VIRTUAL PERFORMANCES:
MAXIMISING YOUR AUDIENCE
Norwich School
Zoe MacDougall looks at how online artistic performances have proved an unexpectedly effective mar eting tool during the pandemic.
C
OVID-19 limitations have put a stop to many traditional outreach and partnership events in independent schools. But a bit of creative thinking in music, dance and drama departments across the sector has resulted in a whole new world of live streaming, recording and online audiences. In 2020, innovative ensemble and solo performances leapt out of phones, tablets and screens as schools sought to reach out to their stakeholders online. The impact of this new concept of performance events in schools has evoked a re-think in marketing strategies and platforms, as performance in schools goes big and goes home in a virtual world.
Christmas without Nativity plays
Pre-COVID-19, who could have imagined a Christmas without the pre-prep Nativity play and the sequence of little 24 | schoolmanagementplus.com | Winter 2021
waves to Mummy and Daddy from each sheep and shepherd as the warmest of audiences files in Traditional ativity plays, festivals, concerts, dance shows, musicals, school plays and overseas tours have all been seriously challenged for the past two terms. Parents, both current and prospective, have been unable to enjoy their usual access to school grounds and buildings as audiences. However, despite the loss of live performance as we know it, schools have been bursting with innovation and new audiences have been found online. As the schools’ curriculum migrated to online teaching and learning in March 2020, so did the extra-curricular music, dance and drama. Performance events have still been
a big part of school life. Winners of the Independent Schools of the Year 2020 award for Performing Arts, Wells Cathedral School in Somerset has been prolific in its creative output during the pandemic. The school has live-streamed its Popular and Commercial Music Concert, and its twice-weekly series of lunchtime concerts, reaching online audiences of up to 1,000 people at a time. Dancers have visited care homes and performed in the gardens for residents to watch from their windows. Mark Stringer, the Director of Music, explains that drawing on peripatetic music coaches and in-house teachers gives the school a huge range of knowledge and experience to fuel its performance output.
Young people have something to communicate, something to say. To validate it, you have to be able to see and hear it MARK STRINGER, DIRECTOR OF MUSIC, WELLS CATHEDRAL SCHOOL
