A few months ago, I was granted a wonderful opportunity by the National Arts Centre, as a blogger, to attend a concert with the NAC Orchestra (and totally geek out from a meeting with Mr. Sulu - yes THE Mr. Sulu). The only catch was that I had to blog and tweet about the event. I had seats in the very last row of the very last balcony of the NAC's Southam Hall, which I affectionately dubbed "Blogger Row" in a tweet after realizing that I was sitting with a lot of people I followed on Twitter.
Well, the name's stuck and the NAC is doing it again. I was invited to attend Beyond the Score: Mozart's Final Piano Concerto. I won't be able to attend tonight due to a prior engagement, but I just wanted to take the time to note my appreciation to the NAC for this offer.
I've been incredibly impressed with the NAC and their social media marketing campaign. Here is a great example of an art's organization who has fully embraced new media. Their website includes videos and podcasts to make your experience more interactive; they use Youtube, Facebook and Flickr; you can access live recording's from the NAC Orchestra through their Musicbox; most of their marketing staff can also be found on Twitter.
If you're a blogger, you should definitely get in touch with these people!
As the Director of Communications for Evolution Theatre, I find this inspiring. We don't have a budget that compares to that of the National Arts Centre, but all of these means of promotion are fairly inexpensive to implement. Mostly, you just need the time to keep things up to date.
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With all this in mind, we, at Evolution Theatre, have decided to take on our own social media experiment.
Would you like a discount on our next production - the Ottawa English language premiere of Arabian Night? Then you should be our friend on Facebook!
October 15th will officially be our Facebook Friends' Night for Arabian Night at the Cube Gallery. Everyone in this group will be granted $5 off their regular ticket price ($20 general admission / $15 students, seniors and starving artists - valid id required) for this night only.
Here's what you need to do. Go to the Arabian Night event page and indicate that you will be attending the show:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6838688181#/event.php?eid=147376941961
(Check out the incredibly hot publicity photos by the amazing Tim Ginley while you're at it!)
We will be printing out the invitation list as of 3 p.m. on October 15th. You MUST let us know you are attending the event or we won't be able to verify that you are in our group and give you your discount.
Only one ticket discount per person. If your friends would like a discount, just have them join the event and the group! It's that simple.
Seating is limited, so if you would like to reserve your seats in advance (cash payment required at the door), you can do so by calling the Cube Gallery at 613-728-1750.
