Mailing lists are great. Sign up to one and, on a regular basis, suggestions for interesting things to do will drop into your inbox. What’s not to love about that? They’re especially good for getting to grips with a new city.
The problem is that they’re sometimes not all that easy to discover. To the best of my knowledge, there isn’t a handy mailing list repository that anyone can search. So I thought I’d kick something off.
If there’s anything wrong on the spreadsheet (for example, dodgy URLs or long-dead lists) or if you can think of any ways to improve this then please leave a comment below.
NB: Ideally, I’m looking for what’s on mailing lists that cover events in a particular geographic areas (regions, cities, etc). I’m not looking for the mailing list for your individual venue/theatre company/band/whatever.
I’ll check for submissions and update the spreadsheet above on a semi-regular basis. I’d open it up more, but I’ve seen this sort of thing get abused by spammers before so am going to take on a bit of admin to prevent that.
A couple of thanks
With thanks to Jake Orr (@jakeyoh) for kinda prompting me to do this and Alex Jones (@jones_alex) for kicking off this list a little while back.
we’re wanting to open up the floor to talk about pushing what we do in arts marketing and PR to it’s limits. With the digital world being so important, do we need to rethink the tried and tested methods that so many still rely on today? Can we learn from what people are doing in other disciplines? Is a fundamental shift required in how we perceive audience, community and promotion?
This time, I’d very kindly been asked to join the panel for the discussion alongside:
Looking back, it’s funny how many of the points I made are sat as unfinished posts for this blog. They included thoughts about how arts marketing conferences could be improved, where the arts and culture sector should be looking to learn lessons on marketing and PR and why it’s not always helpful to think of ‘doing social media’ on a budget/in your spare time.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about the evening for me was the sense that everyone that room had an idea of how they want to take their craft forward – they just feel constrained by a range of circumstances. If those obstacles to progress could be identified and overcome (and there were some smart people at the event) then maybe things might improve.
Thanks to the Twepsians folks for inviting me along to speak, to everyone else who was there for contributing to the chat and to Mobius for sponsoring.
Oh, and Richard Herring and Stewart Lee turned up to the pub later on. Somewhere I’ve got a Fist of Fun tour ticket from 1995(ish) with their signatures on.
The Taking Part Survey collects data about engagement and non-engagement in culture, leisure and sport in England and has been going for about six years now.
As I say, I’ve just copied the bits from the statistical release (PDF) that refer to digital participation. Emphasis (in bold) is mine.
Heritage:
Since 2005/06, the proportion of people visiting heritage websites increased from 18.3 per cent to 27.5 per cent. Between 2005/06 and July 2010 to June 2011, the proportion of people who visited a heritage website to take a virtual tour of a heritage site remained steady (27.9% of people had done this in July 2010 to June 2011).
Museums & galleries:
In July 2010 to June 2011, 25.6 per cent of adults had visited a museum or gallery website, an increase from 15.8 per cent in 2005/06.Between 2008/09 and July 2010 to June 2011, there were increases in the proportions of people visiting a museum or gallery website to book tickets (from 47.5% to 53.4%) or to find out about a subject (from 46.5% to 50.8%). Meanwhile the proportion visiting to look at a collection remained steady (21.0% in July 2010 to June 2011)
Arts:
In July 2010 to June 2011, 42.7 per cent of adults had visited a theatre or concert website, a significant increase from 30.5 per cent in 2005/06. Of those who had visited a theatre or concert website, the top three reasons were: buying tickets for an arts performance or exhibition (67.8%), looking up information about arts events (63.1%) and downloading music (11.3%).
Archives:
People are more likely to visit an archive or records office online than in person. In July 2010 to June 2011, 11.2 per cent of adults had visited an archive or records office website in the last 12 months, a significant increase from 9.7 per cent in 2005/06. Of those who had visited an archive or records office website, 63.2 per cent had done so to view digitised documents, 30.4 per cent had searched a catalogue while 19.8 per cent had completed a transaction.
Libraries:
In July 2010 to June 2011, 16.5 per cent of adults had visited a library website in the last 12 months, a significant increase from 8.9 per cent in 2005/06. Of those who had visited a library website, 76.6 per cent had searched and viewed online information or made an enquiry. 38.9 per cent had completed a transaction, e.g. reserve or renew items, pay a fine.
What does ‘Digital Participation’ mean?
Interesting question, I’m glad you asked. The report tells us that, for the purposes of the Taking Part survey, digital participation includes visiting websites for at least one of the following reasons:
Museum or gallery website – To look at items from a collection.
Museum or gallery website – To find out about a particular subject.
Library website – To complete a transaction (e.g. reserve or renew items, pay a fine).
Library website – To search and view online information or make an enquiry.
Heritage website – To take a virtual tour of a historical site.
Theatre or concert website – To download music.
Theatre or concert website – To view or download an arts performance or exhibition.
Theatre or concert website – To discuss the arts or share artworks.
Archive or records office website – To complete a transaction.
Archive or records office website – To view digitized documents online.
Archive or records office website – To search a catalogue.
Which is interesting – it makes me wonder what proportion of museum, gallery, theatre or concert websites have that kind of content or functionality.
When you go to the theatre why don’t you see trailers?
This question’s been bugging me for a few weeks now. After all, when was the last time you went to the cinema and didn’t see trailers? Why the difference? In both cases you’ve got a captive audience of a few hundred (or maybe even a couple of thousand) people all facing the same direction and open to being entertained.
It’s not just the theatre either (and I’ll include plays, musicals, opera, dance and comedy in that). There’s rarely anything at concerts or gigs where the crowd is left standing around for 30-45mins waiting for the next band to set up.
Content
Actually, ‘trailers’ is probably a bit misleading. I get that a noisy video trailer for an upcoming show might not hit the the right tone, but there are all sorts of things that can be put on a screen.
How about a (silent) slideshow of upcoming events? That wouldn’t be so invasive, would probably do the job and needn’t be too time-consuming or expensive to pull together.
Or you could put up:
info about fundraising campaigns (perhaps with a JustTextGiving code) or educational/outreach projects the venue is involved in.
mentions of social media channels people could subscribe to – many of them will be sat there with mobiles on them, after all.
links to extra info about the show. You could even put up a big QR code if you thought you could handle that much ugly all at once (not that many people would know what to do with it).
commercial adverts – sorry to get all money-grabbing, but why not?
I’m sure that, given five minutes thought, you could come up with all sorts of creative/fun/useful alternatives for those screens.
Feasibility
Setting up a screen (or projecting on to something else) temporarily can’t be that difficult – after all, I’ve seen more impressive things done on stage. At the Hippodrome alone I can think of three different ways I’ve seen screens used recently:
I saw Carlos Acosta there a few weeks back and at one point in the show there was a massive video piece projected on to a screen that filled the stage.
For my sins, I saw Strictly Come Dancing last year and that featured video contributions from one of the judges, with a screen wheeled on stage quickly each time it was needed.
The Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Royal Gala Performance I saw last year (I know, get me) featured large TV screens placed all around the theatre.
Come to think of it, the NME used to bring screens to the O2 Academy for their tours. Between bands they showed promos for the magazine, the tour sponsor and the bands.
What I’m saying is it can be done and in various ways. Of course I’ve really not got much of an idea of the cost/logistics involved so am ready and willing to be shot down mercilessly in the comments.
Finances
I remember when we were offered the unit in the Bullring for the Created in Birmingham shop, the alternative was for the shopping centre to sell the window space to a display advertising company who would serve up adverts to the passing crowds. Those screens would have paid for themselves very quickly indeed.
Would the same be true for theatre screens? There might be a direct financial benefit in terms of tickets sold and funds raised. I’ve no idea about the logistics involved, there are some happily established cinema advertising networks out there. I wonder what it would take to tap into those.
What’s the obstacle?
Is it artistic? Financial? Logistical? Is there some indication that audiences would object?
Inside auditorium I haven’t met a director that would allow. In foyer I guess it’s a resource (lack of) thing
Which was interesting because, come to think of it, I can think of a few larger arts centres that use screens in and around their foyers, making their absence from auditoriums that bit more glaring.
I’m pretty sure this isn’t an amazingly revolutionary idea – someone must have looked into this before. Or someone must be doing it. I realise I don’t know much about the practicalities involved here and it’s been bugging me, so if anyone could shed any light I’d be grateful.
Typical. I hit publish and minutes later find this post from LondonDance.com about Sadler’s Wells (a client, no less) trying out cinema-style trailers of upcoming shows in 2009. I wonder how it went. Are there any more examples?
Last night I got to enjoy Stan’s Cafe‘s new production, Tuning Out with Radio Z, from a fairly unique perspective. I say fairly unique because there were four others who were tucked up in beds arranged around the stage at the mac.
It was a strange experience.
We took our positions 10 minutes before the doors to the theatre opened and only got up after the audience left, so I’ve no idea how many people were there watching.
I didn’t get to see any of the action on stage from where I was lying and, when I was told I could get up, I was surprised there was that much paraphernalia lying around.
Without the visual part of the show it was like listening to 4 hours of Blue Jam.
Although the focus is on two radio show presenters, reality and perspective slides sideways and backwards quite regularly. It was smoothly conveyed through speech and, the more I think about how they achieved the effect, the more impressive it seems.
The music was really good – I particularly enjoyed a bit of Spiritualized and will be digging out Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space soonish. They played my fave Girls Aloud tune too.
We weren’t given much direction or told what to expect, or at least no-one told me anything other than to lie down and look asleep. When Craig dashed over to me and started shouting questions in my ear – “Can you hear me? Can you open your eyes? Blink if you can hear me” – I was a tad surprised and not sure how to react. I figured the safest thing would be to not react. Good choice, I reckon.
There was a part where. I gather, we sleeping forms were non-responsive patients in a hospital. There was an extended period of no action on stage and I shifted slightly, making Craig run over, all hopeful that I could be roused. I wonder if they were waiting for one of us to move or if he just improvised around that.
As for what the show was about, I’m not sure. It was an improvised performance that took the theme (that night) of ‘shooting’. Things or people being missing provided a major thread – opportunities not taken, the shock of people being taken and events happening in other places. The story of Orpheus and Eurydice was told with small alterations.
Gemma Thomas, who was in the audience, said that she was moved more than expected by the last hour.
UPDATE
Ah, I’ve just found the tracklisting online via the joy of the Stan’s Cafe Last.fm account. I was there from Donna Summer onwards.
