Test Drive the Arts NI announces official media partnership with U105
Test Drive the Arts NI is Audiences NI’s flagship audience development project and has recently gained an official media partner in U105 radio station.
The radio station has offered 10 of Test Drive the Arts NIs participating arts organisations, the opportunity to benefit from a free of charge radio advertising campaign. Each campaign will consist of one month’s worth of 40 x 10 to 30 second radio adverts, promoting an organisation or venue.
Promotional Test Drive the Arts NI and U105 road shows with live musicians will take place throughout the year to promote both Test Drive the Arts NI and U105 across the province.
The Test Drive the Arts NI project has been running successfully since February 2010 and was designed to help organisations increase their audiences by offering the public guest tickets, from unsold capacity. The result is that the Test Driver experiences the very best of what the arts has to offer and is encouraged to return as a paying customer to another event.
The website, www.testdrivetheartsni.org, enables anyone in Northern Ireland who has never been to live theatre or performing arts events to get on-the-house tickets to some of the city’s hottest shows. The prospective audience members can log on to the website to gain access to a range of performances.
Very few arts organisations routinely sell out shows; this means there is an untapped asset of unsold seats which can be converted to a valuable opportunity and is an effective and efficient way to develop new audiences. The organisations can decide which of their performances are available, controlling the number of tickets that are released and allowing them to make follow up offers to Test Drive patrons, effectively turning unsold tickets into a marketing opportunity.
The organisations also benefit from the promotional platform and increased profile that the Test Drive the Arts website and related social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter provides for them.
