Nicholas Peterson

Last Saturday, I attended StageSource’s 2008 Boston Theatre Conference “Raising Our Standard.” While the highlight was listening to A.R.T. incoming Artistic Director Diane Paulus discuss theatre along with Peter DuBois of the Huntington Theatre Company and Curt Columbus of Trinity Repertory Company, I also had the privilege to co-moderate a session titled “It’s a Blog Blog World: Theatre Journalism, Audience Development and Web 3.0”.

I worked with with Charles McEnerney (Marketing Director of ArtsBoston) and Sooz aka Susan Kaup (Web Marketing, Event Planning, and Photography).

In 2004, I attended the first Boston Theatre Conference. It was the weekend after the Red Sox had traded away Nomar Garciaparra. Despite being a building full of artists and arts administrators, the Red Sox had created significant buzz.

We all know what happened a few months later, too.

In 2004, I attended the session about marketing and the internet.  I was disappointed.  Much of the session was spent being an Internet 101 class.

Unfortunately, this was the state of the using the internet to market theatre in Boston in 2004. I imagine that it wasn’t an atypical experience around the country.  The theatre community was still learning.

When Jeff Poulos called and asked if I would participate in this year’s conference I was honored and excited.  Corresponding with Charlie and Sooz in planning the session and brainstorming on the subjects to cover and that people may ask about was equally thrilling.  The synergy was wonderful.  It reenergized me.  So many opportunities exist for using the internet to building arts audiences.  It is marvelous to have such gifted colleagues whose brains I can pick.  Truly great.

Whenever I discuss technology with arts organizations, I do my best to humanize it.  Too often technology is thought of as something cold, inanimate, and unfeeling.  Simply, it is not thought of as creative and artistic.  However, the hardware and software are toolls. It is the people behind the screens and at the keyboards who are passionate, quirky, fun, and full of humanity.

On Saturday, the turnout we had for the session was great.  The group was lively, smart, and responsive.  Boston has come a long way since 2004.  Attendees’ curiosity was palatable.  Everybody wanted to know how they could leverage the technology for their own organization.  They wanted to know what the opportunities were.

Some organizations were already dipping their toes into marketing on the internet:

• Charles Baldwin of Wheelock Family Theatre was using MySpace to build audiences.
• Tom Parrish of Merrimack Repertory Theatre had committed one staff member an hour a day to work just on Facebook.
• Todd Williams, the production manager at the Huntington Theatre Company, has been the lead contributor to their blog giving patrons a unique, behind-the-scenes perspective.

Ever since I joined the Boston theatre community in 2003, I have always felt energized and inspired when I had the opportunity to discuss ideas with colleagues from other organizations.  Jeff Poulos has been a central hub to building that community.  He’s been a true leader, and I appreciate him including me in Saturday’s conference.

Now is the time for the Boston theatre community to leverage collective knowledge and experience of members who have been using the web to market their shows.  As a community, we have to commit to investing in using the internet in this new way.

The time for business as usual has passed.

I came out of this weekend inspired and ready for the new season of theatre.

I’m sure that I’m not the only one.

For quite some time now, I have had people suggest to me that I should start a blog. 

Now, it’s time.

For me, the most interesting blogs have not been diaries of day-to-day life but instead what is going on in the world through the eyes of the writer.  Who am I?  Read more here.

Since I was 18, I have worked in professional theatre in various capacities.  Throughout college I was an intern and after graduating and earning my Master’s in Internet Strategy Management, I wanted to find a different way to contribute.  My goal has always been to understand how to use the internet to market in a broad way and then to creatively apply the tactics and strategies to non-profits and arts organizations.

For the arts in particularly, the basic strategies (direct mail and print advertising in particular) have become less and less effective.  As an industry, we need to start looking for creative ways to engage audiences.

This may involve challenging assumptions.

It also may mean that the previous rules no longer apply.