As many of you know, I’ve always been involved with the local arts community.  Sadly, with the demands of a day job being what they are, I’ve not had as much time to devote as I would like – but the one piece of involvement that I have held onto is being on the board of the Ottawa Fringe Festival.

The Fringe, for the uninitiated, is a theatre festival where local, national and international performers converge, and over 10 days, put on over 300 performances (many, many more in some markets) and 100% of their box office takings go to the artists themselves.  The festival itself serves to organize venues, schedules and publicity, but the actual content of the shows is left completely up to the groups that are lucky enough to be selected.

Now, you may think that a not-for-profit theatre festival taking place in Ottawa where all of the box office proceeds go to the artists must be rolling around in thousand-dollar bills and diving into silos of gold boullion.  The reality, however, is that any charitable organization needs to squeeze every last cent they can out of a dollar, and reaching new audiences by buying full page newspaper ads is not even a consideration.

That’s why this year, the festival will be making a major change in focus to include a number of social media marketing initiatives to reach new communities, make new friends, and build the visibility of the festival both locally and on the international circuit.

Blogging. It’s a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised at how many organizations don’t blog about what they’re doing.  We made the conscious decision this year to hire a community manager who would blog not only about what we’re doing, but about what our performers are doing, what our sponsors are doing, and what our audience thinks of the shows.  We have two community managers manning the blog this year, and no doubt other staff and volunteers will get involved as the festival kicks off.

Commenting & Feedback. We started allowing comments on individual show pages last year with some trepidation.  We were afraid of companies trying to sabotage one another, performers complaining about bad reviews… and there was not one issue.  This year, audience members are free to review shows directly on the site, for all the world to see.

Facebook. We’ve had a Facebook group and fan page for a while, but this year, thanks to Refresh Partners, we also have an application that allows users to search for shows they want to see, share it with their friends, and buy tickets directly.  When you select a show you want to see, it sends a notice to your newsfeed, letting friends know the shows you’re attending and when.

Flickr. When you’re dealing with an event that is fairly hard to explain in words, photos are a powerful way of conveying emotion.  As always, we have an official Fringe photographer, but this year, we’re lucky enough to have a photographer who is doubling as community manager and reaching out to local photography enthusiasts to set up a public photography contest for the Festival.  Every day, a winner is chosen from the public Flickr pool, their photo printed and posted at the Fringe tent, and linked online – and the photographer submitting the best photo of the festival, as chosen by our judges, is awarded a gift certificate for dinner at a local restaurant.

Video. A few years ago, wrestling with the idea of video was next to impossible.  Connection speeds, technology, processing tools and know-how was far out of reach, but now that it’s trivial to take a video on a cell phone and upload it to Youtube, there’s no reason for organizations NOT to integrate video into their web strategy.  This year, in addition to gonzo interviews from the festival we’re partnering with local startup Eventbots to place a speaker’s corner-style video booth at the Fringe Courtyard.  Videos are going to be posted on the Ottawa Fringe site, on Facebook and on Youtube to give people a first-hand account of what the Fringe is about.

Real Life – the ultimate social network. At the end of the day, the festival is about art and people – and that’s something that can ultimately only be experienced in person.  Our goal this year was to put ourselves out there, and make some friends.  To solidify those friendships, we’re holding a Social Media Wine and Cheese on the first Saturday of the festival (June 21), where we can meet with members of the community, discuss ways that we can better engage with local communities and improve visibility for the upcoming years.  If you’re an Ottawa blogger, and want to attend, just shoot me an email to ryan (at) ryananderson dot ca, and I’ll give you some more details.

In theatre terms, what we’re doing is a bit of a social media dress rehearsal.  Some parts have been sloppy, some have been surprisingly polished, but the organization has learned every step of the way and sometimes, that’s the way you have to do things.  At the end of this festival, we’re hoping to have a block of clay that we can shape into something that will last for years to come.

If you’re in Ottawa, I hope you’ll join us at the Festival, running June 19 – 21 in the heart of Downtown Ottawa.