Comments on: Arts Council’s new public engagement campaign

By: Jake Grimley

Jake Grimley — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 09:10:45 +0000

But it has to work the other way as well Jake. No point in having a system that positions ‘high’ (subsidised) culture against ‘low’ (non-subsidised) culture. Those who are off to see a bit of Operatic Otello in a Digbeth warehouse next week should get free tickets to Snow White on Ice at the Alex next year.

Dave

Agreed. My examples pointed to a trading up from ‘low’ to ‘high’ brow, but I’m not sure that’s what I really intended. The main thing is to convert people who attend something once or twice a year to attending three times a year (or more). I think that pairing could be between obvious crowd-pleasers and less obvious ones though.

What gets me is that ‘going out and having a good time’ should be considered such a hard thing to sell to people.

Chris

Well, you are competing against ‘staying in and being miserable’.

I’m not going to comment on Scene Central, because it might come across as sour grapes.

By: Dave Harte

Dave Harte — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 21:59:44 +0000

But it has to work the other way as well Jake. No point in having a system that positions 'high' (subsidised) culture against 'low' (non-subsidised) culture. Those who are off to see a bit of Operatic Otello in a Digbeth warehouse next week should get free tickets to Snow White on Ice at the Alex next year. I think the good folk of the Black Country would welcome some facilities rather than a campaign aimed at telling them the cultural experiences they value, that makes meaning for them are somehow second rate. I thought Postmodernism dealt with all this? NB: NI11 = 'The percentage of the adult population in a local area that have engaged in the arts at least three times in the past 12 months."

By: Chris Unitt

Chris Unitt — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 21:26:01 +0000

Going after semi-receptive audiences seems like a good move and yes, the web stuff seems ill-conceived at this stage – I’m still not sold on the concept/execution of Scene Central and that was being talked up as being the main web presence for the West Mids.

What gets me is that ‘going out and having a good time’ should be considered such a hard thing to sell to people. After all, this lot – http://thefuntheory.com/ – can apparently make walking up stairs and using bins seem fun.

By: Jake Grimley

Jake Grimley — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 20:57:08 +0000

Other positives include a ruthless target-driven focus on semi-receptive audiences via mainstream media. Less good: a ‘one stop shop’ website featuring ‘themed lounges that allow the user to enter a virtual arts world’. I don’t see how the initial objective naturally leads to that method.

My idea? Package up arts experiences in threes like Collateralised Debt Obligations. If you want to see A Christmas Carol and We Will Rock You, you are forced to sit through Katya Kabanova too. Either by law [joke], or via clever pricing incentives. A website that did that might be quite interesting…

By: Jake Grimley

Jake Grimley — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 20:30:22 +0000

It’s great that there’s a real determination to make it happen, and I think it’s a smart move regionally to focus on the Black Country. But a little part of me dies when I hear that the solution is another logo on the flyers and another website. Is this not the type of thinking that’s been driving failure to engage these past three years? Even ‘Hello Art’, the speech bubble device and the crazy web 2.0 UGC holding site feels like rehashing the same old stuff for the same old people.