Sharing experiences and research in the arts helps everyone. This session at Classical:NEXT in Germany highlighted lessons learned and provided advice for future broadcasts to connect with audiences post-COVID.
Benjamin Woodroffe invited Geoffrey John Davies (The Violin Channel) and Julia Haferkorn (Middlesex University) to share their experience and research into audience behaviour and engagement to ensure the Digital Concert delivers additional buy-in.
The session opened with a collective statement that the Digital Concert will never replace the in-person concert experience – rather it plays a vital role in enhancing the awareness of an ensemble/artist and provides “behind-the- scene” specific advantages beyond the concert stage. It can also open a market to audience goers that are unable or unwilling to attend concerts in concert halls.
“Australian artists seem to succeed in spite of all the challenges thrown at us – and it should come as no surprise that at an event that celebrates innovation and creative thinking, the Australian contingent do us all damn proud. Indeed one of the best sessions of the entire conference was Geoffrey John Davies (CEO & Founder, The Violin Channel) and Benjamin Woodroffe (Cultural Consultancy) discussing the digital concert, and the role of streamed videos and livestreamed performances post-pandemic – one of the rare sessions where someone could genuinely say they had learned something. … both Davies and Woodroffe make excellent points – Woodroffe pointing out that, “Digital concerts are about narrative and storytelling; live concerts are about the actual performance”, and Davies observing that an artist’s online portfolio has well and truly usurped the Carnegie Hall debut as the most important marketing tool of the 21st century.”
Chris Lloyd, Limelight Magazine