Festivals - Fondazione Fitzcarraldo

and theatrical life is divided into two parts: a long period of permanent low-intensity
production with limited resources, and a short period of high-intensity consumption,
with considerable resources, large audiences, high visibility and fierce competition.
This concentration in particular periods and places leads to greater competition not
only in terms of capturing the audience, but also in securing the artistic and technical
resources (artists, performers, organisers and technical services), finding public and
private funds, and gaining space in the media. While some problems may be tackled
and “negotiated” only on the collective level (one need only think of the problem of
coordinating the dates and locations for a festival in a particular area, and of how this
can be solved only by somehow coordinating all those involved), it is essential for each
individual festival to achieve that magical alchemy of artistic and planning consistency,
effective communication and a focus on the users that lets the “voice” and the
name of the festival emerge from that indistinct background noise produced by so
much supply of cultural and recreational events.
2. 5. 2. · Transactional vs Relational
There is also another reason why the relationship between temporal variables and
marketing is essential for festivals: because the festival has to work on a “two-dimensional
paradigm”, in other words it is important to distinguish between a simple transaction,
which “has a distinct beginning, lasts a short time, and is finally related to the
performance” and a relationship exchange (between different events in the same year
and between different years), which comes from agreements, lasts longer, and reflects
a continuous process. This means the festival has to simultaneously put into action
“transnational marketing” and “relational marketing”: as well as the spatial-temporal
dimension (the “here and now” of the show, which allows no deviation and no postponement
and which, as a consequence for marketing, requires particular concentration
on aspects involving communication and accessibility), there is also the relational
dimension, which depends on the ability of the festival to establish a “commitment” to
its public. The relational approach takes the form of a series of client retention operations
designed to increase both attendance levels during individual festivals and loyalty
over the years. This means that marketing and communication strategies need to
be orchestrated in such a way as to create an exclusive, long-term and easily recognisable
image of the festival that is considered important by potential users: this means
that the “brand” concept is a key element of festivals too.
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It is useful to remind that, due to the change in forms and role of consumption – particularly
of leisure time – arts organisations are requested a more intense effort to
obtain client retention and stabilisation of their audience. It is the case of the LIFT
in London, a strong branded festival: a recent audience survey highlighted that most
people attended only one performance and that their choice was accidental. It is a
specifc situation that however reflects a more general condition: festivals should invest
more and more in marketing activities, since they can not count any longer on a stable