If we’re being honest, when it comes to marketing in the classical music industry we all look and sound the same. Whether it’s the same copy-and-paste “delighted to announce” text, unimaginative event posters, or slide show season announcement videos, very little differentiates us from each other. This is something that affects the entire industry, from music students to international soloists, from amateur groups to professional orchestras. It’s the same template-style promotion that fails to showcase who we are, why we do it, or why it would be of interest to anyone. I have a bit of a weird ..read more

I was once working with an orchestra on a big digital project and as part of it, we managed to arrange for a bit of a rebrand at no extra cost. The orchestra had made a strong commitment to accessibility, and the designers pointed out that the existing brand colours were not accessible and could be improved easily. However, the orchestra decided not to change them because they had previously spent money on a focus group to choose the old colours. Despite being presented with a better option at zero extra cost that helped them achieve their goals, they refused to change and stuck with their ba ..read more

Taylor Swift is a cultural phenomenon. Whether it’s her plane journey to the Superbowl overshadowing the game itself, or the economic impact of her Eras Tour on cities being so significant that she’s mentioned as a specific factor in a recent Fed report in the U.S.A, she is impossible to miss. But where did all this incredible attention from fans, audiences, and pretty much everyone come from? Taylor Swift has one of, if not THE most loyal and engaged online audiences in the world. And this is no accident. It comes from how she encourages and empowers her fans (“Swifties”) to use their phones ..read more

There is a phrase that we hear over and over again in our industry. Something that we come back to whenever we face hardship, when audiences decline, or even when we have an opportunity to share a message with the masses. “Music education will save classical music”. A narrative that the problems we face in the concert hall are due to cuts in music education, and that more funding in music education is what is required to build future audiences. “How else will young people come to classical concerts if they aren’t exposed to it at school and educated in it?” The thing is… music education will ..read more

Classic FM has fallen to yet another new record low for listeners, Scala Radio has lost over a third of its audience from before the pandemic, while BBC Radio 3 has bounced back from previous losses, according to new figures from RAJAR (Radio Join Audience Research). Released today, the figures cover the third quarter of 2023. Classic FM has lost over 1 million listeners since the start of the pandemic, with today’s figures setting yet another record low for audience figures. The station saw a loss of 8,000 listeners from June 2023 dropping 0.2% to 4.47 million. Although only a slight slip, t ..read more

Facebook and Instagram’s owner Meta has unveiled its long-awaited competitor to Twitter. Already boasting millions of sign-ups in the first few hours and being backed by the world’s largest social media company, it will be hard to ignore. But what does this mean for people and organisations in the classical music world? We’re going to have a quick look at what Threads is, how you get started, and what to do if you’re a musician or a classical music organisation. What is Threads? Threads is a new app from Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta. It is designed to be a direct competitor to Twitter. If you’ve us ..read more

Why orchestras sucking at Instagram is the sign of a bigger problem We’re going to get to the bigger problem by the end of this blog, but first, here’s a scenario for you. Imagine that your run an orchestra… and make it a big one. You have a concert coming up and you decide to task your entire marketing team to come up with a print campaign, to advertise at bus stops all over the city. The company that owns the advertising spaces at bus stops tells you the exact dimensions you would need for your poster. As well as telling you the specific size, this also tells you that they the poster should ..read more

There has been a lot of talk about AI in the news recently, with Chat GPT, Bing AI, and Google Bard all being released to the public. This got thinking about what AI could do in the classical music industry, so I decided to set Chat GPT a task… “Program a season for an orchestra of 30 concerts. Each concert should be about 90 minutes long and contain multiple pieces, ideally with thematic links between the pieces” I have to say… I’m kind of blown away with the result. Not only did it create an entire concert season, but it also included concert names, family and movie concerts, and a concert ..read more

As the end of 2020 comes into sight, plenty of orchestras now have a digital concert season of some sorts. It’s been great to see orchestras embrace the potential of digital, with some even having great initial success in selling season passes. But, as I’m ever the pragmatist, we need to all be ready for one thing… a big drop in engagement for orchestras digital output. Here’s why. Back at the very beginning of April and COVID restrictions in the UK, I wrote a blog called “classical music in crisis - this what the future looks like” which pretty accurately predicted how the pandemic would aff ..read more

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