Free Nights of Theater, Music, Dance and Art

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Free Nights of Theater, Music, Dance and Art 2011

Attract New Audiences and Patrons
Build Your Single Ticket Buyers
Join a National Movement

Each October, Arts Orange County, in partnership with Americans for the Arts (AFTA) and the Theatre Communications Group (TCG), will be coordinating and promoting National Arts & Humanities Month and Free Nights of Theater, Music, Dance & Art.

Arts Orange County joins these national efforts in order to seek out new audiences for every arts discipline, invite current patrons to try a new arts experience as well as ignite interest and create awareness about the variety of arts experiences across the county.

WHY YOU SHOULD GET INVOLVED

Since its inception in 2005, Free Night of Theater has boosted awareness of our nation’s regional theater companies, while building new audiences and driving single ticket sales.

The National results of this program are impressive:

• 72% of those attending Free Night of Theater tried going to an organization that they had never been to before!
• 31% of these had never been to any kind of theater performance.
• 41% of new theater patrons returned to that theatre and purchased a ticket!
• The program also has a track record of attracting significant numbers of people from non-traditional theatre participant categories; including infrequent theatre-goers, young people, and diverse populations.

BEST PRACTICES FROM AROUND THE NATION

Welcome Novice Art-Goers: Many FreeNighters will be unfamiliar with the rituals of arts-going and need a certain amount of special treatment. Consider a pre-show lobby talk, a welcome sign in the lobby, a special follow-up, a staffed "FreeNighter Central" table acting as a greeter so they can skip the line at the box office. You can also consider a program insert, a welcome packet given to them with their tickets, or even welcome them officially in a curtain speech.

Limit No-shows:  Send a pre-performance email reminder with some insider information about the show or an invitation to ask for their "free gift". The email should include details that may seem obvious including directions, start time and how long the show will be.

For more tips, read an 8-page Summary  taken from A Compilation of Best Practices Manual for Free Night of Theater by Clayton Lord, Director of Marketing and Audience Development, Theater Bay Area, San Francisco, CA.

WE INVITE YOUR ORGANIZATION TO PARTICIPATE

Participation is easy! Arts Orange County takes care of all marketing, communications, management of the program and the ticket distribution. You supply the opportunity to try out your organization for free!

Step 1. Indicate your interest in participating by signing up!

Step 2. Join us for a free informational webinar on Tuesday, July 12th at 10 a.m. Information will be sent to you when you complete the interest form in step 1.

Step 3: Choose one or more events that will take place anytime between October 1st and November 1st in Orange County. Choose a date(s) where you will offer free tickets or admission. Wait to decide how many tickets you will offer when you see how many people signed up. 

Step 4: You will receive a login and password to manage your event directly or you can ask for assistance from Arts OC. The website will allow you unlimited access to manage your information, ticketing allotment and patron information.
 

Step 5: Arts OC runs a promotional campaign to invite everyone to view the offerings and sign up for their top 5 choices. When the "lottery" closes, there's a new system in place that will automatically cross-check your database with the Free Night patrons to eliminate those that are already your ticket buyers (so easy and completely private - more info to come)

Step 6: Based on the demand, you THEN decide how many tickets you wish to offer AND -this is the best part- you have every single interested patron's information, not just those that were the first to sign up.
   *The system creates an automatic waiting list and tells those that were not selected where they are on your waiting list. (i.e. You are #2 of 54 people on this waiting list). 
   *Several strategies are in place to address no shows as well that are quite brilliant!
                                                                                                                         
                                                                                           
Contact Sharyn Case, Free Night Coordinator at 714-556-5160, x10 or email scase@artsoc.org.