Chad Baumann, new Director of Marketing and Communications at Arena Stage has an interesting situation. In his blog, he notes that the Arena Stage will be closing down for the next two and a half years to construct a new $125 million theatre complex.

During that time, the organization will perform at two separate spaces in Virgina! Chad’s problem is that for the last 50 years, people have been attending performances in Washington, DC and are now faced with crossing the Potomac, a much bigger psychic obstacle than physical one.

Chad understands that if he doesn’t make the river crossing as painless as possible for the quarter million people who attend every year, he may lose a significant portion of them. He is working on getting signs erected along the route but is also creating personalized webpages for all subscribers and ticket buyers. Chad describes them as an electronic direct mail piece and says the ones they will create will contain “step by step directions from their house to the new theatre, a seating diagram showing them the location of their new seats, promotional offers from local restaurants, and an opportunity to sign up for our e-newsletter.”

Reading about Personalized URLs, it doesn’t seem to be as difficult to pull off as it first sounds. It does involve an investment of money and staff time, as one might imagine.

It will be interesting to see how successful the campaign is. I am reminded of the Museum of Modern Art’s move to Queens when they renovating and how important public relations and image were to that transition.

I would also be interested to see if Arena Stage picks up more people than they lose from Virginians who didn’t attend because they didn’t want to cross the Potomac.