New York’s iconic attraction sees opportunity in global tourism and subscription service post-pandemic
IF there was one thing the pandemic exposed to those running Jazz at Lincoln Centre, New York’s iconic jazz venue and attraction, it was the opportunity of global tourism and content monetisation.
Said Gabrielle Armand, vice president, brand marketing and sales, “Tourism has always been important to the centre, I estimate that 45-50% of ticket sales sold at our jazz club would have come from tourists. But we didn’t know much about the audience outside the US. We did group sales and partnered with New York & Company to sell through concierges.”
When the pandemic forced it to go virtual, it saw a new audience blossom. “What we saw during Covid was by having a virtual option, not just live but on demand, we built an audience worldwide, more than doubling it outside the US.”
In Asia, it found that one of its biggest fan bases was in Japan, not surprising given the big jazz scene in the country. In Shanghai, where there is a physical Jazz at Lincoln Center club, she said the club has reopened with local jazz performances. It opened a club in Doha, Qatar, but that closed about five years ago.
“We understand now that as countries are opening up, their number one priority is travel and we want to get our centre in as front of as many people as possible,” said Armand.
It is developing partnerships with airlines and hotel groups, and pursuing aggressive outbound marketing in the countries that are opening up to US inbound. “We have always tried to be creative to get music in front of people when they are booking their trips; we will double these efforts.”
Morphing from events space to media company
Beyond the physical events, Jazz at Lincoln Centre, a non-profit institution set up by famed jazz musician Wynton Marsalis in 1987 to promote jazz as an art form, is becoming more of a media company than an events space, said Armand. In fact, it is working on a subscription model to become the Netflix of jazz and plans to launch it in 2022.
Calling it a “massive pivot”, Armand, who has been working at the center since the founding with Marsalis, said, “At the height of the pandemic, Wynton worked non-stop over six to seven months and produced 1,000 pieces of original content, almost two to three pieces a day to keep our audience engaged.
“We stayed open through the pandemic, had musicians come in with no physical audiences, and we streamed performances every week and through that, we built a foreign audience and increased our penetration outside New York by 200%.
“In summer, we put up free concerts in public parks and Times Square to make ourselves as available as possible to visitors. It was a way of lifting people’s spirits up with music at a difficult time.”
Coupled with the new content it has created during the pandemic, the centre also sits on a treasure trove of archived content, it having filmed and recorded everything since its founding, and it made sense to look at the center “as more of a media company than an events space”, said Armand.
“We’ve been producing original content for quite a few years – original concerts, documentaries, lifestyle series. We have sold full length original content to companies such as PBS, Amazon Prime and Netflix. We have a masses and masses of content and to pull all of it together, we took on new team members including a full time video producer and editor.”
The pandemic forced the center to experiment. In summer, it decided to rethink its summer camp for kids. Previously a physical event opened to about 100 kids, it was converted into a two-week free virtual summer camp, opened to everyone who wanted to learn about jazz and music, and not just those who played jazz.
“Wynton did an hour’s session every morning on how to listen to music. We had 8,000 people register, from ages 10-97, and we got donations from everyone. Twenty percent of those who signed gave small amounts money and we raised $100,000 from the summer camp.
“What an opportunity this moment has been to think about things on a global level. We just tried things, some worked, some didn’t. We will continue to build the virtual audience and also continue creating content for our brick and mortar venues.”
With live music and travel shattered by Covid – Its funding comes in the form of tickets, donations, and venue hire – Jazz at Lincoln Center also struggled financially. Executives took a 50% salary cut and staff numbers went from 180 to 100. Armand is currently rebuilding her marketing and media team.
“We will come out of this better and one thing that it has proven, music kept people alive, in New York and around the world, and it will do so once again when the world opens up.”
Note: Gabrielle Armand will be speaking at WiT Experience 2021 to share more about how the pandemic has forced it to think of its future from Zero to Infinity. See programme here. Sign up here.
