Archive for marketing
June 1, 2008 at 10:54 pm · Filed under ballet, dance, new york city ballet, dancers, media, video, podcast, SUSAN, dance and technology, abt, youtube, myspace, companies, marketing, dance companies, dance online, american ballet theatre, so you think you can dance, internet
The Arts & Music section of today’s Los Angeles Times takes a look at the growing popularity of Internet publicity among dancers and dance companies.
The YouTube video that seems to have prompted the article:
The connection between the video above and the rest of the article is, to me, a little fuzzy. Overall, though, the article is pretty neat. Especially cool is that Looseleaf recognizes certain notables, including Daniil Simkin, Rolando Sarabia, Anaheim Ballet, Grover Dale’s Answers4Dancers and, of course, New York City Ballet’s website and YouTube channel. (Congrats, Kristin!)
The full text of the article follows below for anyone who might be interested. Take a read!
My favourite quote: Asked what company co-founder and choreographer George Balanchine would have thought about the Internet, [NYCB’s General Manager Ken] Tabachnick replies, “He was an innovator. Balanchine loved change and didn’t shy away from new things. I imagine he would have loved it.”
:-)
Read the rest of this entry »
Recent Posts by susan kim
March 27, 2008 at 6:39 pm · Filed under ballet, ads, london, royal ballet, royal opera house, SUSAN, ad, marketing
I received this Royal Ballet advert from the Royal Opera House this morning and immediately fell into a fit of giggles.
Mind you, I love the company and adore Marianela and her dancing, but this was… unexpected.
It’s certainly eye-catching!
Thoughts?
Recent Posts by susan kim
February 19, 2008 at 6:15 am · Filed under dance, injuries, blogs, writing, wingers, magazines, marketing, TAYLOR, kristin sloan, bloggers
(LINKS UPDATED 2/20 SO THEY ACTUALLY WORK! HAHA SORRY ABOUT THAT)
Hi Wingers!
Life has certainly been keeping me busy since my last post about graduating from college, and there’s lots to catch up on (performing, teaching a bit, internship, writing…). But instead of focusing on that (which you can read about in my other blog) I wanted to write about an event tonight hosted by movmnt magazine.
Movmnt is a quarterly dance lifestyle magazine that just came out with it’s spring 2008 issue. The Winger was featured in their last issue, and in this new one there’s an article I wrote about injuries, featuring The Winger’s own Kristin Sloan. First of all, if you haven’t seen the magazine you need to get a copy of it…and I’m not just saying that because I write for them. It’s really a fresh take on the dance world that most other dance writing out there doesn’t offer.
THAT being said, tonight the magazine hosted another blogger get-together similar to the one that Cedar Lake Dance had last month. This time we were able to sit down and actual have some serious conversations about dance, publicity, pop culture, and so much more.
Readers, you should know that all of these bloggers you follow are really incredible people with unique perspectives, who all deeply care about dance on a level that I have personally never experienced before to such a degree. It’s different than being in a room full of dancers, or full of just dance enthusiasts. We all come from different places and have our own ideas, and to share them with each other and on blogs like The Winger really does something for the dance world (in my opinion!).
Tomorrow or someday really soon I promise to post details of our (fascinating) conversation and conclusions we came up with, but for now here’s a basic rundown of my experience at the get-together.
I ran into Evan of Dancing Perfectly Free in the elevator on the way up to the movmnt office, and when we got there we were welcomed by David, Editor and Publisher, some of his magazine staff, and Doug . A stack of sandwiches and multiple diet cokes awaited us, with chips and snacks added to make us feel at home. It’s funny because even though we all see each other in person once in a while (and only since the Cedar Lake event), we all have a sense of what’s going on with each other that we don’t really even need to ask, “So how are you?” Haha we read each other’s blogs and it’s such an amusing connection. Sometimes when I blog I think, who on earth actually reads this. It’s nice to hear that people actually do!
Anyways, multiple other bloggers filtered in within the next half an hour, including Tonya and fellow Wingers Tony & Brian (visiting from San Francisco). After munching and marveling over each other’s real life personas versus blogging personalities (haha), we got down to business.
The nearly 2 hour long conversation went everywhere from what influence do bloggers really have on the dance world, to what dance companies are/aren’t doing to modernize themselves through publicity, to social networks and the fame culture, to where is the blogosphere headed in the future (any thoughts on any of this, please comment!). Everyone raised some very interesting points and sparked some great debate/dialogue. It’s really inspiring being surrounded by people who care so much about dance…I was fascinated by each person at the table.
After saying goodbye and walking away with another copy of the new issue, I took the subway uptown with Evan and we continued the conversation for the whole ride, discussing the issues already raised and bringing up other things we forgot to mention. Now that I’m home and thinking it over I realize there is so much to be discussed and we’ve only touched the tip of it. I hope we have more get-togethers like this regularly in the future, and it would be great to hear from blog readers about some of the issues mentioned above.
More details from our conversation and photo(s) to come soon, but big thanks to movmnt for hosting the get-together. If you get a chance, head to Barnes & Noble and pick up the new issue to see my article and lots of other interesting dance writing!
Recent Posts by taylor gordon
September 30, 2007 at 1:53 pm · Filed under SLOAN, dance, technology, mobile, marketing, iphone, fall for dance, promotion
An impressive array of promotional materials representing companies that are performing in the Fall For Dance programs.
I’m excited for the time when we can just walk up to a kiosk, and opt-in to be sent promotional info via bluetooth to our phones. So much more information, and much less paper wasted!
Recent Posts by kristin sloan
April 23, 2007 at 2:03 pm · Filed under SLOAN, new york city ballet, lincoln center, wingers, r+j, tragiclovenyc.com, dress rehearsal, marketing, readers, tickets
Posted by Kristin Sloan
One of our readers, Mr. Jeffrey aka. SanderO, was nice enough to send us a detailed account of his experience waiting in a line of thousands at Lincoln Center yesterday morning. All
for the chance at scoring two of the highly coveted free tickets to New York City Ballet’s Final Dress Rehearsal next Sunday…
“I learned about the NYCB’s new production or Romeo and Juliet from The Winger which provided a link to TragicLoveNYC.com, a web site devoted to the new production. For the last month I have followed Kristin’s exposés about putting the ballet together. And then came the PR blitz with posters around town, ads in the papers and then the announcement of the give away of free tickets on 22 April for the final dress rehearsal on Sunday 28 April.
How could I resist this temptation? Obviously I couldn’t and that was precisely what the NYCB had in mind.
But it wasn’t only me that was chaffing at the bit to see the new R+J… it turned out that it was thousands and thousands of others who came from near and far to get into the New York State Theatre to see that final rehearsal of the new Martins production.
I had planned to get some good seats no matter what happened on Sunday morning, but was hopeful that I would be close enough to the beginning of the line to get some excellent seats. The fates would not have it. First I lost my house keys, and after getting up at 5 am, wasted the better part of three hours in an unsuccessful search for them. In the end I simply decided to race down to the city from my apartment in Mount Vernon at 7:45 and take my chances. I left my wife sleeping and would call her to tell her I was key-less (clueless)… and at the ticket giveaway, and would bring us a pair of great seats for the coming Sunday performance.
There was no traffic on Sunday AM and I found a space. I was going to bring my Westies but decided in the end to not subject them to standing in line. I counted no less than 15 other dogs whose owners are ballet fans this morning.
My approach took me right past the Lincoln Center Plaza so I could assess the chances for scoring a pair of primo seats. At 8:10 it looked like I was going to be out of luck. I observed a dense orderly crowd which was arranged in one of the snaking back and forth cues like they used to have in banks before they got rid of tellers. But this cue was as wide as the New York State Theater… and the line was 2 people wide and went back and forth six or seven times. My quick estimate was that 1,000 people were assembled by 8:10.
No turning back now. I went round the back and found a parking space next MLK high school and took my little tote bag which had the NY Times, my digi cam, cell phone and a Frappacino, plus some cough drops. I expected to find some interest people to talk with regardless.
I joined the end of the line and turned to a couple next to me. She was Indian and he looked American.. both had brought work with them.. school work or real work… In front of them was a couple from Columbia. The sea of faces looked like the United Nations…. and very young. But then again I observe this more and more as I tick off the years. Smiling beautiful faces…mostly young students but there were retirees and mid-lifers too. This crowd was much younger and more diverse than any audience I had seen at the ABT, NYCB or even the recent BAM performance of Death in Venice. I liked that because my wife and I always lament that the audience at the MET and ABT lacks people of color and not enough young faces. She would have been very surprised at this assemblage of New York Balletomanes.
I began a conversation with a Japanese women at least half my age (most of them are these days) and she turned out to be a wonderful line-standing companion. I told her that we would end up with seats up in the nose bleed section and if that was so, I would buy the seats I want for one of the performances after the opening. I don’t want to come home empty handed.
We talked about ballet photography…. she is studying photography, ballet and opera which we shared a love for. And she is translating a Twyla Tharp book into Japanese. How cool is that! She said she loves Maurice Bejart too. I gave her my fav ballet web sites to drill into… The Winger and BalletTalk and we shared thougts on which art form we liked more, Opera or Ballet. My preference is ballet, although I adore opera… especially some of the Met Opera productions which leave me speechless for an hour after. I confessed to her my first fan experience when I went to a PR event for Anna Netrebko at the Met Book Store last February and had some memorabilia signed by the amazing coloratura. When I came home that evening my wife knew I was crazy, but wasn’t worried that I was having an affair with Anna. A guy can dream can’t he?
The line should have started to move much earlier than the 9am call. It was clear that it would take a very long time to process those in line and I could not see the point in not starting the give away. In the hour and a half that we waited and walked to the front door of the theater..the crowd doubled. No way were all those people going to get a seat.
The NYCB did some marketing surveys and had some presumed volunteers pass out a card to fill in with your ticket request - one or two seats and some data entry about where we heard about the event and of course contact info for future promo and the all import mailing list. They also distrubuted water in bottles much like you find at the NYC marathon. It was a lovely day, but certainly not scorching hot.
The fountain was gushing, the blossoms were bursting on the stand of trees between Avery Fisher and the Vivian Beaumont theater… what a way to spend a few hours on a Sunday morning in April. The nor’ easter had past and we were surrounded by a few thousand balletomanes. Not a bad place to be, I’d say. I did notice the dancers in the crowd with the dance bags, perfect postures, and hair pulled away from their faces and of course their lean dancer’s bods. How beautfiul. It reminded me of the days decades ago when I lived near the Joffrey studio and was treated to all the students passing on the street daily.
At 10:20… Akiko and I were held at the front door by security… A young woman emerged and I asked her what seat she had.. Fourth Ring, she said… Hmmmm I will be buying seats. And this turned out to be what I did. We were motioned to proceed and we were given our seats. Mine was row O on the left fouth ring.. hers was similar. I walked her to the door and we shook hands, gave her my card and asked her to email me one day and perhaps we would meet again. I hope so.
I went back to the box office and bought a pair of Orchestra row L center for Wednesday May 2. Then I turned and headed out into the hopeful crowd still obediently lined up in the snake line. I held up my tickets … the free ones.. and gave them to the first person whose eyes sparkled. It was an Asain girl. She took the tickets, said nothing and I turned on my heels, searched for my cell phone to tell my wife that we had orchestra seats for Wednesday. Stop spending all your money on ballet and opera tickets. I want a vacation!
As I drove home I listened to opera. The traffic was now almost normal for a late Spring Sunday. No delays. You have to get to these things very very early. And if you do… you are a winner.
It’s less than two weeks away and I’ll be a winner too… I wondered if the audience when I go will be very different from the crowd who stood in line for the rehearsal tickets. I’ll let you know.
Jeffrey
Recent Posts by kristin sloan
April 18, 2007 at 3:19 pm · Filed under SLOAN, press, lvhrd, doug, mobile, magazines, marketing, thehappycorp, brands
Posted by Sloan | via mobile phone
Recent Posts by kristin sloan
