Corona makes all the online world stage for National theatre
What do we do now? The first thought comes into everyone’s mind when corona reaches its peak everywhere. People get stuck in homes with no life no entertainment left behind.
At that time the National Theatre of London South bank, come up with a strategy to entertain people online. The reason behind all this was the bustling ecosystem. The Theatre is famous for its iconic complex of concrete towers and terraces overlooking the River Thames on London’s South Bank, The most busiest Theatre host around 25 works each year in its three auditoriums. It is also the craft shop and hub for artist costumes, sets, and props seen on stage.
The total payrolls count 1200 people included actors, musicians, directors, designers, camera people- work with the institution each year as freelancers and other people in workspaces, like cafes, restaurants, and bookshops.
On March 16th, when the Uk went into lockdown, it affects the creative industries economy much. Performances stopped that evening, and we had the first thought when everything shut down were, What do we do now?’
Emma Keith, head of the broadcast at the National Theatre.
After two weeks of hard work, the theatre launched its first YouTube Channel which opens the new gate of entertainment to a global audience.
This response was overwhelming that the theatre organizer decides that each performance will be the full length from the theatre archive of live performances was premiered through Youtube. Every Thursday at 7 pm, the show begins with titles. According to the reach of the audience of 15 Million people all around the world, the pilot program was extended from 4 to 16 weeks.
Lisa Burger, joint chief executive at the National Theatre tell
“What really drew us to YouTube at the time was the fact that it was very open, accessible, easy to use, and was capable of drawing in a very wide audience.”
Over the past 10 years,10 million people viewed NT live performances in just six weeks the same number watched it at home. This show the entertainment power, creative industries bring through strong performances, which help Theatre organizer to ask the government for financial supports for the arts.
This causes, National Theatre receives around £17m a year in public funding, representing just 16% of annual turnover, which goes back into the economy through wages and employing freelancers.
Another creative industry in the form of Social media platforms helped another industry related to creativity to reach an audience that lost contact with entertainment during the situation of corvid19. Here one more thing is notable that younger audience skewed than older people who go to performances in person; almost 50% of the people who watched National Theatre at Home were under 35 years of age.
According to Oxford Economics of 500 businesses in the UK,81% with a YouTube channel agree that YouTube has helped them grow their customer base and 79% agree that the platform enables them to reach new audiences around the world. Seventy-six percent suggest that their YouTube presence helps customers find them. Reaching such scale was especially important to the National Theatre within the context of the lockdown. It seems corona isolation divided all souls, and creative industries join all souls at one point through entertainment.
The National Theatre’s mission is to make world-class theatre that is entertaining, challenging, and inspiring, and to make it for everyone.
Ms. Keith. “It took it to people’s living rooms.”
All creative industries bring into one place, a range of broadcasters and partners and offer specific content to specific countries, whereas YouTube enabled it to make the widest range of content available to the broadest audience in one place.
Ms. Burger.“It really made me feel that we’d hit on something that was new here and that there is absolutely an appetite for culture online”.
Now National theater organizers thinking about pushing writers for storytelling, creating work that goes out digitally.
