explain how your subscription season represents and impacts upon your local community.
The challenge is there, either convince me the model isn't broken or tell me how your venue is working to change the model because I'd love to hear about it.
Friday 15 March 2013
Take Part: Project update
Take Part is a brand that I invented to cover Canberra Theatre Centre's extended experience initiatives Like most theatres we had been doing pre show forums, post show Q and A's and ad hoc dance workshops for years but it took the case studies described in the book Counting New Beans and and the experience of watching the work of Big hART to crystallise into something more.
The genesis was that, and I think I have covered this before, Canberra Theatre Centre doesn't really make or commission any new work. We are, in strict marketing terms, a re-seller or a retailer of pre-existing product.
So in terms of contributing culturally to the community our primary function is then in the art of curating. The trouble with that is that because the work is created elsewhere there is little additional impact for our local community other than the social inclusion and aesthetic appreciation and perhaps for particular work various intellectual or social/political messages that patrons are left with.
So how to take what is effectively re-sold product but more actively engage with our community?
The answer was Take Part. Where other theatres could trumpet certain works being "live and local" we now had a program that said "come and be part of what we are doing, actively take part in the stories we are telling". As we all know the impact of a two-way participative experience versus a one way passive experience is much greater.
A simple message that worked wonders. what was previously an amorphous concept, suddenly became a sea of opportunities waiting to happen. The question "could this be a Take Part opportunity" became common place within our office walls. The answer was usually 'yes, of course!'.
Now twelve months on how is it going?
The answer is great.
We started in March last year with 20 odd people watching a free movie screening of Summer of the 17th Doll after our season of the same play, and 30-40 attending a social history seminar. We progressed towards a sold out (30-40) language workshop with Big hART for Ngapartji Ngapartji and now three shows into 2013 our three major Take Part programs all sold out. 60 people for an intimate morning tea with John Bell, 100 tickets booked for the Secret River social history talk and 250 people to hear Gill Hicks ahead of the play Thursday.
The program now has the capacity to attract an audience ten times the size of what we started with in just one year.
Crucially all the programs aim to add value and insight into the work on stage and all aim to give the partons the chance to engage actively with the work, Gill Hicks was most generous with her question time.
Having seen audiences grow to the point where this is now a project that has serious sustainability, the next step is to hopefully measure the intrinsic impact of those who attended
Take Part functions and saw the shows and those who did not. But as always these things take money so it's an ambition just now but we'll see,
I am very happy to discuss this initiative with those in the industry and nothing would pleas me more to see this model, shift us all out of post show Q&A land (but still keep doing these) and into wide new range of Take Part opportunities across the board.
It can work, we've seen it work, we now just need to show exactly what the impact is.
The genesis was that, and I think I have covered this before, Canberra Theatre Centre doesn't really make or commission any new work. We are, in strict marketing terms, a re-seller or a retailer of pre-existing product.
So in terms of contributing culturally to the community our primary function is then in the art of curating. The trouble with that is that because the work is created elsewhere there is little additional impact for our local community other than the social inclusion and aesthetic appreciation and perhaps for particular work various intellectual or social/political messages that patrons are left with.
So how to take what is effectively re-sold product but more actively engage with our community?
The answer was Take Part. Where other theatres could trumpet certain works being "live and local" we now had a program that said "come and be part of what we are doing, actively take part in the stories we are telling". As we all know the impact of a two-way participative experience versus a one way passive experience is much greater.
A simple message that worked wonders. what was previously an amorphous concept, suddenly became a sea of opportunities waiting to happen. The question "could this be a Take Part opportunity" became common place within our office walls. The answer was usually 'yes, of course!'.
Now twelve months on how is it going?
The answer is great.
We started in March last year with 20 odd people watching a free movie screening of Summer of the 17th Doll after our season of the same play, and 30-40 attending a social history seminar. We progressed towards a sold out (30-40) language workshop with Big hART for Ngapartji Ngapartji and now three shows into 2013 our three major Take Part programs all sold out. 60 people for an intimate morning tea with John Bell, 100 tickets booked for the Secret River social history talk and 250 people to hear Gill Hicks ahead of the play Thursday.
The program now has the capacity to attract an audience ten times the size of what we started with in just one year.
Crucially all the programs aim to add value and insight into the work on stage and all aim to give the partons the chance to engage actively with the work, Gill Hicks was most generous with her question time.
Having seen audiences grow to the point where this is now a project that has serious sustainability, the next step is to hopefully measure the intrinsic impact of those who attended
Take Part functions and saw the shows and those who did not. But as always these things take money so it's an ambition just now but we'll see,
I am very happy to discuss this initiative with those in the industry and nothing would pleas me more to see this model, shift us all out of post show Q&A land (but still keep doing these) and into wide new range of Take Part opportunities across the board.
It can work, we've seen it work, we now just need to show exactly what the impact is.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)