Marketing in a Recession

Christopher Stager of CRStager marketing approached me with an idea back in January — he had some interesting thoughts about how orchestras can change their marketing strategies to work in the current recessionary economy. I asked him to write an article about marketing during a recession, which we published in January. He was also interested in starting a discussion among his marketing colleagues, so I suggested we put together a VDP to discuss this very issue.

Chris and I have assembled a panel of orchestral marketing experts from The Cleveland Orchestra, the Kansas City Symphony, the Virginia Symphony, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and the University of Hartford.

I’ve summarized Chris’ article below, but I urge you to click here to read the article in its entirety. His detailed thoughts about Perpetual Acquisitions and Perpetual Renewals are worth reading in full and will hopefully spark some discussion from both our panelists and our readers.

About the author

Ann Drinan
Ann Drinan

Ann Drinan, Senior Editor, has been a member of the Hartford Symphony viola section for over 30 years. She is a former Chair of the Orchestra Committee, former member of the HSO Board, and has served on many HSO committees. She is also the Executive Director of CONCORA (CT Choral Artists), a professional chorus based in Hartford and New Britain, founded by Artistic Director Richard Coffey. Ann was a member of the Advisory Board of the Symphony Orchestra Institute (SOI), and was the HSO ROPA delegate for 14 years, serving as both Vice President and President of ROPA. In addition to playing the viola and running CONCORA, Ann is a professional writer and editor, and has worked as a consultant and technical writer for software companies in a wide variety of industries for over 3 decades. (She worked for the Yale Computer Science Department in the late 70s, and thus has been on the Internet, then called the DARPAnet, since 1977!) She is married to Algis Kaupas, a sound recordist, and lives a block from Long Island Sound in Branford CT. Together they create websites for musicians: shortbeachwebdesign.com.

Ann holds a BA in Music from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and an MA in International Relations from Yale University.

Read Ann Drinan's blog here. web.esm.rochester.edu/poly/author/ann-drinan

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