Audiences Central Blog

I’ve been asked by a number of non-venue arts and cultural organisations recently about the best and most cost effective way to sell tickets without ‘buying-in’ an expensive box office system or selling them through a receiving venue’s box office.

I’m already aware of several different approaches to this problem, all with varying levels of success:

From my experience it seems that the most popular approach is to set up a dedicated mobile number and voicemail message encouraging audiences to leave contact details and the number of tickets they require for a show or performance. A return phone call is then made to the booker to confirm the tickets and payment method. Payment is often made either by cheque or bank transfer, or sometimes is taken when the tickets are collected. This information is then added to a spreadsheet, which can then be used as a mailing list (if prior consent is given). This is a quick, cheap and simple system to set up, but can be very time consuming to administer and can be confusing if more than one person is looking after the process.

Selling tickets through friends and family is always a good way to generate income, but limits the type of audience that you will get through the door. If you are looking to develop or diversify your audience you should consider alternative or additional approaches. It is also difficult to build up an accurate picture of who is buying your tickets as very little data is being captured.

It’s relatively simple these days to set up a system through PayPal. You can add a shopping basket to your website and encourage people to book their tickets online. You will however need some sort of ‘support’ for less technologically advanced bookers who may struggle with this system. There are fees associated with PayPal so it is worth reading all of the terms and conditions before you begin. There are also companies who offer a simple ‘do-it-yourself’ website product, which often have the shopping basket function set up with the site based on this technology.

Selling tickets on the door is a good way to capitalise on last minute bookers - but does not allow you to gauge the potential number of ticket sales in advance of the event.

And finally there are online box office systems that you can hire. These are often expensive but require fewer resources to manage.

I would really like to hear about your experiences using any of these systems, or maybe you have tried a different approach?

What ever your approach to ticket sales there are a number of things that you should consider:
• The bookers experience
• The appropriateness of the system to your target audience
• The resources it takes to administer a system
• Procedures and protocols for refunds
• What data are you collecting and how can this be used in future audience development

It’s been over three months since Arts Council England launched A Night Less Ordinary; a free theatre tickets scheme for under 26 year olds, and Audiences Central are interested in finding out how it’s going for you?

You don’t have to be a theatre taking part in the scheme to reply to this thread. We would also like to hear if the scheme has affected your organisation in any way?

The team at Audiences Central are currently working hard building our new consumer listings website Scene Central (currently artscentral.co.uk) and we would like our members views on online maps. Our decision is whether to use Google map or Multimap on venue pages so that customers can find out where they are going with ease.

Multi map shows a map in several different ways, a street map, an Ordinance Survey map and a birds eye view. They also have a facility to get directions. The perceived market leaders Google have their own maps, the facility to get directions and street map.

We would love to get your feedback on which maps you prefer and why. Here’s a few examples of the two maps using a few of our members' venues.

I look forward to your feedback.

Al

The REP, Birmingham

The REP Multimap

The REP Google map


The Place, Telford

The Place Multimap

The Place Google map


The Herbert Museum and Art Gallery, Coventry

The Herbert Museum and Art Gallery Multimap

The Herbert Museum and Art Gallery Google map


New Art Gallery Walsall

New Art Gallery Walsall Multimap

New Art Gallery Walsall Google map


The Courtyard, Hereford

The Courtyard Multimap

The Courtyard Google map

As producers of, let’s face it, mass amounts of print, there has never been a more important time to really consider the effects you could be having on the environment with each piece of print you produce. We really do have a responsibility to take a step back and see if there are any changes we can make to our usual print production routine.

With a little help from the lovely people at Green House Print and the Aldridge Print Group, I’ve put together some points that will give you some food for thought in how you can green your print with ease. It could even save you money. Yeah, that got your attention.

1. Reduce brochure production
Many organisations now realise the cost implication of simply distributing an entire season brochure. At Audiences Central, we have seen many variations on how to promote a full season without distributing a full, 30 page document but the one we like best is the 'brochure light'. These are most notably used by The REP, Belgrade and Birmingham Hippodrome theatres, Warwick Arts Centre, and were also seen being used by the International Dance Festival Birmingham last year.

For general and wide distribution, why not consider creating a much smaller booklet or even a folded leaflet to promote the key highlights of your programme or work? You can keep the comprehensive document for direct mailings to people on your mailing list i.e. people who you know will be interested in thumbing through the whole thing. This could dramatically reduce your printing costs not to mention the carbon footprint caused by heavy weighted brochures in a distribution van.

Don’t forget to make use of online resources too. You can always use your print to signpost people to your website where you put up more information than you might need to in print. At the very least, when you are planning your next brochure, get a price comparison on your usual spec against one for a reduced size and see if that helps to sway your decision.

2. Paper
There is now a much wider choice of recycled papers on the market which means that printing on recycled paper doesn't have to mean your print looks cheap. Your printers will be only too pleased to send you some samples of recycled paper. Why not ask to see some for your next print job?

You should also check to see whether your printer has any accreditations such as FSC and PEFC which guarantee that the paper you use comes from sustainable and managed forests. Think about how much greener your conscience would be if you knew that all the paper you were using wasn't going to impact on the social and ecological needs of present and future generations.

Think about the weight of the paper you use too. We all know that bigger weights add gravitas to print but does that extra 100gsm REALLY matter? The thicker the paper, the more trees you need to make it. Sound obvious? It is, which is why we can all understand it and make the effort to change. A little goes a long way.

3. Inks
You know how strong freshly printed materials smell? Pretty great if you ask me but, unsurprisingly, they’re not that healthy for my head or the atmosphere. In fact, they’re rather awful and contribute to creating smog as well as affecting the quality of water and soil.

You can significantly reduce the emissions produced in your printing by opting for naturally sourced vegetable oil based inks. Think wishy washy? Think again. These inks can still pack a punch so your print won’t get lost in the crowd. Again, ask your printers whether they use these. If they don’t ask them if they have any plans to in the future or, better still, take your business to a printer that does!

So, ideal scenario, make all of these changes and make a massive difference and strut around in full confidence that you’ve changed the world… (…a little bit). Second best case scenario, make just one of these changes and strut around in full confidence that you’ve changed the world… (…a littler bit). To be honest, to even think about these things for your next print job would be a good effort.

Whatever you do, please do something!

Obsessed with all things dance as I am; I’ve been recently intrigued by the sheer amount of people that say that although they like dance, they don’t really ‘get’ it – particularly contemporary dance.

It’s got me interested for 2 reasons:

1) As a regular dance reviewer and writer I’m a little worried that maybe I don’t ‘get’ it then either; besides a fair amount of dance classes and watching performances, I’ve never had any formal technical background in dance. Perhaps to really ‘get’ dance you need this? It’s non-verbal communication – and like any other language, in order to understand it you need to be familiar with all its vocabulary.

2) I’m a bit confused about what there is to ‘get’; or, what ‘getting it’ really means. One of my favourite dance quotes comes from the amazingly talented US choreographer Alvin Ailey (I’m massively paraphrasing here, because I can’t find the quote anywhere): "People are always saying they don’t ‘get’ dance. What is there to get? Some people come on stage and leap around for a bit. That’s dance." This comes from one of the current greatest choreographers in the world.

I recently came across this feature in article 19 on William Forsythe’s latest dance project; Synchronous Objects, in which he represents his latest work ‘One Flat Thing’ with a time lines, graphics and commentary, in order to make dance ‘more accessible’. Hmmm … Not sure that it makes dance any more ‘accessible’ but it’s certainly a pretty awesome way of re-interpreting dance digitally.

The problem is, or, perhaps, the joy is that dance is its own language; essentially it’s non-verbal communication; so to try and explain it in words, or even time-lines and graphics is inherently flawed. Maybe the crux of the matter is that we’re trying to ‘understand’ dance in the way that we understand other things; superimposing onto it a frame of reference (language, graphics etc) that it doesn’t refer to. Perhaps it doesn’t need to be ‘understood’ in this way, but simply experienced.

It could be said that e.g. a classically trained ballet dancer could ‘understand’ a work in that they could pick it apart and describe its constituent parts and explain the nuances and significances of the technique involved, but I don’t really think that’s the point. Dance is more than just the sum of its technically detailed parts.

This isn’t to say that any of the talented and experienced practitioners, choreographers, directors or critics in the world of dance have no more insight than any audience member, because that would be unfairly dismissing their years of knowledge and expertise in this field. The point is that dance, like all other art forms, can be deeply appreciated without necessarily being understood in all its technical detail – and I think that this is what counts.

I recently went to see the utterly fabulous Rambert at the Hippodrome with Abby, who wrote up the occasion in her blog. What she wrote, to me, typifies this whole matter. Starting off with: “I have … always enjoyed the spectacle and the sheer physical effort [of dance]. But until I saw the Rambert I wasn’t entirely convinced I ‘got’ dance” she ends with: “Seeing the Rambert was a fantastic experience - I was completely blown away. … it was an arts experience that has stayed with me…you never know when and how art can take you someplace else.”

That, to me, is ‘getting’ dance.