When Larry Cornies tweeted, “Attention, citizen journalists: Grand Theatre (London, Ont.) annual meeting,” for a moment I thought he was talking about an annual meeting of citizen journalists…
“Oh?” I thought to myself, “I wonder who put that together?”
No… Once I regained my literacy I realized the annual meeting was in fact for The Grand Theatre. It seemed like an appropriate time to step a little further out of my comfort zone. So nine months after Dan Brown issued his challenge to London bloggers to do our own reporting, I took him up (albeit shyly, and silently).
Cornies already mentioned some of the key facts in Saturday’s Free Press. What I’ve added is more along the lines of “citizen PR” than journalism.
But that’s ok, because this deserves the good PR.
(And as always, commentary will follow below.)
With lower revenues (attributed to wider economic downturn) The Grand Theatre also reduced costs to finish the past fiscal year with their 10th consecutive surplus: $9,047 — more than last year’s.
They also pulled off their most effective drive for new subscriptions in two decades, netting about 1600 new subscribers (minus a roughly normal amount of churn) — far surpassing the expectations of Board President Franco Paron — and bringing the total to around 6000.
That achievement is largely due to an initiative aimed at, “building relationships, getting people engaged again,” as Executive Director Deb Harvey put it. The business strategy nicely complemented Susan Ferley’s creative direction, which “focused on the humanity” and “tried to find ways to personalize [their] communication.”
Each existing subscriber was called and invited to the theatre to discuss the plan. They were encouraged to participate, get the word out, and sell subscriptions to friends.
Consistent with that, the students who performed in Grease [see behind-the-scenes part 1 and part 2] went out and staged short performances at places like London Life and car shows (fittingly). It became the most successful high school production at The Grand in recent years.
Everybody wins with things like that (unless you don’t like Grease… but let’s not go there).
While writing this I was reminded of the United Way’s recent GenNext launch at Museum London — another initiative to reach out and connect with people directly, on a more human level.
These social, personal, open and engaged approaches are becoming not just a strategy (and certainly not merely a short-term technique) but something that should be infused deeply into the institutional DNA.
To be honest, last night was the first time I had ever been in The Grand Theatre — never been in the building.
The vibe in the meeting was more convivial than I expected. I was impressed. Everyone there was very pleasant and upbeat (perhaps easy, when the news is mostly good).
The experience reminded me that an institution is not about the building it’s in — nor even dollars and cents. It’s about people.
Get the people-part right and the rest follows.
(Which isn’t to say it’s easy. The people-part is something I’m still working on in my own endeavours. We all need to keep nudging each other along…)
Btw if anyone locally is interested in social media for the arts, don’t forget to attend the SMarts Conference at Museum London on November 14!
[Note: I changed the term in the title from "citizen journalism" to "emerging media," it's more inclusive and I've never liked "citizen journalism."]
