The last year has been “a bit of a roller coaster,”

Susannah Lees-Jeffries explains in her understated Kiwi style. But the Royal New Zealand Ballet’s Director of Marketing and Development is clear that a willingness to embrace new opportunities brought the company closer to their audience during the pandemic. 

New Zealand’s national ballet company, the Royal New Zealand Ballet (RNZB) is based in Wellington and tours regularly. At the start of 2020, the company was scheduled to tour to 28 venues around New Zealand, with dancers also travelling to festivals in the UK and the United States.

When New Zealand entered strict lockdown with closed borders on 23 March, 2020, the company moved instantly to remote-working and postponed, then cancelled, two upcoming tours. A number of additional snap lockdowns during late 2020 and early 2021 forced the company to adapt forecasts.

Despite the challenges, Susannah says the company emerged stronger than ever from 2020. “We exceeded our wildest expectations at the box office, had our strongest year yet for philanthropy, and had very happy audiences. It set us up very well for this year.”

“We exceeded our wildest expectations at the box office, had our strongest year yet for philanthropy, and had very happy audiences.”

How did they do it and what lessons can they share?

Staying connected

From the moment New Zealand went into lockdown, the RNZB team placed their customers front and centre, making a concerted effort to remain connected. Working from their homes, the ticketing team quickly got in touch with subscribers.

“Our ticketing team did a fantastic job of contacting all the subscribers, and were empowered by Tessitura’s CRM functionality to manage the end-to-end relationship with each customer in a streamlined way,” says Susannah.

“Our ticketing team did a fantastic job of contacting all the subscribers, and were empowered by Tessitura’s CRM functionality.”

Following the first round of cancellation and rescheduling, the team calculated that just 25% of tickets were refunded, with 12% donated back and the rest exchanged or held on account.

When the company returned to live performance in October 2020, the audiences came with them. “Nearly 33,000 people nationwide attended our pre-Christmas tour of The Sleeping Beauty — 20% above our sales target. We were able to launch our 2021 programme soon after, and as of February, subscriptions were 17% ahead of 2020,” she says.

“Nearly 33,000 people nationwide attended our pre-Christmas tour of The Sleeping Beauty — 20% above our sales target. As of February, subscriptions were 17% ahead of 2020,” she says.

Embracing digital

“The best decision we made as a team was to grab the hard drives with our archive footage on them, as we left the building. Some amazing skills came to the fore from the team in pulling together a series of Facebook broadcasts during the nine-week lockdown," says Susannah. “The first broadcast was just ten days after we left the office. In that time, with everyone working remotely, we created our Live in Your Living Room brand, completed a full edit of raw footage, reached out to the original creative team for permissions, and promoted the first show."

RNZB’s 27 broadcasts were each held over a weekend with three performance options on a Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Dancers entered the comments section to engage with audiences in real time. A broad audience consumed nearly six million minutes of these performances and the RNZB team engaged with 23,000 comments from supporters all over the world. There was even a rumour of a ballet-loving couple who ‘met’ while commenting on a broadcast and went on to date in real life, once lockdown was over.

Promo for RNZB’s Live in Your Living Room Facebook broadcast series.

“We had pictures of entire families who had dressed up in black tie for the night and created stadium seating in their sitting rooms to have a communal experience,” Susannah recalls.

The company also piloted online education events, seminars for teachers and a special programme for the national day of remembrance, Anzac Day.

“Digital was so good for our brand and our organisation last year, we are not going back.”

Susannah says: “Digital was so good for our brand and our organisation last year, we are not going back.” The company has now launched its first digital strategy and appointed two new digital-focused roles: a permanent full-time content specialist and a development coordinator whose remit is to stay connected with donors and members.

Valuing audiences

As she talks about the experience of 2020, Susannah emanates care for RNZB’s supporters and genuine delight in the audience response to the company’s return to in-person performances in October.

“Audiences have been thrilled to be back. It’s lovely. People are just so happy to be getting dressed up and going out again. They’re jumping on social media a lot more to share the experience and we’re trying to stay connected to them, even if it’s just a quick message to say we appreciate that they came.”

“We tell our audience, if you are feeling even slightly dodgy about coming tonight, we will refund your ticket.”

The RNZB team has worked closely with venues and the wider sector to lobby for practices that will ensure their audiences feel safe. “As a touring company, we convened a working group with all of our venues and took a leading role in the sector to ensure good hygiene standards and how they would communicate with audiences in a consistent and reassuring way,” says Susannah. “We insist on pre-show emails, NZ COVID-19 tracer app QR codes on cast sheets and reminder messaging. We are working together a lot more with the wider industry.” 

New cancellation and exchange policies mean no questions are asked. Susannah says, “We tell our audience, if you are feeling even slightly dodgy about coming tonight, we will refund your ticket.”

Being nimble

“The past year has been testing, but we are still here and producing dance. The team feels good that we can be this nimble. We feel as optimistic as one can be in a pandemic,” explains Susannah.

Tessitura CEO & President Andrew Recinos highlighted this new-found operational confidence in his review of ten themes from a recent Tessitura-led panel discussion on reopening that featured Susannah.

Although the team “still type with their fingers crossed,” Susannah says, a robust budgeting process for marketing and development follows a middle ground between optimistic and pessimistic paths. “So far, with our performances at the end of 2020 and how we’re tracking for 2021 for both marketing and development income, we’re pleasantly surprised.”

“It’s been worthwhile to adapt quickly to new ways of doing things.”

She adds that it’s been worthwhile to adapt quickly to new ways of doing things. “We had a great response to an acquisition campaign for Friends of the RNZB that we delivered via Facebook for the first time. We also ran a crowdfunding campaign for a dancer wellbeing project and that achieved its target. We’ve just had our best year ever for philanthropy!”

Video still from the Royal New Zealand Ballet’s Friends of the RNZB campaign.

As she reflects on the company’s return to the stage late last year, Susannah says: “Our audience was grateful for how we provided content during lockdown and really want us to succeed. Our sponsors and funders felt fabulous about what we did. I’m constantly thinking, how are we going to keep that connection when life returns to whatever kind of normal it may be, and how can we make the most of what we learned?”

Susannah is realistic about the challenges that lie ahead, but the RNZB is looking to the future with courage and optimism. “I wouldn't recommend a global pandemic as a way of engaging your audience and up-skilling your team, but actually we've come out in a really good place,” she says. “It’s been a useful kick to evaluate what we do, and why we do it.”