OPERA UP CLOSE

The Magic Flute

THE BRIEF

Get more young people to attend The Magic Flute at Soho Theatre and increase OperaUpClose’s (OUC) social media following. 

Opera is considered an expensive and elitist activity, but OUC’s aim is to make the art form more diverse, emotionally direct and intellectually stimulating for as many people as possible. My challenge was to overcome aversion based on assumptions about opera as an artform.

THE SOLUTION

A campaign based on the opera’s core themes of compassion and love; two things everyone can understand. The idea was to allow access to discounted tickets in exchange for sharing a story on social media, by email, or with the company members at the theatre. Anyone who followed OperaUpClose on social media and shared one thing they’d done for love using the hashtag THIS4LOVE received a discount code for £10 tickets. 

FUN FACTOR

I designed bespoke boxes of melody pops (magic flutes) with instructions on how to participate in the campaign and had them distributed around London’s cafes, bookshops and theatres. Our aim was to target not just opera enthusiasts, but writers, readers, tourists, and people looking for weekend activities.

SOCIAL MEDIA ASSETS

With the participation of OperaUpClose cast we created vox pops and bright imagery to share on social media in order to encourage participation and spread hashtag use.

SOCIAL MEDIA SWAP

With Soho-based members’ club House of St Barnabas and The Poetry Society to target a local audience interested in the arts and charity.

PAID SOCIAL

We worked with Target Live on activity to boost uptake of the promotional offer on Twitter and Instagram.

MEDIA COVERAGE

We approached popular digital magazines to include the promotion and the opera in their activities sections. Among others we were featured in the Evening Standard and The Pool’s ‘Top Weekend Things To Do’ and on London Live.