Today, the overarching conclusions to most of the presentations were that we need to pay attention, to the environment, to what the audience is looking for and we should reflect beyond the tools and strategies we use, to have a self-analysis capacity and grow from there.
“Being part of the future in an active Way”/ “Small steps matter”
Margot Daviot (Curzon, UK), Seppe Vanhaecke (MOOOV, Belgium), Ieva Lange (Kino Bize, Latvia) were the first to take the mic’ in order to share their experience of going ethical and green. Margot and Ieva provided some very practical and concrete illustrations of meaningful gestures: limiting wrappings and print material, going for secondhand furniture, collaborating with small and local businesses, endorse this eco-friendly attitude as part of your venue’s identity – a venue which has more soul and weight by being so etc.
What is crucial is to get your staff and audience involved and enthusiastic, by accepting that there’s a learning curve to this, by making the other feel that this is not that daunting and above all that it is worth it, of course. As for Seppe, after having briefly reminded the audience of MOOOV nomadic and democratizing venture, he drew the other practitioners’ attention to the existence of an international network of solar powered mobile cinemas. His Belgian experience is that this kind of new direction is really well supported by fundings.
This topic was very much stimulating for the group which came up with and discuss other leads like Mario Fortin’s balancing of his travelling Carbon Print by planting a tree in his city or negotiation of copy transport reduction which may bring new relationships and dialogues with the distributor, or the incentive of cutting prices for spectators coming to your venue with their bicycles…
“Outreach, outreach, outreach”
After a fearsome “belly” break, it was time to envision how to reach out to an audience which is “fragile like a plant” in Marijana’s words and asks for a lot of thinking and care. Young Sara Cecconi (Piccolo Cinema America, Italy) made us travel to surprising and dreamy locations in Rome with Il Cinema in Piazza which grew out of the spirit of guerilla occupation of Cinema America while lab leader Frédéric Cornet (Galeries, Belgium) made us smile and think out of the box with the Cinécité Coopérative which takes cinema to all the neighborhoods that don’t have access to a theatre, thus complementing the city centre offer! Mikaela Smith (Showroom, UK) concluded this session by underlying the necessity to Outreach, outreach, outreach to always personalize things and ask for help to get the right people involved to engage communities.
The surgery slot session mainly hosted concerns and reassurance on the tactical scheme to work with schools and cleverly involved young people: by answering a need – offering the possibility to publish film criticisms on the cinema blog as Curzon does for instance, allowing the teachers to give a concrete outcome to their work with the kids, etc.
After a second and extended belly break, the group heard about the data driven marketing tool Movio which helps tracking the spectators’ habits and tastes etc. The conclusion drawn from this presentation was that it is certainly essential to ask yourself questions about your audience, and it can be done simply by talking directly to people. One should also keep in mind that you can’t only define your audience in age or gender group and that you can trust spectators to tell you what you need to do!
The day ended on a few ideas concerning the use of social media with the case of Kino Pod Baranami’s fun red carpet promo campaign for Isle of Dogs which was amplified through the intervention of cheeky canine social media influencer Jessie Wagabunda, Madeleine Probst’s tactful and straightforward ad campaign for lower ticket prices and the Cold War‘s anticipation at Kinodvor !
The 📸 POST OF THE DAY 🏆 facetiously taken by inexhaustible and already very popular Polish team member Ola Starmach was the occasion of a final dialogue on the possibility of selling something healthier than popcorn and still making money out of it!
And the QUOTE OF THE DAY award goes to Maddy Probst “Find the Excel freak in your team” 📊 📈 📉 as applied to the notion of keeping tracks manually of your audience data.
The attendees were invited to already digest (many a “belly” break and food for thoughts) and reflect on 2 return strategies. More to come tomorrow with a visit of the Lidl Lumière and fundraising and partnerships.
CW