Andrew Girvan

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New Media

Luke Murphy Welcomes Everyone to Twespians

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?

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Twespians Event

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.

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Glee Rocky Horror Show

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.

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You might wonder why it’s all quiet on the Western Front. By Western Front I mean my blog. On 19 July 2010 I took up the job of Acting Deputy Editor at Whatsonstage.com, the UK’s biggest theatre website. I can say without doubt that the reason I got the job was because of this blog, but I admit that should not be a reason for not giving it enough attention now.

The real reason that I haven’t been updating my blog as frequently as I would like is because I am spending all day blogging at the moment, writing news stories, reviews, gossip pieces, interviews, introductions for photo galleries and video stories. On top of that I am also editing and uploading reviews, features and interviews.

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You can read my five-part blog about visiting Amsterdam, created entirely using my iPhone 3 at girvgoesdutch.tumblr.com

It’s been far too long since I’ve managed to get a post up on here. The main reason for that is that I’ve recently started working for Whatsonstage.com as their Acting Deputy Editor. Its a fantastic job, and one that I would not have been able to get without the experiences that posting on this blog and interacting with all of you have brought me.

The purpose of the five blog posts which proceed this one, which you might have noticed were quite a different style of post to my normal ramblings about the state of theatre and social media, were actually part of a bigger experiment to see if I could create content on the go at the same level of quality as I can when sitting at my Macbook. All of the Amsterdam posts which I uploaded before this one were created entirely on my iPhone.

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A number of weeks ago, before a major piece of uni work was originally due and the bereavement which postponed it, I was sent an email asking an interesting but pretty simple question: is it possible to generate theatre ticket sales from Twitter?

Having got the email, I set about straight away and tried to craft a succinct answer. I’m pretty pleased to say that the words I managed to get down into my iPhone at the time still form the basis of this post, but it was the decision to turn my answer into a blog post and do a bit more research, fleshing out my quick response, which has really delayed my answer to a seemingly simple question. So here we go… I think the number of commercial theatre productions and building based companies at least paying lip service to social media proves that as part of your marketing mix, social media should help you shift some tickets. But can a social media campaign alone help you fill your auditorium? Can you actually generate ticket sales through Twitter?

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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.

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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.

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