At The Royal Opera: It’s over when the PHAT lady sings!

Here we go again, another ridiculous attempt to deceive “the young” into buying tickets with gimmicks and tricks to make sure that they will never come back after attending only once!….

I wrote about this practice early on in a post called YO we put the ASS in clASSical , a rebuke of those organizations who attempt to woo new audiences with gimmicky marketing campaigns and by claiming that they’re “hip and cool”, which always comes across as insincere and even deceitful and discriminatory.  Hiring a fancy marketing firm with an unpronounceable name and throwing money at them for new “innovative” marketing is easy to do.  Building relationships with individuals and communities may not be sexy and harder to accomplish, but it is where the effort needs to go.  I liken these crazy marketing ideas to get rich quick schemes which almost always fail.  Smart financial minds always preach steady investing and long range planning for a much greater chance for long term viability and growth.  Get rich quick schemes I imagine don’t generate repeat business because they fail which is the case also with boneheaded marketing campaigns!

The latest culprit is the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, a place where I spent considerable time whilst as a student in London.  Seeing Carlos Kleiber conduct Domingo in Othello was the ultimate highlight. In a Financial Times article entitled Royal Opera reaches out to “cool crowd” Royal Opera chief executive Tony Hall is quoted as saying:

We want to get that buzzy, cool crowd to come in. It is all about the Royal Opera House reaching outwards and bringing new people in.

So here is the genius plan (also quoted from the article):

It has analysed box office and other spending habits at the ROH to find that although it appealed strongly to its core audience of opera and ballet lovers, and to young people in education using its student standby scheme, it was failing to attract enough people in their 20s and 30s.

As a direct result of the research, the ROH plans to put on a three-day cultural festival featuring some of the coolest names in town: art by Julian Opie, famous for his paintings of Blur; a club night by electronics star Scanner and digital games by the performance group Blast Theory

OK, so after the sensory overload what better than a 5 hour performance of Siegfried! The disconnect is so patently obvious it’s tragic.  What’s the point of luring the “cool crowd” to come to a festival like this, will it make them want to try Opera?  Give me a break, so if any 20 somethings after the club night return to see an Opera and they’re told, no talking, no eating , no drinking, no breathing, and oh if you’re late you will have to sit in the lobby for probably an hour then they will I’m sure immediately buy a subscription right?  Stop this insanity, this insincerity this stupidity!

I can’t understand why they don’t look at themselves and analyze what they might be doing wrong with their performances, atmosphere and outreach. No, it’s because they don’t have a club night, that’s why they’re not coming?  How about creating a sincere personal connection, understanding that younger people might have younger children, or maybe the younger generation might be apprehensive to attend Opera, so engage in some outreach by going into the communities with programming.  A night of  Blast Theory is not going help them with that.  It’s not enough to say “lets just get them there no matter how, then they’ll come back”.  They won’t, and they’ll tell their friends not to try it either!

Let’s turn the idea on it’s head:

• Artist Julian Opie,  electronic star Scanner and performance group Blast Theory have decided they want to attract the “old stuffy crowd”, so for the lobbies of their establishments they’re going to hire Opera singers to do scenes from Marriage of Figaro, Lulu and Peter Grimes and then all will all be ushered into the shows right after. They’ll be hooked!….YEAH RIGHT!!!

I’m not against innovative marketing as a concept as long as it doesn’t try to hide the truth. Deception seems to be the new word for Marketing in this case.  They could learn from the Opera Hansel and Gretel. The house in the woods is smelling of gingerbread and adorned with all manner of treats, yet it’s only a ruse, a lure for “the young” because as we know, there is something very different awaiting them inside……

I’ve got some new names for the new “cool” Royal Opera:

• The Royal Popera House
• The Hip-Hopera House
• The Royal Rockera House

All suggestions welcomed!