Long Distance Radio

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I had a meeting with my radio account rep today. We were just talking over how the past season went, what promotions were effective, what type of tie-ins we might do next year, that sort of thing.

One of the things I hadn’t been happy about was a web campaign I had tried out. I spent considerable sums each month to have a special page on their website listing my season events. I also had banner and skyscraper ads that popped up on the radio station’s homepage which lead to this events listings page.

However, there were a couple problems. First, every time a radio ad ran it told people to go to the radio station page. This was good because their site address is easier to remember for regular station listeners than is my theatre’s. Unfortunately, unless they got there at the right time in the rotation, they wouldn’t see the banner ads and thus couldn’t go to the special page.

They could always see the event listed on the Best Bets section of the website which was prominently positioned. Clicking on the Best Bets link would take them to my website though, not the more expensive page the station was hosting.

The other problem was that the special page and the banner/skyscraper ads were handled by the corporate office 5,000 miles away in Atlanta. When there were problems, and there were quite a few frustrating incidents, it could take days to fix. The worst part was that the problem would repeat itself the next month or next show. I suspected a different person in Atlanta was handling it each time. The Best Bets portion of the site was handled locally and I had few problems with it.

I mention this as something of a cautionary tale for others who may consider similar arrangements. On the whole, I think the special page was a poor use of my money. I had little control of when people would see the page and no guarantee they could find it when the call to action to visit the radio site for more info went out over the air.

People were guaranteed to find the Best Bets link to my webpage on a fairly consistent basis when the call went out. Because that option was more dependable and because I know I can control what people see on my website, I am going to stick with radio ads and Best Bet listing for next year.

I think the banner ad set up does have its uses. There were probably people who visited the radio station’s site for some other purpose, saw the banner ads and viewed the information about the theatre and upcoming shows. If I was leaving the same ad up with minor monthly changes or wanted a separate place designed specifically for the radio station’s demographic, it would have had some more value.

Because I needed to have it changed on a weekly basis at the height of my season and wanted people to always see my information when they visited with the intent to find it, the special page didn’t meet my needs. In the future, I might consider generic (rather than show specific) banner ads that lead back to my website as a tool to generate general awareness of my theatre as people visit the radio homepage.

In many respects, these issues solidified my belief that local control of information is much better than distant control when it comes to customer service. This isn’t even just a matter of the local vs. corporate office. There were a number of times this past season that I made changes to our website when I noticed mistakes or wanted to clarify an issue that was generating confused phone calls. I was often thankful that I could effect the changes myself rather than call a web designer to implement them as I had to in the ancient days of the web (1997).

Because you often had to pay a web designer, you might not make small changes or might delay the fixes until you had accumulated enough problems to make contacting her/him cost effective. The ability to improve ones public face numerous times a day is a small blessing with potentially big rewards in my eyes. (Though you may still want to limit your request for updates to once a day lest your web designer strangle you.)

Babes In Arms

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Came across an article today reporting the Rhode Island legislature is considering a bill requiring that breast feeding infants be admitted to theatres for free. The impetus for the bill was a mother who told her representative that “she was required to pay an additional $75 to take her child to a show.”

I found the link to the story when I came across a debate of the story on Broadsheet. The debate is interesting to read simply because the commenters aren’t necessarily those who visit arts sites and thus offer insight into the minds of potential patrons.

And it turns out that…most of the responses are pretty much what you would find on an arts related site. Generally the responses fall into a handful of categories. Some feel that if you are going to an event costing $75, you should know that audience members will insist on having no potential disturbances at all. There is also the view that exposing babies to loud noises, foul language and adult subject matter is inappropriate.

Some feel that mothers need to escape from home from time to time and should be trusted to handle interruptions are they arise. In opposition to this view were people who said they had never considered even tempting fate and did not ever attempt to bring their children to shows. And there were a couple people who pointed out that parents increasingly seem to show bad/lack of judgement about reining in their children’s behavior.

A couple people suggested that theatres build little baby rooms like churches have. The first thing that came to mind was that I didn’t know too many venues with the flexibility to knock out seats in a place appropriate for new mothers (not up a lot of stairs). They would have to be non-prime seats with fair sightlines where the room wouldn’t obstruct other seats (and was soundproofed like nobody’s business). The second thing that occurred to me was that if you have to watch a show through a window frame with the audio piped in, you might as well be watching television for all the experience of live performance you are getting. Of course, that is a matter of an individual’s perception.

A related thought that came to mind- I was wondering if there were any venues out there that charged people for bringing “babes in arms” for any reason other than to provide an incentive to leave the child home. Other than that and insuring the child that was supposed to occupy a lap doesn’t end up in a seat you sold to someone else, I can’t think of any other reason. I imagine that there might be other reasons so I am curious to hear some.

Finally, for those who hate cell phones going off during performances, Marc-Andre Hamelin has created the “Irritation Waltz” which you can hear here courtesy of NPR. (I believe it requires RealPlayer to play.)

I Know I Should, But How?

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As you read my blog and others out there that touch upon arts and technology, you will notice that there are a lot of suggestions about why you shold integrate technology into marketing, community building, transaction processing, etc., operations. The thing is, you might be left asking how? If you don’t have a tech savvy person on staff, you may never get an answer.

Unless you are reading Extension 311. I don’t suggest you innundate Greg Beuthin with requests to advise you on all your technology needs. Unless, of course, you are willing to pay him for his time. He doesn’t offer step by step instructions about integrating technology. (Well, at least not always.) He is the only person I have found at this point who offers some concrete advice about things to consider and pursue when attempting to use technology in non-profit settings.

Yesterday he provided some thoughts on what type of people should be given responsibility for certain tasks when a non-profit tries to establish an online community. He feels that organizations are apt to incorrectly assume that with donated equipment and volunteers the project can run itself inexpensively. People fail to accurately project the resources and oversight necessary for the endeavor. He lists a number of roles necessary for running such a community and notes which should be handled by an in-house person and which might be trusted to a volunteer.

Via his website, I came across Net2Learn offers resources like Blogging For Non-Profits a helpful page that includes, among other things links to articles like Top Blogging Tools for Non-Profits, How Can Blogging Help Your Non-profit and Top Ten Reasons Why Non-profits Should Consider Blogging.

Hmm, I see I am getting back to the topic of Why you should use technology rather than the How.

But before I end, I wanted to toss one last slightly unrelated link out there that I found on Extension 311– Theatre Without Borders. Granted, it isn’t too original a name given all the other Without Borders organizations . I do like the purpose statement on the mainpage quoting Michael Fields from Dell’arte International- “Theatre Without Borders is like a dating service for international collaboration. I think it is becoming an essential connective tissue in the global theatre workplace.”

Talking In Chicago

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It is only a coincidence that this entry like the one last week is about a theatre podcast. I only recently noticed that the Talk Theatre blog/podcast page had merged with Theatre in Chicago to become Talk Theatre In Chicago and wanted to explore it.

Not living in Chicago, I don’t know what other resources exist, but I have to think this site is set to become the premiere source of info on theatre in and around Chicago. There are listings of current shows, what is coming soon, a separate link for kids shows, news about theatre around town and the collected reviews for each show from the papers around town.

And there are the podcasts. What I like about the podcasts are the way they are presented to visitors. There is a brief description of each show and then when you follow the link for a particular show you have the choice of listening to the complete show or going directly to the news, reviews or interviews segment.

One thing that became apparent though was that it may take a little while for people to become accustomed to formatting their programs for the podcasting medium. The first podcast I chose to listen to was an interview with Goodman Theatre Executive Director Roche Schulfer.

Unfortunately, the start of the interview was reminscient of the conferring of an honorary doctorate by a university. The interviewer went on and on for nearly three and a half minutes reciting Schulfer’s bio. I actually haven’t listened to the interview yet because after a 1:30 or so, my only interest was seeing how much longer the dry recitation was going to continue.

I am happy to report that after sampling a handful of other interviews and reviews, the host reached the point of the program much quicker. My first impression as a theatre person though was that this l-o-n-g intro was not wise on a medium mostly utilized by people with expectations of more immediate gratification and shorter attention spans.

Podcasts in general and the Talk Theatre in Chicago website in particular, provide super opportunities for introducing and educating people with little experience all about theatre. You can visit, find a performance near you, read the reviews for it and listen to a podcast so that you can at least start to become familiar with theatre vocabulary and the way people discuss it.

But first they have to be interested enough not to skip over an interview because it starts out so damned boring!

I can understand why folks would want to give people their due and I concede that I often ramble a bit in my writing from time to time before getting to the juicy interesting stuff. I too have sinned! On the other hand, theatre people should know that exposition should be played out across the length of the play rather than clumping it all at the beginning. (Again, I too have sinned.)

The endeavor looks like a promising resource for the Chicago theatre community which has always had a great reputation to begin with. It would be super if other cities could adapt/expand on what they have done for the culture of their communities.