Coated Posted March 1, 2019 Share Posted March 1, 2019 Wasn't the last load of surveys used to identify their core audience as undesirable? This one seems to profile responses quite thoroughly by age and ethnicity. I'm wondering whether I should become a 25 year old Tahitian, just to keep the statistical gods happy. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard LH Posted March 1, 2019 Share Posted March 1, 2019 Firstly, as for surveys, virtually every organisation now seems wants your feedback and experience at ever possible opportunity. It is becoming quite ridiculous, and tends to make me highly sceptical of any reported news that is based on some survey or other. I now tend to ignore all such requests. I don’t really mind checking social media for RB information, and getting access thereby to a different slant on things, including the various related links, pictures, videos and personal views expressed. I am no great expert, user or advocate of social media otherwise, but the ROH Twitter and Facebook accounts do seem to attract a reasonable following and seem relatively harmless and informative. I also like the ROH YouTube channel. However, not personally being an opera buff, I would prefer the RB to have its own, separate, social media presence. I also agree that it would be preferable to keep the ROH’s own website updated for “breaking” news, as well as using their social media. Otherwise (as previously stated!) from my personal experience I find myself in the main an unapologetic fan of the ROH as a place, and of its staff, and its website. I can’t think of any other equivalent venue that is so user-friendly in terms of information on productions, casting and ease of booking. I am not immune from joining in with the occasional moan about these things from time to time, but then I tend remember how much I really have to be grateful to the ROH for, since rediscovering the place over the last year or so, and comparing it with other equivalent organisations, and their websites, which I find so inferior. And no, I am not Alex Beard incognito! A couple of recent examples of good customer service: I mistakenly ordered two tickets online that I thought were returns for that same evening, but they were for a later date, for a different cast. Realising my mistake after the payment had been made, I rang the ROH to ask what could be done. The assistant was extremely helpful, not only cancelling the booking immediately, but finding alternative last minute tickets for us for that same evening. There was a temporary glitch the other day which meant the website was not recognising me as a Friend. I sent an email to point this out, and in under an hour an assistant had rung me to apologise, to explain exactly what had happened, and to confirm that she had re-set my account to correct the fault. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lizbie1 Posted March 1, 2019 Share Posted March 1, 2019 There’s a job advert up for a developer which says that the website gets 450,000 monthly visitors to the website - I wonder how that stacks up against social media “reach”. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capybara Posted March 1, 2019 Share Posted March 1, 2019 20 minutes ago, Lizbie1 said: There’s a job advert up for a developer which says that the website gets 450,000 monthly visitors to the website - I wonder how that stacks up against social media “reach”. Interesting but, whatever the social media figures, that 450,000 is likely to include a higher proportion of people seeking info. with a view to buying tickets............... isn't it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scheherezade Posted March 2, 2019 Share Posted March 2, 2019 17 hours ago, capybara said: Interesting but, whatever the social media figures, that 450,000 is likely to include a higher proportion of people seeking info. with a view to buying tickets............... isn't it? I would have thought it obvious that anyone visiting the website is actively in pursuit of information regarding performances and other events at the ROH, which is not the case with social media. Many people that my family and I know have the ROH social media boxes ticked but never bother to check the content. Friends of my age check their social media accounts occasionally at best. Many younger family members and their friends have moved on from Facebook and Instagram and those that haven't use them either to promote their own ventures or to interact with their friends, not to obtain information about the ROH, for which they would revert to the currently underpowered website. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob S Posted March 2, 2019 Share Posted March 2, 2019 In the last few days my browser link to the Events section has reverted to the old style page, is that the same for everyone else? Has the new style with big pictures and the need for lots of scrolling been dumped? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LinMM Posted March 4, 2019 Share Posted March 4, 2019 Certainly for me Rob S! was looking yesterday for possible more performances of Don Q and when went into ROH website it was back in the old format....thank goodness!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capybara Posted March 5, 2019 Share Posted March 5, 2019 No exactly the 'new' house but I received this message from a friend last night: "Less than 30 minutes into Cosi Fan Tutti tonight there was a large bang. The stage lights dimmed, the surtitles disappeared and the all the lights went out in the pit. We waited patiently while they tried to fix the problem but in the end an early interval was called. When we got back, lights had been carried into the pit and there was a little more light on stage but the front curtain remained stuck in a half draped position (part of the production). The performance would continue as a concert performance only and time would be saved by cutting the interval - and the recitative! Heard from a member of staff that problem has them baffled and.............. they seemed worried for tomorrow's performance, ballet I think. Good luck if you plan to go." Things are not going well for the ROH at the moment, are they? Will this appear on their website as News - of course not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xandra Newman Posted March 5, 2019 Share Posted March 5, 2019 Things were sooooo much better before the ROH Open-Up: their website worked properly, casting was correctly updated (and names of dancers spelled correctly), the News section was updated, etc.etc. Why has it all gone so wrong? Who was/is in charge of all those changes?? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lizbie1 Posted March 5, 2019 Share Posted March 5, 2019 1 hour ago, capybara said: and.............. they seemed worried for tomorrow's performance, ballet I think. Good luck if you plan to go. If it is cancelled and tickets are offered for other nights in exchange, at least it might help fill some empty seats! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lizbie1 Posted March 5, 2019 Share Posted March 5, 2019 (edited) 1 hour ago, Xandra Newman said: Things were sooooo much better before the ROH Open-Up: their website worked properly, casting was correctly updated (and names of dancers spelled correctly), the News section was updated, etc.etc. Why has it all gone so wrong? Who was/is in charge of all those changes?? I think there are two things: 1. Upper management seems to have lost focus on what they are there for, namely the presentation of opera and ballet 2. The calculation was apparently made that bringing in new audiences - and I am all for this - must be at the expense of the existing audience (in effect that this is a “zero sum game”) Add to these an obviously faltering website build and a lot is explained. Edited March 5, 2019 by Lizbie1 Typo 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RuthE Posted March 5, 2019 Share Posted March 5, 2019 1 hour ago, capybara said: No exactly the 'new' house but I received this message from a friend last night: ... Things are not going well for the ROH at the moment, are they? Will this appear on their website as News - of course not. To be fair, I've known a few such technical mishaps at the ROH over the years - the Gawain just after the current house opened, when the stage lift got stuck in the basement with (now Sir) John Tomlinson on it, and the performance had to be stopped while he was retrieved; the Macbeth where the moving golden cage failed and had to be removed; two separate Boheme incidents in the Copley production if memory serves, one involving a failed curtain and the other a failed floor mechanism; a Don Giovanni when somebody dropped a piece of the set during the interval scene change and damaged the stage... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capybara Posted March 5, 2019 Share Posted March 5, 2019 A reminder that Alex Beard is the guest of The Ballet Association tomorrow evening. Please see details here: http://www.balletcoforum.com/topic/261-ballet-association-news-of-upcoming-talks-and-events/ 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alison Posted March 5, 2019 Share Posted March 5, 2019 Ah. Gawain. Why have they never revived it since? I missed that revival because I refused to pay the extra-high prices (relative to previous runs as a "contemporary" opera) which they suddenly decided to charge. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RuthE Posted March 5, 2019 Share Posted March 5, 2019 I seem to recall I didn't pay much for it at all, as it was back in the days when Friends could get Standbys! I was a Young Friend or whatever they were called back then, and sat in the front stalls for about £12.50... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnS Posted March 5, 2019 Share Posted March 5, 2019 18 minutes ago, alison said: Ah. Gawain. Why have they never revived it since? I missed that revival because I refused to pay the extra-high prices (relative to previous runs as a "contemporary" opera) which they suddenly decided to charge. I think the revival was in 1994 after the 1991 premiere. I don’t know why it hasn’t been revived since then as I thought it a tremendous production. I hope you managed to catch a performance in the first run. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lizbie1 Posted March 5, 2019 Share Posted March 5, 2019 2 minutes ago, JohnS said: I think the revival was in 1994 after the 1991 premiere. I don’t know why it hasn’t been revived since then as I thought it a tremendous production. I hope you managed to catch a performance in the first run. Isn’t one of the reasons that prime John Tomlinson is practically irreplaceable? 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RuthE Posted March 5, 2019 Share Posted March 5, 2019 5 minutes ago, JohnS said: I think the revival was in 1994 after the 1991 premiere. I don’t know why it hasn’t been revived since then as I thought it a tremendous production. I hope you managed to catch a performance in the first run. There may very well have been a revival in 1994, but there was also one in very early 2000 immediately after the house reopened, which is the one I attended. I didn't start going to opera until 1996. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnS Posted March 5, 2019 Share Posted March 5, 2019 Thanks Ruth - my mistake. The ROH database shows just 10 performances - I hadn’t appreciated the premiere was a one off: http://rohcollections.org.uk/production.aspx?production=4098&row=0 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
li tai po Posted March 6, 2019 Share Posted March 6, 2019 JohnS - there were three series of performances of Gawain; the premiere was not a one-off. The ROH database was only partially completed. So productions more than twenty years ago are only listed by the first night (unless they featured Placido Domingo or Monica Mason - because the archives once had a special exercise to post all performances by those two artists). It all seems very haphazard, but the performance database has been completely abandoned for the last six or seven years. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnS Posted March 6, 2019 Share Posted March 6, 2019 Many thanks Li tai po - that makes much more sense. I knew there were problems with the database but thought the gaps were post 2004? My understanding is that the Royal Opera House is still wanting to provide a comprehensive database and I’m very much hoping that it hasn’t abandoned the database. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JennyTaylor Posted March 7, 2019 Share Posted March 7, 2019 I went to the Alex Beard interview at the Ballet Association last night during which he addressed many of the issues noted on the 35 pages of this stream. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to comment on a BA meeting, so I haven't, just suffice to say that he is aware of them. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sim Posted March 7, 2019 Share Posted March 7, 2019 Many thanks Jenny. Being aware is one thing......doing something about it is quite another!! 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JennyTaylor Posted March 7, 2019 Share Posted March 7, 2019 9 minutes ago, Sim said: Many thanks Jenny. Being aware is one thing......doing something about it is quite another!! Ah, well now you are trying to draw me in to giving a report Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sim Posted March 7, 2019 Share Posted March 7, 2019 No I'm not. I'm simply saying that it is easy to be aware of something; it's less easy to do something about it. As far as I'm aware (and I used to belong to the BA), you have to wait for the official report of proceedings to know what happened in a meeting. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
penelopesimpson Posted March 8, 2019 Share Posted March 8, 2019 On 07/03/2019 at 15:37, JennyTaylor said: I went to the Alex Beard interview at the Ballet Association last night during which he addressed many of the issues noted on the 35 pages of this stream. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to comment on a BA meeting, so I haven't, just suffice to say that he is aware of them. Is it a secret this Ballet Association? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zxDaveM Posted March 8, 2019 Share Posted March 8, 2019 7 minutes ago, penelopesimpson said: Is it a secret this Ballet Association? hardly - try their website Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bangorballetboy Posted March 8, 2019 Share Posted March 8, 2019 36 minutes ago, penelopesimpson said: Is it a secret this Ballet Association? If you type “the ballet association” into google, it’s the first result. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jan McNulty Posted March 8, 2019 Share Posted March 8, 2019 12 minutes ago, bangorballetboy said: If you type “the ballet association” into google, it’s the first result. I googled and it came up second! Here's the result: http://balletassociation.co.uk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bangorballetboy Posted March 8, 2019 Share Posted March 8, 2019 1 minute ago, Jan McNulty said: I googled and it came up second! Here's the result: http://balletassociation.co.uk That’s odd - when I tried a few minutes ago it was first (and I’m currently in Florida)! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Newcombe Posted March 8, 2019 Share Posted March 8, 2019 11 minutes ago, bangorballetboy said: That’s odd - when I tried a few minutes ago it was first (and I’m currently in Florida)! USA always top of pile 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alison Posted March 8, 2019 Share Posted March 8, 2019 6 hours ago, penelopesimpson said: Is it a secret this Ballet Association? No. That's why we have a thread about it in the News section 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
penelopesimpson Posted March 9, 2019 Share Posted March 9, 2019 Yes, I see that but it says nothing about the Meeting, hence my query. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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