Holland Festival is the largest international performing arts festival in the Netherlands. During the organization of the festival, various processes run parallel. From planning performances and collaborating with artists to signing contracts, arranging travel and accommodation for artists, and developing marketing materials. That is precisely why bundling all this information offers a solution.
The challenge: coordinating parallel processes
Through a quick scan, the festival discovered that there were many redundancies in documents and processes. Many things were registered multiple times in different systems, systems that could not exchange information with each other. If one time slot changed, it had to be updated in multiple places. For a festival with over forty productions and context programming, this posed a high risk of errors.
Choose a platform that meets your needs. Think about the service you need now, but also about your ambitions for the future.
Holland Festival therefore chose a digital platform for CRM to streamline processes related to customer service, marketing automation, analysis, and application development. “Salesforce offers Software-as-a-Service (SAAS), so a platform that we can configure as we see fit. Think of it as one of those green Lego boards on which you can build anything,” describes Norbert.
Optimization requires cleanup
Theater DeSingel in Antwerp inspired Holland Festival to consolidate their business processes into one system, making planning, marketing, and archives more transparent. “This involved importing and cleaning up four databases,” says Runa. “We previously worked with four different systems: SRO for tickets, Copernica for sending marketing emails, PerfectView as the CRM system for funds and relationships, and Compasity for customers with limited visit data, such as people who bought tickets for Holland Festival performances at other theaters.” Now, all of that is in one system, while still showing the original source.
The time we spent deduplicating various lists is now spent on other things
Ultimately, data for about 80,000 relationships were analyzed, and 70,000 were included in the new system. Managing relationship data quickly brings GDPR into play. Runa: “For consents, we relied on Copernica, the email marketing tool. People listed there had given permission to be contacted by email. We carried that over to Salesforce. However, not all emails require consent, such as service emails related to ticket purchases. It took some effort to get everything right, but I think this part is now about 90% in order.”
Read more about privacy legislation in our article on GDPR-compliant work.
Tell stories with your digital archive
Implementing the planning and production component within the CRM creates a current overview and a valuable archive. To set this up, data was linked. Runa: “Essentially, it involves linking fields in a database. Things like title, director, actors, etc. Additionally, we need to add fields for metadata related to import and export, such as what you can and cannot display. Once that is done, these fields are usable for current performances as well as for the archive.”
“Once this step is taken, we can involve the audience more in the story of Holland Festival,” adds Norbert Bode. “When an artist has previously been at the festival, we can directly reference that. This makes it possible to highlight cross-connections and truly tell stories.”
Make stories in your archive accessible to remain discoverable and relevant.
The next step for Holland Festival is linking data (stories) to other sources, such as Wikipedia or the archive of the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision. This enriches the stories. Norbert Bode: “We have already made part of our video archive accessible together with the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, VPRO, and with the help of NTR. This makes it available to the media and education sectors, increasing our relevance.”
Tips for process innovation
Norbert: “Make sure you have clear end goals. What do you want to achieve? There is so much you can do, and along the way, you discover all kinds of things that are also fun and valuable. It is important to stay focused so that you don’t suddenly run out of budget halfway through.” Measurable goals that you regularly evaluate help with this. “Good people with technical insight are essential,” says Norbert, “you need them to get others on board as well.”
In the cultural sector, various providers offer system solutions. Identify in advance what you want and can use the system for. You can also do this together with other institutions, especially when it comes to standardization possibilities, data exchange in the chain, and linking with other collections.
This article was created in collaboration with Norbert Bode and Runa Stam from Holland Festival.
Sign up for the Innovative Working workshop
View the programMore articles per topic
