Back to the admin side of things for this week... I'm going to be away for a little bit and that is the best time to cram in this stuff, as I have lots of dead time to fill... the majority of December and January will also be this sort of thing for our ensemble. It is a bit of a lull period with only scattered performances for most musical groups before it all kicks off again in the end of January (this is the Southern hemisphere... different for the north!).

Anyway, this means that we will have to get our website, publicity, and ticketing all in place over the coming months... the back-end of the ticketing is now up and running and live, but it is all running with placeholder images and minimal information... just the details for the guest artists, concert title, and time and venue. No blurb about the concert, I will have to get onto that soon!

I probably should get things together for a season launch media release... but I've sort of noticed that those things aren't really that much use. Sure, it is nice to have things in a paper or a website news-site... but in the end, we are looking to slowly grow a sticky audience, and the amount of traction that those things get are pretty limited for a small group anyway. Of course, if you have the budget to absolutely plaster the airwaves and ad space everywhere, that is a different thing.. but then you are also likely to be running a huge administrative and publicity overhead... and that is where lots of arts organisations that have "business" CEOs start falling over.

So, sticking to the small and sticky growth model! One publicity thing that did get a lot of traction was the season-long postcard campaign. We seem to have catchy postcards and there were quite a few newcomers that came in that way... and the hiring of a good distributer made sure that we were getting placed in really decent and relevant places!

Ooops, that reminds me... I have to add the titles to the draft postcard for next year! BRB!!!

... and that is done, I'm starting to wonder if the date is enough for the postcards, and that we don't need to have the time of the concert... it seems like it is a bit too much information for the year publicity... and that sort of thing is more for a larger scale reminder and not the specifics. Anyway, I will run that by my wife...

So, if that passes muster, then I will get that on to the printer/distributer... better to have that ready and out in the wild as soon as possible!

Meanwhile, the ticketing is done. The back end now works with the different seating zones... we had to make a little adjustment so that we can cater to a limited number of younger children. That was causing issues this year with the older audience members...

... and we are also starting a smaller children's and family concert that will also require some ticketing back end.

But the main thing is back to the website. I need all the placeholder pages and everything up and ready by the end of next week (self imposed deadline...). We have the 4 main chamber concert, a 3 concert regional tour, plus 4 children's concerts and 6 other concerts! Lots for a fledgling ensemble that is entering its third year of existence! We hit the ground running... and we are still running!

Phew... and then I also have to have the various artist bios up and going... those should be relatively easy... and then finally, the last bit... the tidying up of all the old pages and website logic... it was mainly done on the fly and with me learning on the job as well... so, the logic isn't always consistent... and I would prefer that it was a bit more unified!

... and when that is all done, my wife and daughter will cast a critical eye over the colour design... apparently it just hurts the eyes at the moment! I thought it looked good...

... and we just received news that we didn't get a grant that we had applied for... so, I will be busy writing a second grant application for a fall back position... and in the disaster case of zero funding, well.. we have our normal operating position! As always, treat the grants as boosts and not existential!

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