Alex Freeman - Page 10

This week, we have a lot of stories about the path to reopening from the around the globe - from Australia where reopening has already occurred and they’ve got Broadway productions playing to big houses to a story from The New York Times about what it took to get a new musical up and running in Tokyo with a global creative team.

Social media is an important part of cultivating your current audience, but when it comes to building new audience members, the tools provided by the social platforms aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

Now more than ever, the students might be the future. The education department of a theatre company has long been an important piece of the business model - but that might be more true now than it has ever been before. While audiences still can’t come into most of our performance spaces, students are still able to be reached in digital ways. These digital programs not only increase access, they are increasing the number of students (of all ages) who are able to engage with theatre in an all new way. In a time of continued social distancing, what we are learning about bridging that distance will be important for us to remember when we no longer have to stay apart out of necessity for public health. This week, we’ve got stories about connecting with audiences, with students, and continually questioning what our performance spaces should look like, along with stories about the ongoing economic impact of the shutdowns.

Over the last year, we’ve experienced a powerful evolution in how theatre companies interact with their audiences - and that evolution will only continue as we welcome audiences back into our venues after a long period of separation. For a lot of theatres, that has meant taking a look at their ticketing systems, and how they can continue to gain new data about their audience for all sorts of uses - grant applications, marketing, and even programming choices. For others, that has meant a strong push into social media as a touchpoint between producer and audience.

We’re now one month into 2021, and while many plans are still being held pretty loosely, more and more companies are developing their plans to return to live in-person performances. In those conversations, they couch those plans in all sorts of disclaimers, but there is a developing sense that by the end of this year things will be starting to feel more ‘normal’ - and in some places that sense could return even sooner.

The BroadwayWorld Streaming Calendar is the most comprehensive streaming calendar on the web - and if you're streaming a theatre production, concert, reading, or more - than you want to make sure it is included on the streaming events calendar.

You’ve got your marketing budget set, but how do you make sure that you get the maximum value out of those precious dollars? If you’re a non-profit, you want to make sure that you are being a good steward of resources on behalf of your donors. If you’re a for-profit, then you want to make sure that you’re protecting your bottom line.

Building - and justifying - a marketing budget that is the correct size for what you're trying to achieve is always a difficult task. But if most business professionals were to look at your marketing budget, they'd come to one conclusion: it is way too small.

It's been a week of ups and downs across the global theatre industry, but regional theatres are confident, the West End is reeling, and Australian festivals are starting to open.

Deep budget cuts, a return to the stage in Q3 of 2021, and a surprising amount of confidence are the three biggest highlights from our recent survey of Industry Insiders across the United States.

As we turn the calendar to 2021, we can't leave the lessons learned in 2020 behind us.

Looking back on 2020 illuminates the many paths that are opening for the industry in 2021.

As we find ourselves in the midst of the holiday calendar, a normally busy time for producing organizations across the world feels very different this year.

The vaccine news continues to be promising, and every day a new understanding of the timeline to a return to “normal” comes out - as you’ll see below, Dr. Anthony Fauci thinks that normal could be as early as Late Summer/Early Fall, and that would be a situation where audiences aren’t required to be masked or socially distanced.

Happy Thanksgiving week to our readers in the United States! With continued news about the development of an effective vaccine and the conversation turning to how the vaccine will be deployed globally, the light continues to grow brighter at the end of the tunnel for this intermission. This week, however, we have some stories that demonstrate the extensive amount of damage that has occurred to companies across the globe, and how even if the industry is starting to see a path forward in the future, for some individual companies there are dark days ahead. There are also stories of bright spots: summer arts festivals in Australia have been planning (and re-planning, and planning again) for how to get themselves up and running in a safe fashion, Las Vegas continues to bet big on live entertainment, and AEA and SAG-AFTRA have finally reached an agreement on streaming theatre. All this, plus a new digital service from BroadwayWorld, below!

Encouraging news out last Monday about a potentially effective COVID-19 vaccine that could be widely available by April of next year. For many organizations, that is bittersweet news - it might guarantee over a year of closure, but there is at least starting to be an end in sight to the uncertainty, if nothing else. Outside of the United States, we also saw plenty of encouraging news out of Australia that is seeing more and more of its stages re-open at 50% capacity. As they push to return to 100%, they may be able to provide a roadmap for the rest of us as to how we ramp back to normal as quickly, and safely, as possible.

This week, we have stories of two different regions - first, a story out of New York City where off-Broadway theatre's and other small venues have filed suit against the state of New York to receive permission to start reopening. We also have the opposite side of that story out of DC, where one small venue has reopened for indoor theatre performances under a pilot program from the city. We also explore how the Kennedy Center has kept in person performance alive in their venues, as well as more labor disputes - this time between labor and management and not between the Unions themselves.

The pivot continues. Over the course of the last week, we have continued to see more stories about theatres going digital, going outdoors, going to the postal service - all in the name of creating art in a world that we have not seen in our current collective experiences. Much of this pivoting is coming from a need to survive, but what is being discovered is deeply inspired, and likely to impact the form for decades to come. We've seen it ourselves through our BroadwayWorld events platform - what started as a small experiment has grown to sending nearly half a million dollars in ticket revenue to our partners, with thousands of new audience members connecting to these artists in a way we couldn't have predicted one year ago. Beyond the changing art, the industry is at a key moment in institutional evolution - make sure to check out the essay from the late Diane Rodriguez we link to later in the newsletter. But ultimately, artists make art, and we also have some highlights of artists at all points in their careers continuing to find ways to create even as the world we're used to endlessly shifts around us.

Like many of you, I spent a lot of time over the past week reading remembrance articles about Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Without venturing into the political, I was deeply struck by how important the arts - particularly the performing arts - were to her throughout her life and time on the Supreme Court.

Like many of you, I spent a lot of time over the past week reading remembrance articles about Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Without venturing into the political, I was deeply struck by how important the arts - particularly the performing arts - were to her throughout her life and time on the Supreme Court.