Ghost hunting at the Fortune Theatre

I had something forwarded to me today that piqued my interest. As you probably know, I do my theatre stuff, as well as occasionally hosting ghost crawls (pub crawls with ghost stories). Therefore, having something sent to me by a theatre marketing bod about ghosts in a west end theatre = brilliant. However, I did notice that the Fortune is also home to the Woman in Black, the original west end horror play.

Do I smell a clever marketing ploy?

Ok, I'll drop the façade. I know this is a bit of a viral for Woman in Black, but at the same time it's quite well done. Looking back through the blog, they've done their homework creating Dr Simon Hill (unless he is a real person?), with posts dating back almost a year all around orbs, photographing ghosts and haunted parts of London. However, I'm hoping they don't just stop there. Why not go the whole hog and make Dr Simon real? Organise some ghost walks around Covent Garden with a real live doctor in parapsychology (who's going to check the credentials) that ends up at the Fortune where something real happens!? Then give them some passes to cheap tickets for the show for some more spooky theatrical goodness.

However, in saying that, I love the fact that they've already gone to this kind of effort and it's something more marketing departments should be looking at. What do you guys think?

An article I wrote on UX and Theatre

It's now almost a month old, but I realised I didn't post about a blog post I wrote recently on UX and Theatre. I mulled over this post for a while, getting some great feedback from cohorts like Laura, Peter (who inspired the article) and James (who I have a slight mancrush on). In fact, James' feedback has made me start working on another UX and Theatre article that's a little more indepth and thought out, so watch this space. Also, make sure you watch Peter's talk from TEDxYork, because a) he's an awesome speaker and b) he talks a lot of sense.

User Experience and the Theatre

Posted on November 20, 2011 by 
What do you remember from your last experience at the theatre? an opera? a dance piece? Have a think about it. Jot down five things that come to mind. I can categorically say that for the majority of you all five of those points would have something to do with the performance itself. User Experience is a field that has been getting mass exposure from the design and web development crowds, but why aren’t we looking at it for the arts as well? Arts companies can look at other areas and industries, like restaurants and immersive arts organisations, to see where they can push their user experience up to the level they should be aiming for.

(read the full article here)