How to promote ballet

[Lindsay]

Because Vivaldi is literally the only possible permitted soundtrack? 

[Lindsay]

ps. I have a very good understanding of music licensing thank you, and was not saying that the music from WT should have been used.  Rather that a very cliched on-hold-to-a-call-centre piece of Vivaldi was not an inspired choice.

 

 

[bangorballetboy]

3 minutes ago, Lindsay said:

Because Vivaldi is literally the only possible permitted soundtrack? 

 

No, but I doubt they could use any Joby Talbot or much that is similar.

[bangorballetboy]

1 minute ago, Lindsay said:

ps. I have a very good understanding of music licensing thank you, and was not saying that the music from WT should have been used.  Rather that a very cliched on-hold-to-a-call-centre piece of Vivaldi was not an inspired choice.

 

 

 

Thank you for your explanation, which is significantly more nuanced (and useful) than your original post.

[Dawnstar]

I see that the ROH website currently has Winter's Tale and the 2 Ashton triple bills showing up as the first 3 items under What's On, rather than everything being listed in date order as is usually the case. I wonder if this is an attempt to try to boost ticket sales for these productions?

[art_enthusiast]

On 20/04/2024 at 16:14, Scheherezade said:

And as someone who purchases a healthy dose of both ballet and opera tickets, I never get offers for either. 

 

What's funny is I bought my Macmillan Triple ticket on my sister's ROH account - just randomly because I happened to be logged into hers.

 

Then I got the offer code sent to me later because apparently I hadn't bought any seats, I guess.

 

For The Winter's Tale, I did the same thing (again by accident) - got my tickets on my sister's account so it probably looks like I haven't bought any. I haven't received any discount offers this time though. So, who knows what the pattern is here

[Dawnstar]

12 minutes ago, art_enthusiast said:

Then I got the offer code sent to me later because apparently I hadn't bought any seats, I guess.

 

If that is the reason for people being sent or not being sent offers then I don't really get their logic. Surely they cannot be unaware that, particularly for ballet, there are many people who see multiple performances during a run? So why not send the offers to everyone, to encourage repeat bookings as well as single bookings? I know they're obsessed with getting in new audiences but if offers are being sent to those who have seen other performances at the ROH then they're not new audiences anyway.

[Lindsay]

1 hour ago, bangorballetboy said:

 

Thank you for your explanation, which is significantly more nuanced (and useful) than your original post.

Thank you.  I now consider myself both reprimanded and patted on the head.

[Peanut68]

On 15/05/2024 at 19:11, Missfrankiecat said:

 I am getting more and more browned off by the freebies being given to social media influencers.  Frankly not all have that big a following (at least one with less than 5k was comped opera within the last few weeks who has previously had ballet) and none seem to have any noticeable arts interests, let alone ballet.  I have noticed in recent months at least two 'Studytubers' - YouTubers who talk about academic life at school/uni - getting comps, despite having predominantly school age followings.  This is hardly going to generate sales of expensive opera/ballet tickets and yet these young women are being given stalls tickets, apparently with no obligation to give any strategised advertising other than saying where they are.  It's bizarre.

‘Powers that be trying to prove they ‘are down with the kids’ 

Lord help us 

[art_enthusiast]

16 hours ago, Peanut68 said:

‘Powers that be trying to prove they ‘are down with the kids’ 

 

Even the kids aren't down with  the kids 😂 Speaking as someone who used to be into influencers but now has them all on mute. It's happening more often these days, people aren't as interested in celeb/influencer culture as they used to be. 

Edited May 17 by art_enthusiast

[Lindsay]

20 minutes ago, art_enthusiast said:

 

Even the kids aren't down with  the kids 😂 Speaking as someone who used to be into influencers but now has them all on mute. It's happening more often these days, people aren't as interested in celeb/influencer culture as they used to be. 

I think also most people have now learned spot a paid/gifted social media promotion much more easily than they used to, so their powers of persuasion are diminished accordingly.

[art_enthusiast]

19 hours ago, Lindsay said:

I think also most people have now learned spot a paid/gifted social media promotion much more easily than they used to, so their powers of persuasion are diminished accordingly.

Yes indeed. Legally, influencers have to declare the #ad in anything that is a paid promotion.

[zxDaveM]

On 16/05/2024 at 22:34, Peanut68 said:

‘Powers that be trying to prove they ‘are down with the kids’ 

 

 

the marketing team jumping on the bandwagon, after the bandwagon has a broken its axle after careering into a ditch...

[Beryl H]

I'm not sure I can describe the mess I got into yesterday, I had booked an extra WT ticket only the evening before, and tried to buy a discounted one for the same performance and cancel the original, but it didn't work anyway. I then thought I'd like to see Sarah Lamb on the final performance and couldn't get the code to work for that either, so paid full price.

 

Were Saturday performances included in the offer, perhaps that's the reason?

 

 

[LinMM]

There were only selected dates : 21st May 24th May the 27th May evening performance only and the 28th May. 

[Emeralds]

The non-discounted Winter's Tale. performances (the Nunez and Cuthbertson shows and the 1 June show) should have been discounted as well, as there were over 200 unsold seats (middle range prices and highest range prices) the morning of the 22 May performance. Currently still over 400 unsold seats at the 27 May matinee and 1 June performances mostly at the middle prices (£49 to £99) and top prices (above £100) .

 

I know they wish to prioritise selling the other shows first, but if any potential audience members can only go on a Saturday night or Bank Holiday afternoon, then selling a few hundred tickets at 60% of the original price is better than selling none, since the tickets, like vegetables or plane tickets are perishable- if you didn't sell off today's show today, you can't put it back on the shelf and hope it sells tomorrow, when the performance has been completed.

Edited May 23 by Emeralds

[alison]

Seeing the attempts other companies make to garner interest - standing outside Sadler's Wells, the ROH etc. with flyers - I wonder if any attempts are being made to "harvest" the audiences for MJ The Musical on the basis of "you've seen one Wheeldon, now try another"?   Except that the ROH is paperless, so presumably they don't do flyers.  A shame: they could have had Winter's Tale on one side and an advert for next season's Alice with booking opening dates on the other.  Now, that might bring in a new audience.

[Jan McNulty]

A BRB/museum collaboration:

 

 

[Peanut68]

On 23/05/2024 at 16:12, Emeralds said:

you didn't sell off today's show today, you can't put it back on the shelf and hope it sells tomorrow, when the performance has been completed.

Too true…. But there is a danger that if it becomes common place to ‘yellow sticker’ & sell cheap tickets at their ‘use by’ date then many will wait to buy at the last minute….not helping the situation. 

Heres a radical suggestion….just set original RRP more realistically based on prices audiences are willing to pay well in advance to make planning for all better! And how pray do they find this out? Ah… conduct some real in person customer research with actual customers from all levels of audience regularity/engagement & maybe even try reaching out (there’s a good marketing comms phrase!) to those who don’t go to find out why not & what would make them go…??

Asking questions with opportunities for real answers rather than nonsense tick box ‘how likely are you to xxxx’

’how satisfied are you with xxx’ and then the usual Very/possibly/not/never type of response that actually informs very little of any relevance. 
I’ve felt my responses have mostly been wanted on bars/restaurants/food & drinks to be frank & felt they seem mostly about trying to identify how to get more money from me once I’ve bought a ticket to a ballet!! Not actually about how to get me to buy further tickets to ballet!! 
Spare me….

 

Edited May 24 by Peanut68