A look into the promotion of regular concert events

My placement is with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra. While I have been employed with the organisation previously, professional practice is encouraging me to view WASO with greater PR perspective and to get involved with more PR activities.

For my first blog I have chosen to focus on what I have been doing in my role, as well as on the marketing and PR that goes into an average WASO concert. As the orchestra presents over 175 performances a year that is a little hard to define, however their main home base for performances is Perth Concert Hall and this is what I’ll refer to as ‘average.’   

Last week WASO held two performances of Tasmin Little Plays Bruch. I was involved in organising seat drops, posters, getting in touch with ticket competition winners via a Facebook promotion, and ensuring all correct WASO promotional materials are on display at the concert hall.

Until I properly scrutinised all that goes into the promotion of every single WASO concert, from getting the message out through the media and online to the amount of coordination at the concert itself, I don't think I fully appreciated the amount of targeted effort the marketing department undertakes.

In the lead up to an average concert there will be print advertisements in the West and various other publications, social media conversations about the performance including Twitter and Facebook. and e-mails or letter mailouts are sometimes also used to communicate any possible specials in ticket prices.

If there is editorial on upcoming concerts or interesting soloists that is due to WASO’s PR Manager, who also sees that all major newspapers list WASO events in their upcoming events sections.

I monitor press coverage by collecting all media clippings relating to or relevant to WASO and enter them into a database. I then keep the hard copies on file and a daily email is sent to all staff to keep them informed about press coverage. When a concert has concluded, any reviews are also kept and filed, as well as uploaded to the website.

In addition to WASO’s set out concert schedule, this week a quintet will travel to Geraldton for a free concert as part of their ‘on the road’ program which visits regional WA areas. This requires a different kind of promotion, including sending e-mails and posters with information to local governments, businesses, music stores and schools in the area. 

The main skills in my view that are required for this role (and is probably true for most students undertaking this unit) is the need for time management and organisation. Writing skills are also essential and it’s important to have the ability to not only complete a task well, but think about ways to improve the efficiency of tasks if you can too. As almost each week brings a new concert and requires a need to stay on top of everything happening, I think this is definitely relevant to the WASO office!  

Vanessa Costanzo

Curtin University