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neil
Forum Owner / Moderator
United Kingdom
2623 Posts |
 Posted - 23 Oct 2010 : 12:13:17
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Those who attended the "Opera under the Spires" at St Margaret's Church last night enjoyed arguably one of the best concerts ever to be held in Angmering - and good value it was. It featured opera singers and an accompanist who have performed internationally and included a wide range of arias to suit most tastes. It was also a fun evening - not stuffy at all. At the interval, the company (Cantonata) provided nibbles and soft drinks for attendees.
Unfortunately, only 15 members of the public attended which was not only a great shame, but rather an embarrassment for Angmering. I think only one member of the Angmering Chorale attended. Were members aware of the concert because I would have thought this would have been right up their street? Soprano Tarsha Cole has also been on tour with Karl Jenkins, the Chorale's patron.
It is unclear why a lot more members of the public did not attend. It is appreciated, of course, that it would never be everybody's cup of tea, but the company did not know where they had gone wrong. I said that I would try and get some feedback from Angmering residents.
So, Forum readers, can you give any reasons? Were you aware of the concert? Was it the wrong time of year? Was it price? Or were there other reasons? Cantonata really would appreciate feedback - can you help?
If you could not make it last night, another performance is being held tonight at St Andrew's Parish Church in West Worthing, followed by performances at Holy Trinity, Hurstpierpoint, on Thursday 28 October, St Wilfrid's Parish Church, Bognor Regis, on Friday 29 October, and St Mary Magdalene & St Denys, Midhurst on Saturday 30 October. See Cantonata website www.cantonata.co.uk |
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BFA
Advanced Member
United Kingdom
410 Posts |
Posted - 23 Oct 2010 : 22:14:39
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Good value it may have been, but £16:50 is not cheap. At (just for example) Chichester festival theatre, all the current productions are available for less than that, and even in the cheap seats there will be no chance of being seated behind a pillar and having to depend on a TV screen, which was the situation I was in when I went to an Angmering Chorale concert there.
Did the church put it on their website? It's not there now and the Worthing church don't have it on their website either, do the other venues have it on their websites? There are links to the venues on cantonata's website, but, at least for St Margarets and St Andrews, those links were not reciprocated.
How did they advertise, did they speculate to accumulate? Flyers through letterboxes? Flyers in local papers? Ads in local papers? Radio ads?
Or did they just depend on posters in shop windows and village notice boards? Apart from the mention on the AVL news page, that's all the advertising I saw.
For a non-dedicated venue with hopeless parking facilities, that's not enough work IMHO. - and cantonata should have been looking further afield anyway, to neighbouring villages and towns.
Angmering has no guilt to bear; no reason to be embarrassed, the vast majority of us, of which only a small % would be interested anyway, had no idea it was happening.
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neil
Forum Owner / Moderator
United Kingdom
2623 Posts |
Posted - 23 Oct 2010 : 23:43:48
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| Good points. Anyone else got any comments? |
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cantonata
New Member
United Kingdom
1 Posts |
Posted - 25 Oct 2010 : 21:08:17
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Thank you Neil for opening this channel... all feedback is invaluable.
The comments made by the contributor above (BFA) are indeed relevant.
Promoting ‘Opera Under the Spires’ has included wide spread poster campaigns including all adjacent villages and towns. Press releases and adverts in many West Sussex publications along with local radio promotion. With regard to St Margaret's, over 200 businesses, societies and organisations were contacted directly (including The Angmering Chorale). We can only be fortunate should such groups see fit to circulate details of such an event. The concerts have also been listed on 56 website and listings forums.
The price of the ticket was set considering the cost of performers, equipment production and cost-centre. If we had used a venue like The Chichester Festival Theatre; tickets would most certainly be higher in view of the vast expense we would incur for putting on a concert on such a scale. The whole concept of the tour was to bring a level of entertainment seldom seen in small towns and villages.
It was our hope to attract enough people in order to make a sensible profit that would be shared equally with the church - this unfortunately was not achieved. Cantonata will, as promised, be donating a compensatory sum to the church instead.
Regarding guilt and embarrassment? I personally think that Neil’s comment relates more to a disappointment that more people were not able to share in the experience than to make attempts at guilt-tripping anyone.
As far as we are concerned it is as important for us to analyse why 15 people did attend as to why others did not. If we are to have any criticism here it would be with the lack of support given to the event by the church itself. No member of the church clergy or staff attended the vent (bearing in mind it was set up to try and raise money) Two ladies (volunteers) arrived to show us around the kitchen... and stayed once they heard what we had brought to the church. There was very little support from the church office, no website presence and an all too nonchalant attitude as far as I am concerned.
A million pounds was spent on the re-order of St Margaret’s... I am surprised there was so little assistance and support for a potentially revenue creating project.
At the end of the day and with all things considered the buck must stop with us. We obviously got it wrong somewhere and gracefully accept our losses. The rest of the tour has sold pretty well by comparison. We hope we can approach Angmering with a more effective and communicative campaign next time... whatever the venue.
We thank those that attended and for the e mails of praise and appreciation for the show we provided. Thank you to Pam and Anne for their help. We’d also like to thank Neil for his efforts in trying to help us along.
T Driscoll
Cantonata Music
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BFA
Advanced Member
United Kingdom
410 Posts |
Posted - 25 Oct 2010 : 23:50:02
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quote:
Originally posted by BFA
did they just depend on posters in shop windows and village notice boards?
Obviously not then, and the rest of the tour has been more successful.
Apart from perhaps a different venue next time, maybe the baptist church, maybe the village hall, maybe the community centre (once the acoustics have been sorted out) an idea might be to ask local shops not only to display posters, but also to offer tickets for sale (in return for free entry for the shop owners of course) 
We've ( http://www.angmeringframing.com/ ) done that for a few things, (without the free ticket bit, just kidding about that) like films in both the village hall and the community centre; some have been sell-outs.
I used to sing in a Brighton-based choir and most of the choir's concerts are in churches. Most of the audiences would be members of the congregations, regardless of the similar advertising/promotion to yours. It would be interesting to know how many of the 15 that did turn up fitted that bill, and why, seeing as it was also a church fundraising event, more did not.
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neil
Forum Owner / Moderator
United Kingdom
2623 Posts |
Posted - 26 Oct 2010 : 09:51:27
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St Margaret's Church have very recently told their "Church Family" that they need to raise £82,000 to cover ministry and maintenance costs for 2011 and want to raise about £420,000 over the next 3 years for re-roofing.
It is surprising therefore that the Church missed an opportunity for really promoting "Opera under the Spires" which could have also benefited them with a little bit of effort and imagination. Simply including the event on their regular handout was insufficient. That nobody from the Church hierarchy bothered to go to the concert is very disappointing. The question is, why did not the Church not want to really promote this event?
Probably one of the more successful ways of raising awareness in Angmering, in my experience, is by a leaflet drop - which BFA also suggests. Failing this, there is the free monthly magazine "All about Angmering" which is delivered to all households in the parish. I'm sure the editor would have included the concert as a feature article if approached or, failing this, included at least an entry in their "What's on in October" page.
Finally, several people have mentioned to me or my wife that the they thought the cost of tickets was too high for a village event in these difficult economic times - £33 for a couple. |
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Rector
Junior Member
United Kingdom
31 Posts |
Posted - 26 Oct 2010 : 10:21:41
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Thanks for raising this issue, Neil. Like you, I was disappointed to hear that there was such a low level of interest in this performance in the village.
I think that the points made in Mr Driscoll's posting are very unfair to the staff in our Church Office, which attempted to assist him in every way it could, and did all that he asked them to do, including selling tickets on the groups behalf, set up of the building and providing people to help with refreshments. Indeed 11 of the sold tickets came from the Office.
Indeed, a few further points can fairly be made about the points made:-
1) One of the reasons for the reordering was to allow this beautiful building to be used for appropriate performances by musicians. Some events we sponsor ourselves, others (like this one) are simply commercial bookings, where for a small contribution the group have access to a fine venue.
2) The Church makes its own members aware of such commercial bookings - and references were made to this particular event via our weekly news-sheet for the month of October to some 300 adults. We are not responsible for general advertising in the community for this sort of event - the group itself is.
3) We can only attribute the lack of attenders for this event to
a) Lack of general penetration of the community with awareness of it;
b) Lack of interest in this sort of music;
c) Concerns re pricing levels - as one of your contributors noted. In these days, pricing needs to be very sharp, and the price of these tickets compares unfavourably with a recent Angmering Chorale concert when the tickets were only £6.
d) Proximity to half term (possibly!)
We are sorry that this event was not a financial success for the group , and wish it success in their other events.
Best wishes
Mark |
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neil
Forum Owner / Moderator
United Kingdom
2623 Posts |
Posted - 26 Oct 2010 : 10:31:35
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| Again, fair points made by Mark. |
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pseamer
New Member
United Kingdom
1 Posts |
Posted - 26 Oct 2010 : 12:16:22
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Since The Angmering Chorale got a mention in the original post, I have been asked to add a comment on behalf of the choir.
To the best of our knowledge, no notification or promotional materials were received by our chairman, secretary or myself (webmaster/publicity). We have a well-used routine to announce and display such material at our weekly rehearsals.
Part of our choir sang in St Margaret’s on Sunday 17 October and, if there was publicity material on display, I missed it. My first awareness of the performance was from a poster by the bar at The Spotted Cow latish on 21 October – too late for me to react. I do sympathise with Cantonata - it’s part of my remit to get our publicity posters displayed and I appreciate the difficulties.
Hope these comments may be helpful.
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Peter S |
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neil
Forum Owner / Moderator
United Kingdom
2623 Posts |
Posted - 26 Oct 2010 : 13:17:07
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| Thank you Peter for the Chorale's side of the publicity story. |
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BRAM
Advanced Member
373 Posts |
Posted - 26 Oct 2010 : 15:17:34
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It is refreshing to see that the Rector & Angmering Chorale's representative responded in such a positive & helpful feedback to what, on the face of it, was a criticism about the poor attendance of the Opera under the Spires performance. Rather than the all too common attitudes of either ignoring it completely or plead "nothing to do with me guv,"the comments will hopefully aid future events of all kinds.
A lesson perhaps to other posters/non posters to AVL forums.
My personal opinion is that cost will always be a deciding factor particularly so these days. |
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jammer
Senior Member
172 Posts |
Posted - 30 Oct 2010 : 12:55:57
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I read the forums, and very ocasionaly but rarely pop onto the main website to check the news etc (Its just my preference).
I for one would have loved to go to this and would jump at the opportunity were it offered again.
Unfortunately, this thread is the first I have heard about the whole thing.
Publicity of the event has drastically failed somewhere.
Regarding the price, I think its steep but reasonable for an event of this calibre. These are professional musicians at the end of the day and it costs money to organise.
Neil just as an idea for people like me who mainly read the forums, would it be a good idea to start an events thread? |
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neil
Forum Owner / Moderator
United Kingdom
2623 Posts |
Posted - 30 Oct 2010 : 17:14:13
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| Good idea, jammer. Sticky topic now established under this General Forum. |
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jammer
Senior Member
172 Posts |
Posted - 30 Oct 2010 : 19:32:35
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quote:
Originally posted by neil
Good idea, jammer. Sticky topic now established under this General Forum.
Thanks Neil!
I'll keep an eye on that!
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