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Journalist Rupert Christiansen proposes cutting the Arts Council Grant for ENB and ENO


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33 minutes ago, Fonty said:

On the topic of what would sell outside London, do you think Les Sylphides would be popular?  I know that those of us who live in London are fortunate enough to see a lot of full length ballets, so I certainly love a mixed bill.  Provided, of course, that the majority of the works are classical ballet.  I am happy to sit through one piece that could be considered modern or "experimental", provided I get some tried and trusted classical stuff as well. 

Earlier on in this thread, various people said that mixed bills in major cities other than London don't seem to sell that many tickets.  I just wonder why that is. What exactly did these programmes consist of?  When I was a child, the RB touring company often brought mixed bills to my home town, and I am sure they wouldn't have done so had ticket sales been poor.  My recollection is that my parents had to make sure they got tickets as soon as they went on sale, or they were sold out. 

If they put a photograph of the corps de ballet or one of the ballerina soloists in their advertising posters and social media publicity (plus a video), absolutely. It’s an iconic image of ballet, dance, movement- and the gorgeous Chopin melodies. The Ukrainian ballerina Anna Muromtseva posted a video of herself on Instagram performing one of the solos, and it went viral. 

 

I think people don’t dare to market mixed bills nowadays - as though somehow being less than 2hours makes it too scary to mention by name! Then again, if not marketed properly, Giselle, Le Corsaire, La Bayadere etc can also slump at the box office. Sol Hurok, who brought many companies eg RB, LFB, Nureyev etc to the US in the past, once thought Giselle was box office poison!

 

Marketing and word of mouth are so important. The opening night of the mixed bill with Hofesh Schecter’s Untouchable wasn’t  just well attended as you’d expect first nights to be (critics attending, friends and family supporting) but packed out. Initially I wondered who they’d all come to see. After Untouchable ended, the audience (especially in the amphitheatre and balcony tiers) went wild. Somehow the word had got around to his fan base. It was the same for Akram Khan’s Dust-every performance that he was dancing in sold out very quickly. 

 

Nowadays, of course, ballet faces competition not just from tv, sport, and other arts,  but DVDs, Netflix and other streaming services, iPlayer and other on demand catch up tv, Nintendo/PlayStation and YouTube.....and there are still many former theatre enthusiasts I know who won’t go to theatres due to Covid risks to their precarious health. And this season, rising fuel, tickets, transport costs are also adding to the problem. 

 

That said, it’s not just ballet that has suffered lower sales- it’s the same for musicals, plays, classical music, opera, flower shows and sport. 

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Just now, Lizbie1 said:

I love Les Sylphides, but I worry that for the novice it might reinforce the negative stereotype of ballet being an effete art form.

 

Yes, it might; which is why a well-balanced bill is so important. (Not to mention an open-minded audience.)

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32 minutes ago, AnnabelCharles said:

I'm with PeterS here, Sim.

 

'Once we had all seen how bad it was' does seem to be quite a bald statement, and assumes everyone felt the same way. Of course you're entitled to your opinion - but so is Peter.  

 

I think it's politic to avoid expressing opinions as though they are facts ... or in some way superior to others' opinions.

 

I also found things to like in Frankenstein but I took Sim's original comment in the spirit in which it was made - amusing, pithy and to the point. Like a lot of the best posts on this forum.

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18 minutes ago, Fonty said:

 

Did your family give traditional ballets that description about archaic and patriarchal stereotypes, @AnnabelCharles?  Seems a trifle harsh, given that so many traditional ballets are based on fairy stories.  I do remember one earnest journalist, writing in one of the national newspapers, saying she never told her daughters stories such as the Sleeping Beauty, because the Prince kissing the Princess without her permission was totally unacceptable by today's standards. 

 

All I can say is that I have taken many, many people to the ballet over the years, and they all say the same thing.  What matters most is that the ballet tells a decent story.  They don't mind whether it is one of the traditional Tchaikovsky ballets, or the more modern dramatic ballets such as R & J (always hugely popular incidentally.)  On the other hand, none of them really like what my partner calls "too much wafting around with no point to it."

I think from a ballet and scientific point of view, certainly in the ballet and the child version of the fairy tale, the prince wasn’t kissing the princess to make advances without her permission but to resuscitate her from her magic induced coma. (I know the ancient origin of the fairy tale was reportedly a lot more sordid and unpleasant.) But as the Lilac Fairy says, the kiss is to wake her up- thereby waking the whole court up as well, so it has an altruistic purpose too. The kiss is certainly a lot less invasive than CPR.  😊

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17 minutes ago, Fonty said:

 

Did your family give traditional ballets that description about archaic and patriarchal stereotypes, @AnnabelCharles?  Seems a trifle harsh, given that so many traditional ballets are based on fairy stories.  I do remember one earnest journalist, writing in one of the national newspapers, saying she never told her daughters stories such as the Sleeping Beauty, because the Prince kissing the Princess without her permission was totally unacceptable by today's standards. 

 

All I can say is that I have taken many, many people to the ballet over the years, and they all say the same thing.  What matters most is that the ballet tells a decent story.  They don't mind whether it is one of the traditional Tchaikovsky ballets, or the more modern dramatic ballets such as R & J (always hugely popular incidentally.)  On the other hand, none of them really like what my partner calls "too much wafting around with no point to it."

 

I think the key thing is to explain the context to children for fairy tales or anything else.  I remember when I was a child my parents let me read whatever I wanted but we discussed things properly.  So for example when I read CS Lewis and didn't understand a line about "battle is an ugly thing when women are involved" I asked my mother and we had a long (age appropriate) discussion about feminism, Lewis's experiences of fighting on the Somme and the role of women in various wars during history.  Children need to learn to deal with problematic content so they can debate and challenge it, in my opinion.  

 

I would definitely agree that people tend to want a good story with a ballet (which is perhaps why mixed programmes are less popular than narrative ones) and I don't like too much wafting either.  I don't expect ballets to be realistic and part of the joy for me is the element of escapism.

 

I also think it's important to distinguish between enjoying a ballet or opera and agreeing with what the characters do.  I love Giselle for the dancing, but think Albrecht is a tosser and I'd have left him to the Wilis myself.  I love Cosi fan Tutti for the music and think some of the soprano arias are exquisite but don't like the storyline of taking advantage of your partner.

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3 minutes ago, bridiem said:

 

I also found things to like in Frankenstein but I took Sim's original comment in the spirit in which it was made - amusing, pithy and to the point. Like a lot of the best posts on this forum.

 

I'd add that the IIRC the critics didn't think much of it either. They don't always get things right, but taken together with the audience voting with their feet as they did for the second run, it's difficult to argue that Sim was far wide of the mark.

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1 hour ago, AnnabelCharles said:

I'm with PeterS here, Sim.

 

'Once we had all seen how bad it was' does seem to be quite a bald statement, and assumes everyone felt the same way. Of course you're entitled to your opinion - but so is Peter.  

 

I think it's politic to avoid expressing opinions as though they are facts ... or in some way superior to others' opinions.

 

For the record, I quite enjoyed Frankenstein - more the second time - and it certainly went down better with the younger generation in my family than traditional ballets, which have been described as 'reinforcing archaic and patriarchal stereotypes, with too many frilly white dresses'. 

 

 

Lighten up, Annabel.  As BridieM said, it was a jaunty remark.  BangorBalletBoy made a similar comment.   It seems no-one can make a fun comment anymore.
 

So let me re-phrase:  perhaps the reason that it didn’t sell well on its second run was because many people didn’t find enough positives in the ballet to encourage them to buy a ticket and see it again.  I don’t speak for all people of course (heaven forfend) but perhaps just for the seemingly large numbers who skipped it.   Others found things to like, which is fabulous, but aside from the set, I didn’t.  But that’s just my own opinion and I wouldn’t dream of ever speaking for anyone else, even when making a quip.  
 

There, I hope I have covered everything, but I am sure someone will point out if I have said the wrong thing, caused offence, or anything else.  

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I’m trying to work out if ENB had a “Frankenstein” in the last 5 or 6 years that might in any way justify RC’s comments. In other words, a new full length ballet put on for several runs that hardly anyone went to (after the first run). Can’t think of any. People are still going to Corsaire, and the Akram Khan Giselle sells out internationally. You could say their international tours are helping to subsidise their U.K. seasons! 

 

I still think RC wrote the article to shock on purpose. Because the alternative reason is simply daft to the point of being embarrassing. Also, ENB shouldn’t be expected to take on the sole responsibility of being a London based company that tours the country. Why shouldn’t  RB be expected to tour nationally too? They always used to- Fonteyn, Grey, Shearer et al, all did it. If RB started touring nationally more than ENB, then the article has a point. As it is, it’s just hot air. 

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46 minutes ago, Emeralds said:

I think from a ballet and scientific point of view, certainly in the ballet and the child version of the fairy tale, the prince wasn’t kissing the princess to make advances without her permission but to resuscitate her from her magic induced coma. (I know the ancient origin of the fairy tale was reportedly a lot more sordid and unpleasant.) 

 

This is interesting. The source for the ballet is unarguably Perrault's story from the late 17th century La
Belle au bois dormant.
Some older texts - Basile and earlier (which Perrault may have known but then again may not, the academic field of Perrault studies being heavily contested) - contain an assault but Perrault does not even have a kiss. The later Brothers Grimm version - Dornröschen - was used as a design source for the ballet (via the best known Russian translation which had illustrations by Doré) and this does contain a brief kiss, as does the printed libretto in the programme of the first production of the ballet in 1890 where the prince kisses Aurora on the forehead. 

 

Here is a translation of the relevant part of Perrault's story, which ends with what may be a sly French joke for the adults for whom it was written:

 

Reclining upon a bed, the curtains of which on every side were drawn back, was a princess of seemingly some fifteen or sixteen summers, whose radiant beauty had an almost unearthly luster. Trembling in his admiration he drew near and went on his knees beside her. At the same moment, the hour of disenchantment having come, the princess awoke, and bestowed upon him a look more tender than a first glance might seem to warrant. "Is it you, dear prince?" she said. "You have been long in coming!"
Charmed by these words, and especially by the manner in which they were said, the prince scarcely knew how to express his delight and gratification. He declared that he loved her better than he loved himself. His words were faltering, but they pleased the more for that. The less there is of eloquence, the more there is of love.
Her embarrassment was less than his, and that is not to be wondered at, since she had had time to think of what she would say to him. It seems that the good fairy had beguiled her long slumber with pleasant dreams. To be brief, after four hours of talking they had not succeeded in uttering one half of the things they had to say to each other.

 

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On 23/09/2022 at 16:59, TSR101 said:

If ENB can't tour successfully - and not being able to sell a ballet great like Manon (even if their production is truly awful) in a major city like Manchester is not being able to tour successfully - then you have to question whether they do actually meet their purpose. If they can only sell a good proportion of tickets in a venue in London, then we should ask whether we (as a country) want another London based internationally touring classical ballet company in the UK (personally the critic's proposition to cutting it down to a small contemporary company to tour tiny regional theatres has no appeal to me). At the moment, they are not either, they aren't a great London/International company either as their repertoire is just not varied enough (even though Rojo made good improvements). With the loss of their best dancers, they don't have the dancing talent to compete against the better European companies even those outside the big four.

Speaking as someone who resides on the other side of the Big Pond, I think of English National Ballet (ENB) as having a blurred image. It's as if it doesn't know what it wants to be - an internationally-renowned classical ballet company whose reputation is tied to London or a "meat and potatoes" touring company.

 

My tendency is always to think of the ENB/Royal Ballet dynamic in London paralleling that of American Ballet Theatre (ABT) and New York City Ballet in New York (w/ ENB and ABT being mirror images of one another.) But that isn't quite right because ABT's identity is first and foremost tied to New York and they tour because they want to and not because someone is telling them they have to.

 

So, with ENB, I come back to my initial observation: What does it want to be? It seems as if it's trying to two do things at once and those two things are working at cross purposes with one another.

 

(TSR101 - I would be curious to know which companies you consider the "big four" - Bolshoi, Mariinsky, Royal, Paris Opera?)

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1 hour ago, miliosr said:

Speaking as someone who resides on the other side of the Big Pond, I think of English National Ballet (ENB) as having a blurred image. It's as if it doesn't know what it wants to be - an internationally-renowned classical ballet company whose reputation is tied to London or a "meat and potatoes" touring company.

 

 

 

Surely, the only "internationally-renowned classical ballet company whose reputation is tied to London" is the Royal Ballet.  And I don 't know what you mean by a "meat and potatoes" touring company.  To me, that conjures up a small company, which tours with a pared down version of the classics such as Swan Lake that will fit into theatres with reduced stage space.  In fact, the very thing that Mr Christiansen seems to be suggesting ENB should become, albeit with some trendy new modern choreography, rather than old fashioned classical ballet. 

 

I can't pass comment on whether ENB is internationally renowned, but I should certainly hope that BRB, has that reputation.  I shudder to think of either being referred to as a "meat and potatoes" touring company.  I have seen wonderful productions by both companies, especially BRB, whose standard of classical dancing has often surpassed that of the RB IMO.

 

 

 

 

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On 24/09/2022 at 11:12, bangorballetboy said:


That’s because we’d seen it!

I think you need to change your wording, BBB.  Instead of saying 'we' I think you need to say 'I' or 'many of us who had seen it chose not to go again.'  That way you won't be accused of speaking for 'everyone' and making a jaunty,crass or simplistic quip that offends... :)  (smiley emoji to show that I am being tongue-in-cheek and not serious)

 

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44 minutes ago, maryrosesatonapin said:

I quite enjoyed Frankenstein.  OK, it wasn't perfect by any means, but it was considerably more enjoyable than Khan's Giselle.  I just don't understand the popularity of the latter...  and as for the 'score'!! 

 

I loved Khan's Giselle - it was his 'Creature' which had me looking skywards and/or for the exit

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4 hours ago, Tango Dancer said:

I also think it's important to distinguish between enjoying a ballet or opera and agreeing with what the characters do. 

This. So much appalling behaviour in both the fairy tales and the more modern works; I (thankfully) don't have to agree with the character to applaud the dancer. 

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2 hours ago, Fonty said:

 

And I don 't know what you mean by a "meat and potatoes" touring company.  To me, that conjures up a small company, which tours with a pared down version of the classics such as Swan Lake that will fit into theatres with reduced stage space.  In fact, the very thing that Mr Christiansen seems to be suggesting ENB should become, albeit with some trendy new modern choreography, rather than old fashioned classical ballet. 

 

I shudder to think of either being referred to as a "meat and potatoes" touring company.

Actually, all I meant by "meat and potatoes" was exactly what you wrote - "old fashioned classical ballet". And in a sea of disastrous "modern choreography" premieres (see the latest bomb at the Paris Opera Ballet), I use "meat and potatoes" as the highest form of compliment. Beyond that, we'll just have to agree to disagree. 😊

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1 hour ago, Candleque said:

Back to the Rupert article, you may have seen Tamara Rojo's response. She commented extensively on Graham Watt's Instagram post on the topic, including what she wrote to the Editor of The Spectator. It is public but long, so am not pasting it here (but maybe mods want to)

 

Is there any chance anyone could post Rojo's response? Or would that break the forum rules? I am unable to see it on Instagram, no longer having an account.

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1 hour ago, Candleque said:

Back to the Rupert article, you may have seen Tamara Rojo's response. She commented extensively on Graham Watt's Instagram post on the topic, including what she wrote to the Editor of The Spectator. It is public but long, so am not pasting it here (but maybe mods want to)

Thanks for posting the link here, Candleque. Having reread it again, I also take issue with his dismissive, false and a tad racist put down that no stars were nurtured under Rojo’s watch. It’s back to that old fallacy “if you’ look Japanese, South American or have a non-English name, you must have trained abroad or cone from another country- you can’t possibly be British trained or have British citizenship”.

 

Shiori Kase and Ksenia Ovsyanick might  have began their training in Japan and Belarus respectively, but they did train at the Royal Ballet School and ENB School for the crucial pre-professional years. Although both were hired by Eagling, they both received opportunities, guidance and coaching during Rojo’s time, and significantly both got given lead roles (eg Medora, Clara, Odette/Odile) while still at quite junior rank by Rojo. Kase was promoted  by Rojo on the Paris Opera stage to principal, Ovsyanick got headhunted for a principal position by Staatsballett Berlin while still a soloist at ENB- who wouldn’t take it up? I would!

 

Laurretta Summerscales likewise had the same guidance and nurturing under Rojo’s leadership and really started developing as an artist after that. The fact that she chose to join her husband Yonah Acosta when he went to Munich shortly after her promotion to principal is also her prerogative - being British born and trained doesn’t mean she’s obliged to dance in Britain for the rest of her life. We could equally go on about the men: Cesar Corrales, Aitor Arrieta, etc. Julia Conway, Emily Suzuki, Rhys Antoni Yeomans, Daniel McCormick and Ivana Bueno were all hired by Rojo and while not yet principals, they are very nearly or on their way there and all have developed considerably since joining the company, and all have fans in Britain and abroad who agree they are stars of the near future.

 

I also take issue with his comment that ENO has “no stars”- considering that David Butt Philip, Christine Rice, Natalya Romaniuw, Nadine Benjamin, Nicky Spence and Toby Spence (not related to each other) all sing lead roles at both ENO and Royal Opera (all British and British trained!), he seems to believe that when they’re at ENO, they’re nobodies but when they step into the Royal Opera House they magically turn into other people who are stars. It’s ridiculous.

 

So he pooh poohs the idea that It’s A Wonderful Life can be a good opera before he’s even heard it? I wonder if he was similarly dismissive about Anna Nicole- a Royal Opera creation that was dismissed by some before it had even premiered. Yes, sure the ENO doesn’t hire the very expensive divas and tenors that often make headlines for the wrong reasons. I think the audience wants to hear a great performance when they go to an opera, not necessarily a performance that was ultra expensive and wrought with offstage drama. 

 

I’m glad to see Tamara Rojo has written in to the magazine as well as on Instagram to set him straight. 

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17 minutes ago, Dawnstar said:

 

Is there any chance anyone could post Rojo's response? Or would that break the forum rules? I am unable to see it on Instagram, no longer having an account.

Dawnstar, I can see and read it by clicking on the link (and I have ancient devices) and I have never had an Instagram account. I just have to scroll slowly.  Try clicking on Candleque’s link? 

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I did try the link but all I got was the main post, I was unable to see any comments. When I looked again just now all I could get was the Instagram login screen. Instagram really seems to hate me! Fortunately a kind forum member has privately sent me a copy of the comment so I have now been able to read it.

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6 hours ago, miliosr said:

Speaking as someone who resides on the other side of the Big Pond, I think of English National Ballet (ENB) as having a blurred image. It's as if it doesn't know what it wants to be - an internationally-renowned classical ballet company whose reputation is tied to London or a "meat and potatoes" touring company.

 

My tendency is always to think of the ENB/Royal Ballet dynamic in London paralleling that of American Ballet Theatre (ABT) and New York City Ballet in New York (w/ ENB and ABT being mirror images of one another.) But that isn't quite right because ABT's identity is first and foremost tied to New York and they tour because they want to and not because someone is telling them they have to.

 

So, with ENB, I come back to my initial observation: What does it want to be? It seems as if it's trying to two do things at once and those two things are working at cross purposes with one another.

 

(TSR101 - I would be curious to know which companies you consider the "big four" - Bolshoi, Mariinsky, Royal, Paris Opera?)

ENB/London Festival Ballet has been a top level company since it was founded by Markova and Dolin in 1950. It has always been one of the top five classical ballet companies in the country - the others being RB, BRB, Northern Ballet, Scottish Ballet. The comparison with ABT is not unreasonable considering ABT has also hovered close to bankruptcy or closure several times. Like ABT, ENB/LFB was late in establishing its own school, taking graduates from SAB (ABT) or RBS (ENB/LFB) as well as a variety of other schools, although both ABT & ENB now have them, and very good schools they both are. ENB/LFB also takes in a lot of established stars who trained abroad- ABT’s most high profile being Baryshnikov, ENB/LFB’s being Nureyev (Makarova danced with both, and also extensively with RB). 

 

Growing up, the image I always had of RB and LFB (later ENB) from books and their souvenir publications was that RB was the company that nurtured Ashton, MacMillan (and Cranko), and would present the Ashton and MacMillan gems regularly, but if you wanted a guarantee of being able to see the traditional classics of Nutcracker, Swan Lake & Giselle, LFB was the company that would present them regularly. RB didn’t always present Nutcracker every year like they do now. 

 

Every so often, some well meaning journalists and commentators (and some not so well meaning!) would carp about whether it was right to have a company whose leads were mostly international stars who had trained abroad, and shouldn’t they stop doing that and nurture local talent to fill the principal ranks instead. Everyone would agree that yes, local talent should be trained, and nurtured to fulfill their potential. Then the moment they’d finished typing or chatting over their tea, they’d be the first to book tickets for Eva Evdokimova, Nureyev, Marcia Haydee, Richard Cragun, Elisabetta Terabust, Peter Schaufuss, etc etc at LFB/ENB! And likewise the critics of ABT.

 

Face it- as there’s a limit on how many guest stars RB & NYCB can take on, audiences (and that includes critics) are secretly glad that ENB & ABT does have guest stars or principals who were already established stars when they joined . I am very fond of the RB and BRB teams, but am also thrilled ENB/Rojo brought Frola, Cirio, Dronina, Lendorf, Kochetkova, Mack, Allen, Vireilles, Gouneo etc over to dance with the company. And without ENB, we would have lost Muntagirov, Corrales, Acosta and even Rojo herself to other companies abroad, and lost Cojocaru to Hamburg forever after she left RB.

 

ENB is definitely a company with London base that performs in London, in other British cities and abroad-rather like ABT, really. I don’t think it’s incompatible to be in London some of the time and in other cities at other times. 

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Sorry I’m a bit late here now but going back to Bluebirds posting of Les Sylphides …Thankyou …such a beautiful piece… does anyone know the name of the dancer in the top clip who is centre stage initially …in the group of three ..I thought she really captured the essence of that piece. So essential to keep the softer arms and expression beautiful soulful dancing.  Amazing Maina Gielguds direct link back to Karsavina!! 
I haven’t read Tamara’s response to original post yet but will do later today. 

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17 hours ago, LinMM said:

Sorry I’m a bit late here now but going back to Bluebirds posting of Les Sylphides …Thankyou …such a beautiful piece… does anyone know the name of the dancer in the top clip who is centre stage initially …in the group of three ..I thought she really captured the essence of that piece. So essential to keep the softer arms and expression beautiful soulful dancing.  

 

That was Crystal Costa, a truly lovely dancer.  If I remember correctly, she was the winner of the People's Choice award in the very first Emerging Dancer competition (2010?).

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On 25/09/2022 at 23:55, alison said:

 

I think, as our culture, as well as our society, becomes increasingly fragmented, it must be getting harder and harder to hit your target audience, which helps nobody.  I mean, if you're posting on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook and TikTok (is that a viable option in this case?) AND at the same time trying to catch the attention of those who still read hard-copy newspapers / travel on the London Underground / listen to Radio 3 / [insert other favoured mode of communication here] you must be spreading yourself very thinly, and at no doubt considerable cost. 

Those electronic methods are all very well, but presumably are ring-fenced to those who have effectively signed up to them: if you've chosen to follow an organisation on social media, that's one thing, but how does that organisation reach out beyond that to potentially-interested audiences?  What effect has GDPR had on organisations' ability to communicate with the general public?  Badly-thought-out cookie permission pages which just leave you so frustrated at your inability to tailor them to your real requirements that you end up hitting "Reject All" because you can't be bothered trying to tiptoe through the minefield, and therefore mean that you don't get shown adverts that might be of interest?  Frustratingly-designed websites which don't really fulfil their primary function of making it easy to find information ...

And then there are the venues which hold the marketing data but don't necessarily share it with the performing organisation (are they even allowed to these days?)  I was quite surprised recently to find an email from one of said organisations dangling a carrot in front of me to try and persuade me to come to one of their performances because I apparently hadn't returned to them since the pandemic.  Except ... I had.  Probably several times.  But how were they to know, given that I'd booked in person at the venue (thus avoiding the booking fee)?  I may even have been classed as a walk-up, and my details not taken at all.  It's all very difficult.

 

On the printed-matter side, well, we know the Royal Opera House has gone paperless (although I did notice a physical poster for Mayerling on the Tube.  Sadler's Wells, I suspect, may be heading in that direction: its "season brochure" is now 2 sides of a piece of card which literally just tells you title, artists and dates, but nothing more that might tempt you - and the Peacock Theatre, although having numerous leaflet holders, had no leaflets in them during The Trocks' recent season.  I picked up a copy of the London Planner from my local library: it seems to cover West End shows but not, as far as I could see, dance, opera and classical music.  Time Out has bitten the dust - although it hadn't been a reliable source of entertainment information for years anyway.  At least one member of the weekend "quality" press which used to provide reasonable information about what was on arts-wise around the country is acting as though we're still mid-lockdown and barely publishing anything ... I could go on, but won't, as it's too depressing, but it must be losing the arts organisations a significant number of their patrons who don't primarily look online for their information.

 

As my digression into how to publicise productions has led to a bit of a digression, I've separated it off into a new thread here:

 

 

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