Our new website is the first stage in an on-going commitment to bring together the wealth of cultural activity happening in our venues across the Highlands & Islands. Highlighted in there is the amazing programming that has taken place to bring Culture 2014 (part of the Commonwealth Games) into our region – part of a wider marketing campaign that has seen flyers, posters and press articles being placed from Edinburgh to Elgin, from Glasgow to Glencoe, and from Irvine to Inverness.
We are sending audiences your way via the new website where they are able to find out more about what is happening where, how to book tickets, and more.
But this is only the start….
What’s Next?
Working with the amazing team at D8 we have just signed off an amazing campaign that firmly places the Touring Network promoters on the cultural map of Scotland. We are desperate to give you a sneak preview, but are sworn to secrecy for the time being. Clues and updates will be given over the forth-coming weeks on Twitter and Facebook – so don’t miss the opportunity to find out more and connect with us now.
What we can tell you is that the epic campaign will be launched in the Central Belt and Highlands towards the end of the Edinburgh Fringe and Commonwealth Games, with attention grabbing hoardings, posters, leaflets, a social media campaign and more. It promises to leave no-one in doubt of the amazing range of high quality, intimate performances happening in the Highlands.
Key journalists are engaged too – and are starting to write about the events happening across the Highlands – working with us to ensure that our target audiences will be desperate to get closer to the action in the Highlands & Islands.
In the simplest terms, we are making your events visible to a wider audience. We will be catching their attention and championing you as the go-to places to discover contemporary, high quality and diverse arts programming in some of the most beautiful places in Scotland.
We will be investing in advertising in local and national newspapers, gaining a presence in key locations such as train stations, city centres, ferries, cultural and arts events.
There will be further investment in our website too making it the what’s on site for cultural happenings in the Highlands.
All in all we will be creating a buzz and talking directly to new audiences across Scotland.
How can you get involved?
We know your time is precious, so we want to make things as simple as possible for you, so there are three easy ways to get involved.
Let us know what you have programmed. We will be working to ensure that Visit Scotland and other listings sites are able to ‘pull’ all the information they need from the Touring Network website.
Re-Tweet and share our postings on Facebook
Put your Touring Network window sticker in your venue, host posters and leaflets. This will allow audiences to immediately recognise your venue as part of the wider campaign that they connected with earlier.
We will also be running members meetings from August that will talk more about the new campaign, and the tools that we will be passing onto you – so please, watch this space!
A little more of the detail….
The aims of the project are:
- to raise the profile of high quality, professional, performing arts events across rural Scotland (from Argyll to Shetland);
- to develop strong brand awareness for The Touring Network as the go-to place to discover contemporary, high-quality and diverse arts programming outside the cities;
- to motivate an existing tourist demographic to expand and widen their experience of the Highlands & Islands by engaging with contemporary cultural product.
Why should we bother with new audiences?
We know that many of you have core audiences of loyal, engaged local residents. These people are vital to the success of rural promoting – bringing equality of access to those living in more remote areas – and it is this that is at the heart of the Touring Network’s aims.
However, given the size of the communities that we operate out of, our audiences can be small – and tend to be of an older age group (50+). This is not sustainable in the long run.
Whilst attendance is strong across Scotland, we know that audiences are failing to make the connection between high-quality arts experiences and rural areas. This is also made difficult as the information about these fantastic ‘happenings’ can be hard to find outside of the communities where they happening.
For the purposes of this campaign we are therefore looking to primarily focus on those people who are already culturally engaged in some way, and to show them that they can have these experiences wherever they are.
In order to bring more people through our doors, and the associated ticket sales that accompany them, growing audiences and capitalising on the numbers of visitors to our venues is essential.
Everyone benefits:
- You get more bums on seats, as well as support to grow your revenue to put on more shows for your core, local audience.
- Audiences get a more positive, 3-dimensional insight into the communities they visit – up close and personal with an authentic cultural experience, the idea of being hosted in the communities they choose to visit.
- Performers & touring companies get larger audiences, wider exposure for their work and more chances to engage with other parts of the country in a meaningful way.