The Media Pioneer awards have been set up by the Specialist Media Show, in association with InPublishing, to recognise innovative and entrepreneurial activity by specialist media owners, and inspire other print and digital publishers, and event organisers. Fifteen nominations were featured on the show website, and the four overall winners were selected by James Evelegh of InPublishing and presented with their awards at the show on 25 May. In the second of a series of articles we provide more detail on the winners’ stories.
If you know an innovative specialist media business that deserves to be nominated for the 2011 Media Pioneer awards, just contact Carolyn Morgan for more details.
Time Out Live – launching live events
Fiercely independent listings publisher Time Out is a Media Pioneer winner for creating live arts events for its audience.
Time Out experimented in 2009 with ticketed live arts events, built on the editorial teams’ ‘critic’s choice’, and was overwhelmed with the response. Their three ‘For One Night Only’ comedy events with selected emerging artists and big named headliners sold out the 500-seater Bloomsbury Theatre in a matter of days. Although they used the magazine to advertise their events, the real ticket-driver was their registered database of readers gathered through their website. Recipients of the weekly newsletter who expressed an interest in live events received a targeted mailing.
As well as being a profitable business, Time Out Live events prompt more interaction with readers via website follow ups, encourage readers to meet up, and reinforce the brand values by showcasing new arts talent. The editorial team select the acts, and Tim Arthur (Director of Time Out Live) coordinates the event organisation.
For next year, they plan 25 events across a number of strands: more comedy and variety showcases (now called ‘Laugh Out Loud’), music events split into ‘London Sessions’ (music gigs) and ‘Nite Sessions’ (club nights) and an ‘audience with’ series with key arts figures in London such as film directors or actors called ‘Icons’ where readers can participate in the night by submitting questions in advance. Other new events include: Friday Night Freak Show, Midnight Movies and Time Out Book Club.
Tim is keen to keep high standards of quality, so that he can build a loyal following for all the events, cross-fertilising audiences across the art forms. Time Out Live will also be used as a marketing tool to encourage people to become subscribers to the magazine in order to take advantage of certain advance ticket deals or reduced priced tickets which will only be available to the Time Out community.
So far the events are profitable without sponsorship, but Tim is looking for an overall commercial sponsor. A clever brand extension that shows the power of a web registered database.
