Bringing it All Together

(Realizing my post was getting waaaaaay long, and as a gift in the holidays, here is part two of We Taught A Generation to Steal)

Right now, we're taking that approach with a purely entertainment product -- our Northwestern State Christmas Gala.

To project to our distant on-line students, I captured the Gala. We don't have the full rights to all the music for distribution beyond our theater, so we didn't stream it live.

In the ticketing this year, we created "advanced" tickets. The Gala is festival seating, but the last two nights tend to sell out. You can't advertise to come to an event 75 minutes away without a guarantee mechanism. To provide that convenience, we put tickets on line for the first time ever, but did so at a premium. No one who was local or didn't mind standing in line had to by the $15 advanced seat; they could still by the $10 one.

After the event, we have put up, one at a time and for free, the videos we could under the rights we own. So in some ways, you didn't have to come at all to see the Gala -- oh my, some were concerned this might cost us future Gala sales.

No. The videos serve as an advertisement for next year, and they are a service.

What if they get downloaded? Great. We hope so. Why? See previous.

Why are you working during the break to create an entertainment product? Because it is our role within our community. The Gala brings the arts to thousands of kids and Northwestern State's Creative and Performing Arts program (CAPA) is that link to culture for this region. CAPA is the symphony, the dinner theater, art gallery.

Just like the athletic department is the sports entertainment in the area.

It is a vital part of the mission of the American university. As created in the late 19th century and executed here in the 21st.

With that, I encourage you to check out our little video series. It's free, unlike the ones I've created in the past for athletic departments -- mostly because they didn't get that more free served both the mission and reached new fans, keeping them connected in ways that the other media could not or would not.

Have a Merry Christmas.

Enjoy the Christmas carols.