Pick your musical experience
Increase Millennials' participation in the Oakland Symphony through digital solutions... and other.
*** A concept project ***
Overview
The Oakland Symphony has provided symphonic music in the Oakland community since 1933. They recognize that majority of their concert-goers are from older generations. To ensure their future and relevancy in the community my team was challenged to design a product to attract younger people to its performances without ostracizing their current audience.
Boring. Stuffy. Not relatable. These are the Millennials’ perceptions of the symphony that we addressed. Our focus was to design a social, engaging and fun experience that they want to revisit on their social calendar.
Goals
Engage a younger demographic in a way that empowers them with the knowledge to improve their appreciation with classical music and the symphony.
Responsibilities
End-to-end research, ideation, and sketches
Timeline & Team
2-weeks / Alli Straus - UX Designer
Multi-pronged strategy
We tackled this issue with a low cost budget in mind. Our multi-pronged strategy plan consists of a social media relaunch, music app stations, ticket sales plan, and an exploratory social event to showcase the evocative music of the orchestra and introduce the musicians as real people.
Social media makeover & music apps revamped
The ability to connect to millions of Millennials all over the world at a small cost is one of the best reasons to have a strong social media presence. Music apps like Spotify and iTunes are used by 72% of our survey participants. The symphony could attract local young people through the use of applications they frequently use.
Before: Current Instagram account. The account name is OakSym and posts has a lot of unrelated content.
After: Redesign of account picture and renamed the account Oakland Symphony. Posts are higher quality photographs and relatable content.
A musical playground for adults
Welcome to Symphony After Dark! This one-off, low risk event transforms the music hall lobby into a playground of sort with musical stations where patrons can converse with musicians and learn about the instruments. Food and beverage will be served as well as live music performed by orchestra members. The evening will end with a shorter version of a symphony concert where the orchestra will play two musical pieces.
Our competitive analysis shows that cost is not a deterrent for Millennials in attending musical events. Their generation spends hundreds of dollars to go to music festivals like Coachella, South By South West and Lollapalooza. These events are modern, exciting and very fun. We hope to delight our guests in similar ways during this event.
“The Symphony After Dark sounds fun, I would attend that.”
30 under 30 ticket program
Our research shows other symphonies offer discounted tickets for certain age groups such as students or in this case, Millennials. The Oakland Symphony does not currently have a ticket package for their target audience which could easily be a kickstarter for more participation by a younger demographic.
User Research
10 user interviews, 1 survey, 10 comparative & competitive businesses, 8 secondary research articles and studies and 1 contextual inquiry informed our strategy for this project. Through direct communication with our users and target audiences we were able to focus on the paint points of attending a symphony concert. Through researching other symphonies, we were able to compare marketing and event programs that is and isn't working.
Competitive & Comparative Analysis amongst other famous symphonies throughout the world
Survey results for ways users listen to music
User Personas
Next Steps: implementation & testing
The ticket sales plan for "30 under 30" is a implementation for the Symphony and only results of the ticket sales will inform us if the program is a success.
We want to revamp their social media, particularly Instagram, by working with a photographer and videographer to take high quality photographs of the theater and the orchestra. We can also use this platform to advertise for Symphony After Dark. The plan is to do usability testing during the event by interviewing patrons how they like the event. This could be a monthly recurring event for the symphony as another way to gain revenue and exposure.