We were lucky enough to be at the Saturday night finale of the Ballet Spectacular Gala at Cork Opera House celebrating 21 years of the Cork City Ballet Company.
I’m not a ballet fanatic by any stretch of the imagination – if anything I’ve been more than a little bit ignorant about ballet and I was pleasantly surprised by such a fantastic night of fabulous music and dancing. Watching such incredible athletes perform gracefully on stage in such a polished production at a fabulous venue was a real treat.
To hear “Ride On” by Christy Moore being played in a dance scene during the Playboy of the Western World segment was very special.
In truth I ended up going to the ballet as a result of some random interactions on Twitter with the Cork City Ballet company (@corkcityballet) – I had so much fun and banter back and forth with them online that I just couldn’t possibly miss it!
Those attending Alan Foley’s production were also treated to two special segments delivered by some of the world stars of ballet including Prima Ballerina Lucia Lacarra and her partner Marlon Dino and another world-class Ballerina Erina Takahashi from the English National Ballet and her partner Yosvani Ramos.
At the end of the performance, Artistic Director of Cork City Ballet, Alan Foley spoke passionately to the audience about the challenge of operating a ballet for 21 years in a relatively small and unknown city (from a ballet perspective) and on a shoe string budget – well done Alan!
While we were sitting in the fabulous theatre waiting on the curtains to open I was wondering how I hadn’t seen people sharing pictures from the Thursday and Friday night performances on Facebook and Twitter.
All was revealed when the public announcer stated that the performance was about to begin and added “the taking of photo’s and recordings of the performance is strictly forbidden“.
Was this a Cork Opera House rule, a Cork City Ballet rule, some restriction that the star performers insist on or does the taking of photos genuinely interfere with the performers? (I did take a sneaky pic at the very end, which is at the top of this piece).
While many won’t like it and will tut tut (that nearly read like a tutu!) all of this social media stuff, many of us do like to share our life experiences and maybe instead of prohibiting photo’s they should be doing the exact opposite and encouraging them.
Maybe on the intro screen before the show starts show the hashtag #CorkBallet, gently reminding and even encouraging the audience to share their experience of the show online and help it to trend bringing it to the attention of so many others.
If that doesn’t work during the show either allow photos at the end of each segment or let the performers present themselves after the show for photos with guests – can you imagine the excitement of people getting their photos with the gorgeous stars. These would proudly appear on so many Facebook and Twitter accounts and at the same time promote the shows.
The lucky Thursday audience would have shared their experience encouraging their friends and online followers to buy tickets for the Friday and Saturday performances. The Friday audience would encouraged ticket sales for Saturday and the Saturday audience will have their friends and online followers saying “damn, we should have gone – next year we’ll definitely go“.
The Cork City Ballet Spectacular was indeed quite spectacular but should it be made easier for even more people to find out about it? – they would have loved it and Alan and his team might have a few more quid in the coffers for next year!
If you have a great place or a great event …make sharing easy!
Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion
Fuzion with offices in Cork and Dublin in Ireland offer social media training and consultancy services
Tags: Alan Foley, Cork City Ballet, Cork Opera House, Fuzion, Greg Canty
Greg Canty Fuzion Blog 
November 25, 2013 at 12:54 am |
That’s a very interesting point, Greg. I’ve been to shows where people used mobiles to talk and take pictures with flashes and it must be distracting for the performers. But if people are just taking photos and not using a flash to do so, is there a problem with this? Like you said, it would provide free publicity for the group when people start sharing online, which can be no bad thing for a group operating on a shoestring, as the artistic director mentioned.
Or maybe we should just enjoy the moment 😉
November 25, 2013 at 9:17 am |
Great point Fergal …does a new world need new rules?
November 25, 2013 at 10:00 am
I think the etiquette will work itself out, assuming people have the courtesy there to start with.
Personally, if I were involved with the company I’d like people to spread the word about the show in the hope of getting people along. I believe we’re more influenced by information from trusted sources like friends, than we are from advertising so to me the advantages of encouraging people to spread the word via social media would seem fairly clear.
November 25, 2013 at 9:22 pm
Fergal – thanks , I made an additional suggestion to the blog post
November 26, 2013 at 1:01 am
Looks good!
November 25, 2013 at 9:14 am |
… it’s an issue concerning ownership and distribution of such images… a question I’ll be happy to discuss with you…
November 25, 2013 at 9:17 am |
I understand that Chris but it is also about “my experience” , I want to capture my night and share it. It’s about promotion – most gigs now have no restrictions with photos. They get the “sharing” idea.