HomeMy WebLinkAbout2005-042 Report - OSF
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By
Oregon
Shakespe.:ire
Festival
P.O. Box '58
'5 South Pioneer Street
Ashland, OR 97520
March 22, 2005
Ashland City Council
City Hall
Ashland, OR 97520
S4' 482 2111
~;4' 482 0446 fax
~;4' 482 433' box office
www.osfashland.org
Re: Report for Section 2 of Resolution No. 2004-11
Dear Council Members:
On behalf of the Festival Board, staff and audience, thank you for the City's $110,000 Economic
and Cultural Development grant for 2004-05.
I am pleased to report that the Festival's 2004 season saw attendance of 356,770 tickets, or 80%
of capacity. Visitors new to OSF purchased 57,839 of those tickets.
The 2005 season is looking very promising with two world premieres that will attraet new
national and regional press. In addition to theater critics and feature writers, OSF draws
numerous travel writers. Last season, articles about OSF and Ashland appeared in the
Washington Post and the Christian Science Monitor; and those articles subsequently appeared in
major newspapers throughout the country.
Promoting Tourism in 2005
OSF will spend over $700,000 in marketing in FY2005. The following are among the actions
already taken, or to be taken, toward the goals outlined by the Economic and Cultural
Development Committee, specifically Goal 3(b), "To promote tourism":
TOURISM SALES
Season brochure. OSF has distributed 470,000 copies of the full-color 2005 season
brochure nationally and internationally to its mailing list of individual ticket buyers,
members, schools and universities, businesses and corporations, government agencies,
media contacts, tourist and business locations throughout Oregon, and trade shows in
Japan, Germany, England and Switzerland.
Advertising. OSF has placed and will continue to place display ads in major newspapers
in the Bay Area, Sacramento, Portland and Seattle. OSF will partner with Brand Oregon,
the state tourism office's marketing campaign, in advertisements in major magazine in
California, Oregon and Washington. OSF has also moved into premier online advertising
.
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Oregon Shakespeare Festival Report
March 23, 2005
Page 2 of 4
locations in travel sections on major San Francisco, Sacramento and Portland websites.
Together with the Ashland Chamber of Commerce, OSF has supported co-op ads in
Sunset magazine. Additionally, through its web site at www.osfashland.org, OSF provides
links to lodgings, restaurants and other Southern Oregon attractions.
HOSPITALITY AND SPECIAL EVENTS
Trade shows. OSF has partnered with the Ashland Chamber at trade shows from Los
Angeles to Canada. OSF regularly participates in the Ashland Hospitality Showcase and
contributes staff support to the Ashland Visitors and Convention Bureau.
Communication and training. OSF actively participates in, and regularly hos,ts, the
Ashland Greeters to thoroughly inform community leaders about pertinent visitor
information. Additionally, OSF hosts a community event each year at which OSF's
Artistic Director Libby Appel shares insights on the season's plays with meInbers of the
hospitality community. These talks are now videotaped and broadcast throughout the
local area, including to hotels and motels.
MEDIA RELATIONS
West coast and national media: OSF sustains existing relationships and builds new ones
with reviewers and writers on the West Coast, particularly in Oregon and California,
where more than 80% of OSF patrons reside. OSF continues to cultivate relationships
with national writers.
Travel writers: As noted above, theater and travel writers visit OSF, and articles about
OSF appeared in the New York Times, Time magazine, Christian Science Monitor, Los
Angeles Times, Backstage West, Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, Sunset,
American Theatre, Horizon Airlines and Alaska Airlines magazines, and Gentry in 2003
and 2004.
Radio and television (national and regional):
Radio stations representing a wide geographic area, from Dallas to Bolinas, Calif., aired
programs about OSF. In October 2004 the Food Channel's $40 A Day with host Rachel
Ray visited OSF. The program will air April 8, 2005, at 9:30 p.m. Ashland is mentioned
in a story on the Today show (NBC) website as one of the "hot spots" to retire
(http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7204492/). OSF and the many opportunities to volunteer
with the Festival are mentioned. Oregon's OPB- TV has made OSF a regular subject of its
program Art Beat for the past four seasons.
Improved technology: Over the past year, OSF has continued to develop a comprehensive
electronic press kit. The significant increase in national media coverage of OSF in the
past two years is in large part due to the ease of access to high-resolution imlages through
OSF's secure electronic press kit. The images used in Time magazine's June 2003
"Bigger than Broadway" article were used because the writer found them to be both
professional and accessible. In addition, OSF has developed a comprehensive video news
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Oregon Shakespeare Festival Report
March 23,2005
Page 3 of 4
release that is delivered to all west coast and select national television stations: for both
spring and summer openings. These video releases contain digital footage of OSF
productions as well as extensive establishing shots of Ashland. This stock footage is used
by television stations when doing both theater and non-theater stories on our region. OSF
has also begun to stream video on its website to provide more information about the
producti ons.
OSF in the Community
The past year also saw the continuation ofOSF's active participation in our community, through
Festival programs and in community work by company members. We are especially proud of the
success of the fifth year of the new Ashland Schools Project, in which the OSF Education
Department, and specifically a team of two OSF actor-teachers, worked with students from
fourth through twelfth grades in the Ashland School District. During the past school year, 342
ninth graders and 273 tenth, eleventh, and twelfth graders participated at the high school; 684
middle school students participated; and elementary school 396 students participated..
The program began in the fall of 2004 with all AHS freshmen English students attending The
Comedy of Errors. Before seeing the show, the students had a preparatory session with an OSF
actor-teacher. After the show, a Comedy of Errors cast member visited each class for a follow-up
discussion. In December, a team of OSF actors spent two days at the high school performing
assemblies (such as the thirty-five-minute version of Richard III) and leading student
workshops.
At the middle school, the actor-teachers performed the thirty- five-minute version of Richard III
for all students in sixth through eighth grades. Half of the seventh- and eighth-grade students
then took a backstage tour, while the other half visited with OSF artisans. This fall, the two
groups will rotate.
At the elementary schools, the actor-teachers performed the abbreviated Richard III for fourth
and fifth graders, then visited each fifth-grade class with a trunk of costume renderings, fabric
swatches, set designs and photos of past productions to use in discussing Richard III with the
students.
Volunteer participation by Ashland residents also reflects OSF's connection to the community.
In 2004, 576 local residents were active volunteers at OSF, contributing in excess of 29,480
hours of service.
OSF's Diversity Efforts
In recent years, one of OSF's key initiatives has been creating greater diversity in our
staff and audience. We have seen dramatic success in some areas. Today, more than 30%
(27 of78 actors) of the acting company are people of color; the Festival offers more
employment to actors of color than any other theater in America. In other areas, the pace
of change is much slower. About 60/0 of our production and administrative staff are
minorities, and we continue to work to increase that proportion. In addition, the Festival
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now employs an audience development manager, and FAIR (Fellowships, Assistantships,
Internships, and Residencies) coordinator whose focus is developing prograrns to
increase the number of people of color in our audience and on our staff.
For the last seven years, the Festival has undertaken diversity training for its staff. Almost all
company members have now received this training. In 2002, we helped to initiate what has
become the Ashland Cultural Diversity Alliance, which is now taking a leadership role in
encouraging other institutions to join us in addressing issues of diversity. After many planning
sessions, citywide diversity training has now begun with four successful workshops, and more to
come. Weare gratified that our initial efforts are leading to a greater citywide awareness and
appreciation of the benefits of diversity.
Economic Impact
The Festival's economic impact on Ashland and Southern Oregon approached $129 million* in
2004. Beyond this economic impact, the City received $1,309,000 from the Hotel&10tel tax and
$1,684,000 from the Food and Beverage tax in 2003/2004. OSF's activities are a Inajor factor in
the generation of these taxes.
OSF's 79,009 non-local visitors spent an average of $304.45 each. Added to OSF expenditures
of$20,393,637 and multiplied by the Oregon multiplier of2.9, brings the total regional impact of
Festival operations of $128,898,548.
Conclusion
Over the past twenty-two years, the Ashland City Council's commitment to investing in the
promotion of tourism through OSF and the Ashland Chamber of Commerce has paid off
handsomely. Through that investment, the City has helped build a powerful econonlic and
cultural engine that has created a stable base of funding for many City activities. At a time when
other theaters and other cities are facing severe deficits and cutbacks, we are seeing continued
interest in Ashland and the Festival, in large part because of concerted cooperation between the
two. This is clearly a time when the support of the Council is crucial to the ongoing health of
both the Festival and the City-two entities that have been linked for almost seventy years.
Again, thank you very much for your support. Weare grateful to be the recipient of an Economic
and Cultural Development grant this year and look forward to your continued support.
Sin~~
Oregon Shakespeare Festival
Paul E. Nicholson
Executive Director
cc: Kirsten Bakke, Finance Department
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