Page 105 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report 2016

They also consider it essential to have as many online ticket sales channels as possible to make ticketing more accessible and e cient. It is not that they sell directly via the social media, asit has been proven in many other sectors that the social media are not useful in direct sales; rather, they play an important role in that they provide people who go on the social mediato nd further information and think about buying tickets with a way of facilitating the ticket purchase process that makes the festival’s functioning sustainable.The theatre and performing arts festival Temporada Alta mainly uses Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Issuu and Instagram. We will analyse Issuu as a tool for sharing and digitising related documentation (catalogues, dossiers as in the case of this festival, etc.) in greater detail in one of the last sections of this Focus and will therefore concentrate more on the rest of the social media used by one of the most proli c (running for more than a month) festivals in Spain.relations with press relations and the festival’s own identity and established reputation in the performing arts.On Twitter they harness and repost the considerable noise generated on this platform, interspersing it with information and reminders about forthcoming works. This information ranges from positive comments and opinions left by followers to all the mentions, articles and local and national press reviews that have been shared. It is therefore a vehicle for endless impacts on followers and for strengthening its image as a leading festival of a high standard.Activity on Facebook is less intense by comparison. As with the other social media, activity throughout the year is focused on sharing news of the works or artists featured in previous editions. It becomes more intense around August, when the organisers launch the poster images, advance ticket sales, and the press conference.As the date draws near, action is further stepped up by announcing the programme and the companies taking part in the rst days of the festival, which begins in October. During the festival only information on the activities, which are considerable in number, is shared. For this reason they are very careful about the number of daily posts (no more than four), choosing strategic times – at midday and in the afternoon, when people stop working and check their personal accounts and are more receptive to information on leisure and culture.Furthermore, on Instagram they share material ranging from promotional images of the shows yet to be performed to photographs of the formation of some of the guest companies, or audiences’ memories (even through regramsor reposts of images from other accounts, acknowledging the source of the original post). They then stop using this visual social medium after the Latin American edition (there have beenIts signi cant extension in both time and geographical location (for the latest edition in 2015, the activities were planned in di erent places and venues in Catalonia, especially around the city of Girona), as well as the list of works and artists involved create plenty of noise on the media (traditional and digital). The organisers know how to manage it. They combine publicAC/E DIGITAL CULTURE ANNUAL REPORT 2016105Focus: Use of New Digital Technologies at Cultural Festivals