Powerful Stories: VIDF

Welcome back to another ‘Powerful Stories’ installment! Over the past month we’ve been fortunate enough to showcase some amazing local cultural and non-profit organizations from a communications and branding perspective. Have questions or topics you’d like us to touch upon in an upcoming interview? Drop us a line.

We’re pleased this week to present The Vancouver International Dance Festival. Successfully running for over a decade and counting, the VIDF has been hugely successful in bringing renowned international talent to Vancouver, contributing to a growing appreciation of dance and performing arts in the city. Armada recently sat down with communications director Crystal Kwon to learn more.

How did the Vancouver International Dance Festival come about?

The Vancouver International Dance Festival (VIDF) was launched in 2000 as an off-shoot of our parent organization, Vancouver Butoh dance company Kokoro Dance. Since then we’ve been helping support the art of culturally diverse contemporary dance in Vancouver through our festival programs and marketing communications.

Each year the VIDF runs through the month of March, bringing together the best of local and international contemporary dance. Through these events as well as ongoing community programs and shows we try to encourage a broader audience for contemporary dance in Vancouver, creating a cultural environment more receptive to the arts.

A big part of your shows seems to be promoting interaction between your audience and artists. Speak a bit about how you facilitate this?

We often say “a love affair with dance can start with one performance”. For us, a big part of sparking that interest and bringing people in is through active audience participation.

In addition to our main stage performances at each show we also feature a ‘community stage’ for local emerging talent complimented by feedback sessions between the artist and audience. Promoting these kinds of ‘artist talks’ in a casual, inviting environment has encouraged many first-time viewers to continue attending events and become more involved with the arts & dance scene.

How does the VIDF make use of communications and media? From your experience what strategies have worked best?

Publicity is our major communications tool. Over the years we’ve established partnerships with various local media outlets, some of whom review shows and help publicize our events. As I mentioned earlier, artist talks have also been hugely successful. Giving the artists and audience a casual environment to talk candidly about the performance lends itself perfectly to promoting loyal, long-term audiences.

We’ve also seen value in utilizing social media in targeted ways, particularly with encouraging candid dialogue and general interest in dance. We often use Twitter and our news section to publicize events and festivals in the city, and more broadly to spark conversation around dance. Although we’ve received a positive response through these channels, social media certainly hasn’t made an impact over night. Our primary focus is on relationship building over the long-term rather than solely pushing short-term ticket sales. Given the comparatively small arts and culture community in Vancouver relative to other forms of live entertainment, cultivating a broader audience receptive to contemporary dance continues to be our biggest challenge.

Corporate partnerships are clearly essential to the financial sustainably of the VIDF. How have you developed these relationships?

Our approach is pretty informal—a simple face-to-face introduction or connecting with decision-makers via twitter. The latter has been especially useful on account of Twitter’s reciprocal platform. We also make use of sponsorship kits, where the tangible benefits of acknowledging corporate sponsors and the access we provide to targeted audiences are pushed heavily.

Conversely, “adopt an artist” is a recent initiative of ours aimed at smaller to mid-size businesses. We give these sponsors an opportunity to patronize artists or performances at a lower price-point. It’s proven useful in reaching out businesses who would otherwise be intimidated by larger sponsorship programs.

I see you’ve invested in a fairly robust website. Speak about how you’re using this online space and where you’ve seen benefits?

We’ve managed to get value out of our website in a number of ways. The biggest benefit has come through our online box office, where we’ve seen a significant number of ticket sales as well as reduced overhead costs and fewer logistical complications. We’ve also been able to reach many international artists and dance companies who otherwise wouldn’t hear about us. The VIDF website gives these people an opportunity to learn more about us and determine if they’re an appropriate fit for our festival.

Finally, we use it to promote other festivals and performances in the city through our news section. We’ve seen a lot of tangible benefit from cross-promotional partnerships, as we’re all trying to encourage interest among similar audiences. Cross-promotion has also helped us spread our communications budget further by building off the strength of these organizations.

What advice could you give to a cultural or arts organization starting out?

The most important piece of advice I can give is to always remember why you started in the first place. Running a non-profit is often a difficult and frustrating undertaking, and it’s easy to get discouraged. Always keeping the big picture in mind will help you overcome these obstacles.

Secondly, partnerships are always the surest way to propel your organization forward. Whether cross-promotional partnerships, city/municipal grants, or even media contacts, they’re essential to getting your organization off the ground, especially in the early-stages.

 

We hope you’ve enjoyed this latest Powerful Stories segment. Feedback? Criticism? Praise? We’d love to hear it! You can contact us directly at blog@armadadesign.ca

Interested in having us feature your organization? Contact us at blog@armadadesign.ca and we’d be happy to arrange an opportunity for an interview.