Sydney Theatre Company - Example

Introduction Industry development demands sustainable measures that can facilitate development over the years. In order to ensure this, the management should be proactive towards ensuring sustainability of the industry even with the unavoidable dynamism of the industry. Without sustainable measures of remaining relevant, the company may not react to changes and hence may become obsolete within a given period of time. The way of doing business changes with time and hence the management should be proactive to these changes and as such adapt to way that will ensure its sustainability and relevance in the market. Such measures may include: improving response to social responsibility issues like the environment, employee engagement and talent promotion, integration of new technologies and enhancing marketing strategies especially in this technology dominant era among other strategies. In a nutshell, a responsive company is sustainable while unresponsive company is rattled by the business tides. In this report, a case of Sydney Theatre Company (STC) will be considered in highlighting five critical issues that the management should consider in order to ensure its sustainability in the long run. As such this analysis is going to consider what the company is currently doing and areas that the STC should improve in order to be relevant and sustainable in the long run. These five critical issues are selected and discussed mainly because of their relevance to the STC and performing arts in general. Gaps within the measures that are already being undertaken will be considered in order to better align the company’s strategies to its future plans and sustainability considering the dynamism of the performance arts industry. Environmental consciousness and community engagement Environmental awareness is becoming one of the key concerns globally. Organizations are forced to engage in practices that are sustainable. The need to demonstrate their environmental awareness and reveal their carbon footprint is increasingly becoming popular. STC must address this concern in order to remain sustainable. STC has made a number of initiatives which focuses on the environment. In the past five years, the STC has demonstrated commitment to handle climate changes by adapting sustainable environmental initiatives (Frost, 2013). The construction of Wharf which was completed in 2011is an example of best practice of conservation of the environment. The construction of the Wharf transformed the STC into a global leader in environmental sustainability within the performing arts. STC adopted behavioral change, project initiatives, environmental friendly theatre production as well as community engagement in order to encourage environmental conservation. STC has also invested in a large solar array which is employed to store large amount of water harvested during rainy season. The system also has comprehensive energy efficient and waste management. The STC has been in the forefront in efforts to reduce carbon footprints globally (Hassard, & Pym, 2012). As evident it has created alternative sources of energy, cleaner energy sources and water recycling. It is clear that the STC has made a number of initiatives in order to support environmental conservation. It is recommended for STC to continue with these efforts in order to ensure its own sustainability in the long run. The rationale for this assertion is because environmental conservation has been a talking point in the past few decades as a result of increasing greenhouse gas release from our industries. It is estimated that the temperatures will increase by at least 1 degree in the next 50 years (Frost, 2013). This will impact on nearly all living things, bacterial activity will increase and hence leading to an increase in bacterium diseases, rise in temperature will also affect crop productivity and hence reducing the total output of food in the world. All these will negatively impact on the human life. It is therefore the role of all stakeholders and major industry players come up with ways of reducing the spread of carbon related products in the environment. Participating in ways of fostering positive climate change promotes the image of the company and hence ensuring sustainability (Thomson, 2004). This is the reason why STC should continually ensure that it improves environmental conservation measures for its own good. By doing so, it will join other major players in revolutionizing and improving life for its customers. Enhancing collaborations with international artist and developing talent This is one of the most important issues that the management of STC should foster. Sydney Theatre Company has been involved in a number of relationships and collaborations with oversees artists as well as companies in the performance arts. A few examples of these includes, renowned directors such as Max Stafford-Clark, Benedict Andrews, Declan Donnellan, Tamas Ascher and Steven Soderbergh have all for STC in the past few years. On the other hand, STC has also contributed to the growth of careers of a number of Australian internationally renowned artists like Judy Davis, Mel Gibson, Geoffrey Rush and Cate Blanchett among others. STC has also had the privilege of presenting the productions of Traverse Theatre, Abbey Theatre and Out-of-Joint (Frost, 2013). All this demonstrates the capacity of STC to operate both in Australia and beyond borders. This capacity should be enhanced for sustainability, the management should ensure that the process continues and even uplifted in order to allow even more international artist to participate in STC performances at different levels. This is important as it will be important in improving Sydney Theatre Company as an international brand. The participation of different renowned artist at different levels within the STC will ensure the growth of its fame in the world stage and hence enhancing sustainability in the increasingly competitive field of the performing arts. This can only be achieved by increasing international collaborations especially in countries where performance arts is highly developed. Such countries include the U.S. and Britain (Frost, 2013). Besides integrating renowned international artist, the STC will also benefit from integrating new talents into the performance arts. Sustainability is brought about by constantly integrating new talents into the field of performing arts through varied initiatives that involve discovering and nurturing of new talents. This begins from early school life; STC should therefore support programs that focus mainly on identifying new and developing talents from infancy. Discovering a talent early in life is imperative because allocating resources to develop the talent will be timely and hence having new generation film and movie directors. This will also ensure that there is a smooth transition from one generation to the other since the new talents will learn from the mature players in the industry. Nurturing process is undoubtedly imperative in any industry, nurturing guarantees availability of future talents to continue taking forward the company. STC is particularly better placed to conduct this activity aggressively within the country and outside. This can be achieved by working towards integration of theatre activities within the core curriculum of the existing education system, creating enabling environment by encouraging renowned artist like Mel Gibson to make personal appearances in educational institutions in order to encourage young people to follow his footsteps (Clegg & Dunkerley, 2013). Improving marketing and promotion of new events Over the years, Sydney Theatre Company has succeeded in ensuring that its audience looks forward to interesting presentations in years to come. With both local and international talents at its disposal Sydney Theatre Company has been able to plan future activities and marketing them prior to the real shows. This has been an important step as it ensures that the audiences are well informed about the details of the next presentation and the venue of the presentation. As an example, the STC will commence its new year with Macbeth play, the production of William Shakespeare. The tickets are already being sold out to an awaiting audience. There are also a number of activities lined up throughout the New Year; the company takes risks with some plays in the big screen because audience capacity is always a concern to such a big company in the performing arts. Other plays lined up include, Children of the Sun, Noises Off and Switzerland among others. All these plays are being promoted in order to give audience time to plan and purchase their tickets before the big event. While promotion of upcoming activities has been successful, better marketing and promotional strategies should be adopted in order to ensure sustainability. The management should always run a trial marketing and allow audience to give their views about the play which is about to hit the big screen. Audience participation is imperative in the sense that it will allow the management to know what to really expect during the big day. It will also facilitate easy planning and making of necessary changes based on the audience response to upcoming events. This will mitigate reduction of audience capacities in particular plays, the venue of plays will also be selected based on audience response and possible large audience capacity in some places. Having large audience is imperative in the performing arts as it will ensure maximum gain from plays which a lot of money has been invested in the production process (Whitacre, 2013). Adopting new marketing technologies is also vital, there are many online marketing tools that can take STC beyond the boundaries of developed nations to developing nations like Africa and Asia where potential market exist. Online marketing is one of the most recommended ways of ensuring increased audience with limited resources. It also has the potential of taking a company beyond borders because of new and explored markets. STC can optimize on this by first integrating the local content of these developing countries and presenting them with the best technologies available. This will open new avenues of ensuring sustainability in the performing arts. Taking advantage of new technologies Technology adaptation is one of the most fundamental but essential tool of competitive advantage. In any industry, technology is relevant; this includes theatre and performing arts. Technology adaptation is not an option but a requirement for a company hoping to be sustainable in the ever challenging business environment. Taking advantage of technology helps in cost reduction, increase in efficiency and effectiveness as well as increase in the quality of service to the customer. Notable technologies have emerged especially in the theatre; high definitions screens ranging from handsets to LED screens are available, 3D technologies are also available, these new technologies have taken performing theatre to a new level. Other technologies such as Skype have also transformed theatre experience (Whitacre, 2013). This is because Skype makes it possible for artist to work jointly on a project despite their geographical distances. There are examples of such projects in the recent past, Paves is one of them. Companies like unlimited, and the show The moon have taken technological exploration to a new level by analyzing how audience experienced is enhanced through interactive technologies and how technology enhances audience experience of the theatre. Another example is the Soho theatre which has set up Soho interactive, this creativity has opened avenues on how writers can engage in storytelling in the digital age. Despite the fact that participatory technology seems foreign, it embodies vast qualities of art that we value and it also has profound artistic expressions that are bound to change our theatre experience (Kaiser, 2009). It is in this sense that the management of STC should consider technology integration in order to enhance sustainability in the long run. The STC has embraced technologies over the past few decades, embracing these technologies has enabled it to be sustainable for the period that it has existed. However in order to ensure continuous sustainability, this trend of timely technology integration is imperative. Timely technology means that STC will be able to take advantage of the new technology before it becomes a basic necessity in the industry instead of a competitive advantage. New technologies have the capacity to change not only our lives but also our experience, new PDAs, Phone handsets have shaped our lives over the past decade, and we have lived in an age where new technologies are increasingly becoming sophisticated. It is therefore a fact that technologies are influencing all our spheres of lives, it is therefore imperative for industries to equally embrace technologies in order to be at par with consumer’s expectations (Gardner, 2010). Encouraging diversification In the performing arts, there are a number of changes that occur in the industry. These changes normally impact on how the presentation is disseminated. According to Lambert (2012) the recorded and the broadcast of the performing arts will continue to diversify and proliferate. With the advances in the production, recording and distribution technologies, audience will have a wider variety of performances and different art forms as compared to the present day. The internet is continually demonstrating profitability in this field because of its ability to reach far-flung audiences and creating new markets for art forms which had been previously insignificant. In the future, it is predicted that the niche market may not be viable but the industry will be profitable (George, 2010). As a result of the dynamism of the market, it is recommended for STC to diversify its audience portfolio and dissemination of the produced material. The rationale for this is because with the global advance of internet connectivity, the dissemination of content will be readily available and far reaching. As such performing arts companies should also be ready to adapt new content and venture into ways of disseminating these performances to the relevant audience globally by employing relevant technologies. The performing arts portfolio also needs to be increased in order to cater for the new and upcoming markets. The issue of relevance to every particular market segment is imperative. In order to attract and retain distant audience beyond borders, relevance and integration of their societal contemporary issues is necessary. Such audiences need to feel a sense of belonging in order to commit to viewing such content. This step is necessary and important for STC because technologies are heading far and wide. This means that there is need to add new audience segments that may not necessarily be impressed by Mel Gibson performance and production (Rand, 2009). There is need to venture into these new arts market and provide the right content in order to ensure sustainability in the long run. Conclusion As discussed in this recommendation report, performing arts is a dynamic industry where changes must be adapted in order to ensure sustainability. Adapting to change is the only way of ensuring sustainability. Sydney Theatre Company has been used as a case study in the performing arts, there are five critical issues that the management should ensure in order to foster sustainability in the performing arts. Firstly environmental consciousness and community engagement is needed in order to develop the STC brand image. Secondly, enhancing collaborations with international artist and developing of new talent is required in order to promote STC as a global brand. Thirdly, improving marketing and promotion of new events is necessary; this will encourage increased audience attendance. Fourthly, integration of new technologies is unavoidable, this is because technologies take firms a level higher by improving efficiency and cost reduction. Lastly, encouraging diversification is necessary; diversification ensures that all options are considered especially in this modern age of technology which brings new audiences to the bag References Clegg, S & Dunkerley, D. (2013). Critical issues in organizations, New York , NY: Routledge,. Pp.45- 56. Frost, V.(2013). Waiting for Godot, Sydney Theatre Company – review. The Guardian.Accessed from http://www.theguardian.com/culture/australia-culture-blog/2013/nov/18/waiting- godot-stc-weaving-review Gardner, L. (2010). A new stage age: why theatres should embrace digital technology. The Guardian. Accessed from http://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2010/mar/23/stage-theatre-digital- technology-ished George, D.J. (2010). Sergi Belbel and Catalan Theatre: Text, Performance and Identity. New York, NY Boydell & Brewer Hassard, J & Pym, D. (2012). The Theory and Philosophy of Organizations: Critical Issues and New Perspectives. Sydney: Routledge.pp.23-45 Kaiser, M.(2009). The Biggest Problem Facing the Arts. Huff Post entertainment December- 2009. Accessed from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-kaiser/the-biggest- problem-facin_b_279108.html Lambert, C.(2012). The Future of Theater. Harvard magazine. November-December 201, accessed from http://harvardmagazine.com/2012/01/the-future-of-theater Rand.(2009). Performing arts trends and their implications. Rand Corporation. Accessed from http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB2504/index1.html Thomson, P.(2004). The Cambridge History of British Theatre. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Pp.34-45. Whitacre, B.E. (2013). Tools for the Stage: Digital Technology in Theatres Engages Audiences in New Ways. Huffpost arts & culture. Read More