Improving Audience Relationships at Edinburgh International Festival

An annual, citywide celebration of performing arts, Edinburgh International Festival has an extensive database of international supporters and provides year-round learning, engagement, and professional development activities.

Driven by the potential to create seamless, automated audience journeys more effectively, the team began a comprehensive assessment of potential platforms in 2020. By recording audience engagement, booking, and giving in the same record, and automatically tagging prospects based on those behaviours, the team knew it would be easier to identify distinct audience segments, understand them more fully, and improve communications across the full relationship.

Marketing and development teams at Edinburgh International Festival used to rely on separate, manual reports to identify targets, with a significant amount of time spent pulling lists and manually reviewing data.

When the festival tendered for a new CRM system, the ability to manage audience journeys more effectively across teams was central to the decision-making process. After going live with Spektrix, the team had a stronger foundation for bringing audience data together and working more collaboratively across the organisation.

The festival’s specific objectives include increasing returning attenders, growing memberships, and establishing a legacy giving programme. Automated audience segmentation, alongside smooth integrations with key tools like the website and email provider, helps free up team time so teams can focus on achieving those goals.

A change of CRM system is a major decision for any organisation, particularly one with the profile and expectations attached to Edinburgh International Festival. Following the tender process, the Spektrix team spent full days demonstrating the platform and running workshops around use cases relevant to the festival.

The communications team was soon convinced, but the board, aware of how deeply the crisis could affect the sector, remained concerned about the risk of making a change. When they approached Spektrix for reassurance, the festival’s leadership team was impressed by the openness and transparency of that conversation. It set the tone for a genuine partnership and gave them the confidence to move forward with broader organisational change.

As soon as they began to understand the impact of coronavirus on their events and finances, the festival team started a tender process. More than ever, it was vital to choose a ticketing partner that could support recovery and offer a model aligned with future success.

They began managing memberships with Spektrix in March 2021, making it easier to control access to tailored content and digital events. Members can be a vital source of revenue and support when organisations face challenging times.

Better access control and a more responsive system mean more secure events and greater agility when plans need to change. Tina knows the team can reach out to Support and Training Consultants whenever they need help creating new seating plans or adjusting to last-minute challenges.

For Edinburgh International Festival, the enforced pause offered a unique chance to implement radical change in time for a fully fledged season to resume. For many other organisations, implementation support makes it possible to switch with as little as a day or so of downtime, even mid-season, with one team handling project management, data migration, and more.

Edinburgh International Festival now has a stronger foundation for connecting audience data, supporting cross-team working, and building audience relationships over time.