musicians of old

Chapter 294: Born to Love Music (4800)

"Nice track, but is this some new marketing gimmick?"

In the manager's office of the General Operations Department, Congreve was lost in endless thoughts as he faced the invoicing form on the table.

Olga, the person in charge of finance, who stood opposite him was also stunned: "The average ticket price of this plan is 11.25, that is to say, our total box office is about 22960..."

"...a penny, equivalent to about 90 pounds."

"Double-digit revenue?" Congreve was racing through his business brain, which had spent years extracting money from clients' pockets, wondering how this new routine would turn out to be profitable in the end.

Olga has similar thoughts.

She has already concluded from the experience of working with Fanning that every time the music director comes up with an idea or introduces a new set of movements, although everyone may not understand it when they first hear it, they will always be aware of it later. He discovered that all of them were "killer tricks". Not only did he make a lot of money, but he also collected his reputation along with it. Clients paid for his work and praised him for his good work.

"That's the truth," said Lausanne, who was standing aside, "Mr. Fanning said 'there is no routine this time'."

"Any other prompts?" Congreve said after a moment of hesitation, "Well, to say a respectful personal comment, I never believed that Mr. Fanning had no routine..."

"It's gone." The female composer shook her head, "It's not like you don't know that although Mr. Fanning's work is still arranged seamlessly, he basically doesn't accompany us in any leisure and social activities, and his words are like gold. If you can write clearly on the instruction sheet, you don't need to find someone face to face. If you can explain it in three sentences, you don't need five sentences. There are still some pointers for us, but we don't talk about other things. After explaining last night, we left in a hurry .”

"Could it be 'new taste of freshness' and then return to normal?" Congreve tried hard to dig out all the possibilities of making money, for fear that he would miss Fanning's intention, "after all, the performance of the youth symphony orchestra will gradually become normal... By the way! Has he mentioned how to arrange pricing, tracks and promotion plans after the first show?"

"This is mentioned earlier in the explanation, and it will be priced according to this."

There was a moment of silence in the air.

"I see, he's not interested in money."

Olga suddenly realized and said, "To be precise, I was very interested in it when I didn't get it, but now I gradually find it boring. Maybe I just want to pull the boys and girls to practice, I guess...Conger Mr. Reeve, don’t think too much, just plan it like this, just deal with the financial side directly, the current small-scale projects are already a very minor part of our revenue.”

Her tone was quite rich and powerful.

As early as late January, some media keenly claimed that Turner Art Hall was about to make a lot of money from performance box office, record sales and art exhibition auctions.

In fact, the revenue in these three months was more than 20, 30, and 40 pounds respectively. After the New Year's concert, the pitiful balance has more than doubled by more than [-] times, and the current current assets have directly soared to one million. As mentioned above, a new round of expansion and filling of functional venues and the purchase of top-level pipe organs have already started to be put on the agenda.

The reason can be seen from the business structure that is about to close in the first quarter:

Music score publishing and record sales accounted for more than 40%.Needless to say, the number of musical scores is abundant, and there are now seven albums on sale: "Live at the Santa Ramborg Music Festival", "Fanning's Piano Solo", "Fanning's "First Symphony", "Hope Land's Three Violin Concertos," "Roy's Two Cello Concertos," "Joan's Two Flute Concertos," and "From 'Lee' Piano Concerto to Impressionist Orchestra."In the end, this set of records was priced at the highest price, reaching 40 pounds, and it was a bit like a bundle. However, due to the strong appeal of "Li", its sales volume has surpassed that of "First Symphony".

Concert box office accounted for 25%;

Art museum revenue accounts for 20%, including secondary items such as "Exhibition and Auction Commission", "Daily Tickets", "Album and Souvenir Sales";

Third-party income accounted for 15%, including secondary items such as "art naming", "regular donations" and "government subsidies";

It can be seen that under Fanning's series of gameplay, although concerts are the main form of artistic activities, they are no longer the main revenue channel. In the eyes of traditional concert halls and theaters where "performance income ≈ operating income", this It's almost impossible, but it really happened!

This has long attracted the attention of other colleagues in the empire. There have been waves of reference and analysis. Even last month, the cultural departments of two counties came to the field for field inspections, but these politicians found that they could not learn Fanning's gameplay at all. .

record?Everyone in the industry knows that today is the golden age of the recording industry!But the nascent period of barbaric growth has passed, there are quite a few high-quality records in stock, and the ears of music fans who can use gramophones are extremely picky. Now only "outstanding new works" or "masters" can be called "big money". God's performance", but the hospital and the composer are usually just a cooperative relationship. It is enough to record an excellent new concerto for a year. Who can release so many tracks in half a year like Fan Ning, and still make money for himself ?
Art gallery?There is one of the cultural industry models of "Qiantu", but it is not the same thing as a concert hall!Is there anyone who is good at both running an art gallery and a concert hall?After much deliberation, this one is the one in front of me.

Art naming?Excuse me, I don't know how he came up with those endless courtesy!It's not that no one wants to learn, but if you can't learn well, the funder won't buy it at all!

Just talking about the 25% of the box office revenue, the venue is sold out even though the price is priced against the top ten bands, those marketing methods are difficult enough to learn!

"Well, he's not interested in money." Congreve accepted. "So how is this... publicized?"

"Ah, I don't understand that."

"Isn't this your forte?"

Lausanne and Olga were confused by the manager of the operations department.

"Propaganda is to set a relatively high price, and then use tricks to attract others to pay for it..." Congreve felt the blind spot of cognition, "This, uh, it's so cheap, maybe, maybe it's easy to sell??...I'm good at Challenging difficult problems, but Mr. Fan Ning came to say 1+1, I thought about it all morning, and felt that I couldn't even write 2..."

"Why don't you do whatever you want?" Lausanne tried to give a suggestion, "Aren't you working on the performance schedule posters for the second season? For other shows, you can just copy the posters and change the text. Including ticket price as well."

"I can already predict the look of music fans suspecting that there is something wrong with their eyes after seeing the poster." Congreve shrugged, "But a new type of show always has a new series name, something like ' According to Mr. Fan Ning, this can "show the systematicness of the performance plan and cultivate talents in subdivided fields." Fixed Audience'... So, how do you name this teenage symphony show, let me distill the feature, '4 penny treats'?"

"Those who don't know think it's the promotion of a low-quality red-light district." Lausanne commented with a curled lip.

"I was careless about Miss Lausanne." Congreve sighed and held his forehead.

"The problem may be that you chose the lowest fare, how about changing it to '2 shillings'?" Olga tried to contribute ideas.

"Slightly higher-grade red-light district propaganda." Lausanne continued to comment.

There was a longer silence in the air.

"Born to love music," Fanning's voice came from the door.

The three looked at him together.

Congreve breathed a sigh of relief: "Thank goodness you have restored our inspiration to nobility."

"Learning music is everyone's birthright, which is an objective 'ability', while being born to love music is everyone's instinct that has been aroused or not yet aroused, which is a subjective 'thought', the former is the player's , the latter being the listeners, and together they constitute the 'popularization of the arts'."

Fan Ning pressed two sheets of paper onto the desk while explaining: "Add these contents to the playlist, and the size can be slightly larger."

"Track tour?" Congreve subconsciously lowered his head and saw Fanning's dense handwriting.

Like the guided tour at the Impressionist Art Exhibition, he gave an inspiring reminder for each track in as simple a language as possible.

There are also "little knowledge about watching performances", "fine-tuning plans" and so on...

"Such pricing makes it affordable for groups with more difficult economic conditions." Fanning continued, "But those who have never been exposed to serious music may not pay attention to the news or even become interested in the first time. People know it, and more people who need it can buy it."

"Let those who need it know that M&A can't match Mr. Fanning, and their spare time is often extremely scarce..." Congreve thought about this request, and when he looked up, he found that Fanning had already stepped out of the door after explaining a few words. .

"Who is it that has extremely scarce spare time?" Luosang spread his hands and shook his head.

So in late March, when many citizens of Uflanders read the newspapers on the way, they learned the summary information of the performance plan for the second quarter of the Turner Art Hall.

Then almost everyone stared at some of them and rubbed their eyes desperately.

"Birth of the Philharmonic Turner Hall Youth Symphony Orchestra Concert...performance ticket price...performance ticket price?"

"4 pence, 8 pence, 1 shilling, 2 shillings?" After reading this, someone moved their eyes to other games in disbelief, "6 pounds, 10 pounds, 14 pounds, 18 pounds, 24 pounds..."

"If the unit symbols for those games were wrongly printed, it doesn't make sense for the numbers to be large first and then small?"

And also on this day, the alleys of Uvransel except the main street, especially the labor-intensive areas, industrial areas, dock areas or the middle streets connecting these areas, were specially plastered with the first scene on April 4th. A separate promotional poster for the "Born to Love Music" concert, and carefully circled the ticketing time, performance time, performance notices, ticket sales outlets, concert hall address and how to get there, and the rules for releasing tickets in batches .

"You can hear an elegant symphony for as little as 4 pennies?"

"I know the Turner Art Hall, that kind of place is noble and sacred, a place for noble young masters and ladies, a social place for high society."

"Are the big musicians working in it, and I can meet them?"

"Will you be laughed at because you don't understand?"

At seven or eight o'clock in the evening, those people who were shifting shifts in factories, or returning home from short-term and long-term jobs, some of them were attracted by the posters that could be seen everywhere on the street and stopped, discussing in a circle.

Some people can't believe it, some are eager to try, and some are hesitant. In addition to fear and inferiority complex, being trapped in heavy labor or housework is also an objective factor.

However, the performance party has several fine-tuned details, which played a more critical role——

The sales outlets should be distributed as far as possible; (reduce the time to buy tickets on foot or by horse-drawn carriage);

The concert time is moved to 8:7 p.m.; (try to meet the 8-[-] o'clock end of work time of most morning shift workers)
There is no lateness limit, and you can enter and leave between any track intervals; (to further accommodate listeners who have different work schedules)
The repertoire is short and there will be no encore performances, ending before 10:[-] pm; (to take care of trivial housework and child support needs after work)
After the tickets are issued on April 4st, the number of daily sales will be controlled at 1% of the total number of votes; (It will take five days at the earliest to sell out, because workers cannot free up free time when they have their own arrangements .)
The middle-class employees, nobles, and factory owners didn't think about the layer behind the words, but these onlookers only felt that all the arrangements and adjustments were taking care of their embarrassing side as much as possible.

What they don't know is that the performance party's understanding of their own living conditions is the result of Fan Ning's extensive interviews and research in the early stage.

On the first day of the billing day, many workers have already moved, and they decided to try to see the situation.

"Sir, may I ask... is there a show on April 4th for 15pence?"

At [-] o'clock in the morning, there was a long queue in front of a consignment store in the South Wharf area as usual. On the way to work, a textile worker was wearing an old gray padded jacket, gritted her teeth and asked the front desk pretending to be calm.

After getting an affirmative answer, she pretended to take out four copper coins as if nothing had happened, and quickly chose a seat almost without looking at it, and finally put the ticket carefully in her arms and left.

The gentlemen behind stood silently with their canes, their eyes were calm under their top hats, and they did not keep a close eye on them out of etiquette, but looking closely at their facial expressions, they always felt a little strange.

Afterwards, there were also a few people who looked like laborers queuing up, and some of them were skilled workers, small shopkeepers, and small clerks who were in between, whose families were a little better but not enough for the middle class.

After them are gentlemen and ladies.

After the ticket sales reach the daily limit of overall planning, the corresponding youth symphony orchestra's performance tickets will be temporarily suspended, while other performances will continue to be sold normally.

Generally speaking, there was nothing worth mentioning about the on-site situation of the sales outlets in the first two days.

After all, no gentleman or lady would make radical remarks at the scene.

The problem appeared in the ensuing media reports and public opinion.

Today, when the Turner Art Hall has won a wide reputation in the society, the mainstream front-line media will not do such eye-catching things, but there have been many voices of euphemistic criticism.

In the eyes of the upper class, no matter conservatives or progressives, the previous debate between academicism and impressionism is just an "internal" contradiction of artistic thought...

And this incident is almost a bit like "the elegant palace of art is stepped on by the soles of shoes stained with mud".

The content in the above quotation marks comes from the city’s number one media, Uflandser Art Review.

The "Tioline Cultural Weekly", which has always praised the Turner Art Hall, also published an article saying that "everyone is born to love music, but music is a broad concept, and the boundaries between seriousness and ordinary life should not be confused."In particular, they pointed out that "nobles and ordinary people are not distinguished by wealth, but by taste. Turner Art Hall, as a leading art venue, when its performance price falls below a certain limit, the effect is not the same. Public welfare, on the contrary, has caused the occupation and waste of the public cultural resources of the empire."

The big media is more or less gentle.

Uvranser's second-tier media "Events" has a very tricky reporting angle.

They directly published a few photos taken at the scene of the queue in the early morning, in which gentlemen and ladies with well-made makeup and laborers with embarrassing expressions were mixed in the queue.

There is even a close-up of two smeared young women wearing silk stockings, boots and leg rings in the cold weather.

On the content of the article outside the picture, it seems to be an excerpt of interviews with citizens in line:
"I bought tickets to this show, yes, I bought it, you know, I'm a big fan of Turner Hall, and I swear, when these 'musicians' are applauding between the movements, I Will jump out and stop it to protect the little musicians."

"The current situation is undoubtedly understandable: such a performance, in terms of cost, its price reduction is an inevitable result. Because of our beloved Mr. Fanning, he needs to hire at least 20 more than the original plan. Doubling the manpower to clean up the dirt, dust and stains left inside and outside the symphony hall after the performance!"

"Hey, at halftime, you might interview the whores and ask them what they heard in Mr. Fanning's symphony!"

(End of this chapter)