New Media | Andrew Girvan

Twespians Fringe: Theatre PR – Pushing it to its limits

By: agirvan

24-11-2011

Arts Marketing, Digital Theatre, Facebook, London Theatre, Marketing, New Media, Personal Marketing, Social Media, Twitter

After their first crack at the digital theatre PR whip, ‘Are we doing all we can?’, theatre/twitter meet-up Twespians rounded up another panel to tackle ‘Pushing it to its limits’, supported again by the lovely folks at Mobius.

With the digital world being so important, do we need to rethink the tried and tested methods that so many still rely on today? Can we learn from what people are doing in other disciplines? Is a fundamental shift required in how we perceive audience, community and promotion?

Twespians Fringe: Theatre PR – Are We Doing All We Can?

By: agirvan

20-09-2011

Arts Marketing, London Theatre, Marketing, New Media, News, Social Media, Twitter, Whatsonstage

Hosted by Whatsonstage.com deputy editor Andrew Girvan, the latest Twespians Fringe event brings PRs and journalists together with a panel discussion on ‘Theatre PR: Are we doing all we can?’

PR has been changing as an industry at the same rate that Twitter changes trending topics recently. Is theatre PR keeping up with the moving industry? We discus the good side and bad side of current theatre PR, where we can move forward and where we need to trim the fat in an industry that Lyn Gardner refers to as ‘criminally undervalued’.

The event combined a combination of questions from Andrew, the live audience and Twitter.

Musical Marketing Coup: Rocky Horror Glee Show

By: agirvan

14-11-2010

Actors, American Theatre, Broadway, Marketing, Musical Theatre, New Media, Old Media, Social Media, Television

I have used my blog to write about Glee before. Seeing the buzz the show was generating in the States I have to say I was intrigued as to whether the show would hit the mark on this side of the pond. At this point there is really no question about it, Glee is huge business. The show has rewritten music marketing and I personally believe is one of the best promotional tools musical theatre has going for it at the moment. So imagine my surprise when I heard the show would be dedicating its Halloween episode to Richard O’Brien’s 1975 cult classic, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Musical marketing genius. Here’s why:

I would almost go so far as to argue that Glee has rewritten the rule of music publishing. “The Glee Effect” has led to weeks when 25 songs on the Billboard Top 100 Charts have been songs from the show. Not only do recordings of numbers sung by the cast, released straight after that week’s broadcast for sale on iTunes, but original recordings of the songs the show has covered see huge sales.

10 Things I Have Learnt From My First 2000 Tweets

By: agirvan

29-03-2010

Based on numbers from those following me and those I follow, I know as I hit my 2,000th tweet that I am by no way the world’s most prolific Twitter user. According to one of the many services set up to help you remember such things, I first joined Twitter on 19 January 2008. My first tweet, at this point being fed by my Facebook status updates, espousing my anticipation of Tim Burton’s Sweeny Todd, also included a link back to my Facebook profile. On reflection Sweeny Todd isn’t that great but I have since realised that I actually have bigger issues with Tim Burton and his insistence on casting Helena Bonham Carter in absolutely everything. This, I realise, is a matter for another time.

The matter at hand is that I have been an active Twitter user for some 2 and a bit years. In that time I have learnt a number of things about the micro-blogging platform which I think are worth passing on. I shall seek to do that below, hopefully keeping to the 10 points I have allowed myself. At the top of the post is a word cloud created from the 2000 tweets. I think the words which pop up most often, mainly “reading”, “theatre” and the selection of URL shorteners I have used, reflect that I have been using the tips I present below for the duration of my Twitter participation. I was both relieved and pleased that “theatre” was one of the most prominent words in the cloud. It would have been a bit embarrassing if it hadn’t been there.

#CIAM: Will Digital Innovation Be The Future Of Theatre?

By: agirvan

22-03-2010

Conference, Digital Theatre, London Theatre, New Media, Twitter

If you follow me on Twitter then you might have noticed that since Christmas I have been hash-tagging certain tweets as #ciam. The hashtag belongs to the penultimate module of my undergraduate LIPA life, Contemporary Issues in Arts Management, a series of guest lectures from members of the performing arts, music and entertainment industries which culminates in a student led conference the week of 12 April 2010 at Liverpool’s Contemporary Urban Centre.

As someone studying Music, Theatre and Entertainment Management being asked to deliver a 20 minute conference paper on a current issue in the industry opens up almost endless possibilities. This is probably a good thing as all 30 of my classmates will be delivering presentations. The fantastic thing about the conference, and indeed the course, is the huge range of perspectives people approach things from. To get a bit of an insight into the range of topics being covered have a look at the collated abstracts on the conference’s website.