This press release was written for my case study class, Strategic Communication for Non-Profits, in which we worked with local media to increase ticket sales and attendance rates for the Indianapolis Opera.
_________________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release:
Indianapolis Opera Announces Affordable Drama for Young Professionals
Indianapolis Opera is offering young professionals aged 25 and under tickets to this season’s opera performances at $10 each, where they can experience the 34-year-old performing arts institution by taking their curiosity to a local venue.
“A study by the National Endowment of the Arts stated that nearly a third of opera audiences nationally is 35 years of age of younger,” commented opera executive director John C. Pickett. “We want our new program to make opera affordable for young people just beginning their careers in central Indiana, as well as for families who wish to expose their younger children to the grandeur of this art form. We’d like to grow the younger component of our audiences.”
The specially priced single tickets can be purchased only in person at the Clowes Memorial Hall box office on the campus of Butler University. Patrons in their teens and older will be asked to show driver’s licenses or other state-issued identity cards.
Single tickets for Indianapolis Opera’s three productions are now on sale. The productions include:
- October 2 and 4: Richard Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos, in which tragedy and comedy collide when an opera company and in improvisational comedy troup are forced to perform together.
- November 20 and 22: Puccini’s La Boheme, the story of starving artist friends and lovers in 1830s Paris.
- March 19 and 21: Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado, a comic light opera that pokes fun of English eccentricities even though the story is set in Japan.
All performances will be at Clowes Memorial Hall. Friday performances begin at 8 p.m., and Sunday performances begin at 2 p.m.
###
