Overview

The partner of this project was the Theater Society Munich (Theatergemeinde/ TheaGe). This organization with currently over 20.000 members specializes in promoting culture in the area around Munich. They have experienced a steady decline of members for the past years that was supposed to be stopped with the help of this challenge. The students worked on solutions to increase membership numbers and collected ideas on how to get younger people in particular interested in the organization.

TheaGe describes itself as a cultural mediator, as its primary concern are not ticket sales, but to advice others on cultural choices and to get more people enthusiastic about culture and theatre. The goal of the current management board is to align TheaGe with requirements of the digital age and to focus stronger on young people as potential new members.

Problem

In order to find out how the theatre society could be supported, the individual teams analysed their approach toward consulting and ticket sales, their target group and their online presence.

One of the main problems of the society seemed to be the focus on, from the students' point of view, outdated methods of promotion and support, such as via telephone and mail. These methods do not allow access to information immediately and spontaneity and flexibility are lost. In addition to this, the subscription model is considered outdated. One of the project groups' goals therefore was to make the consulting and booking service more flexible and digital.

Another major problem of Munich's Theater Society is the age of its members. While TheaGe used to be an association for young and old, there are now mainly older members who have been members for many years. A survey conducted by the students found that just one in 32 residents of Munich knew TheaGe. Finding innovations that would be able to solve this problem of popularity became one of the main goals of the project.

To not drown in the flood of ticket agencies, it is important to stick out with special offers. TheaGe already does that to a certain extent through the aspect of personal consultation. But the aim had always been to experience culture together. To make this possible in a modern way, a platform for the exchange of information about events, a podcast with current information and interesting lectures and special events for people with similar interests, would be conceivable.

Ultimately, the design of all media used for advertising purposes should be uniform and the range of events should be communicated more clearly.

Approach

At the beginning of the challenge the teams created several questions that would determine the course of the project and would enable them to find a concrete and targeted solution. The questions were the following:

• "What would the theatre community look like if we were to form it today?"
• "What would the criteria be?"
• "How can me make our offer more attractive and thus increase our membership numbers?"

To answer these, they conducted interviews and online surveys with various groups of people.

The team "Trailer" analysed the respondents of their interviews and found two potential target groups. They decided to focus on the larger target group: working people with a family.

To be able to put themselves in the position of the target group, the students created so-called empathy maps that showed the different areas in their life and allowed a better analysis of their decision making. As the working people with a family seemed to be very limited in time, the group suggested a user account on the website and an increased use of video trailers to make the decision-making-process faster and therefore more efficient.

To illustrate the advantages of these features, they created a storyboard. After that, the students wrote a fictitious newspaper article (called press release) to further concretize the approach to their solution. In the end they designed the final interactive prototype, using Adobe XD.

In the final presentation, this team included information about the financial feasibiity of the proposed solution and the optimal, visual restructuring of TheaGe's advertising material (colour codes, typographic guidelines, etc.)

The "Events" team followed a similar approach. They used a cause and stakeholder analysis to identify the various problem areas. An online survey enabled them to draw conclusions about the booking cycle, price sensitivity, information procurement and the target group's attitude toward the consulting service. They also analysed the level of popularity of the theatre community within the city.

As a solution, the group presented three possible events that would appeal to different parties of interest and worked them out in detail (advertising, procedure, finances, etc.). As a prototype the group created corresponding sample-applications online. The events they proposed were a meet & greet with artists and people from the theatre scene, a get together for singles and a special gusto and culture offer, that would include a sponsored restaurant visit in advance. They proposed a revised design for TheaGe too.

The team "Podcast" conducted a survey as well and came to similar results as the two other groups. They proposed a podcast that would make it easier for users to enjoy culture during their everyday life. Its strengths would lie especially in its non-binding, modern nature, and it would allow people to convey knowledge and information about culture and theatre in a fun and easy way. That way TheaGe could reach a broader group of interests, could increase its level of publicity and create a clearer structure for its offer. The podcast could also be supplemented by videos on YouTube. For further elaboration, the students created a cost statement for TheaGe that included information on the financial feasibility (funding possibilities etc.) and sustainability. It was important to the students that the podcast should be different from others and, if possible, run on many different channels such as the radio, Spotify or iTunes to ensure the greatest possible success.

Next steps

For the future, the individual teams hope that TheaGe will be able to implement some of their suggestions and will achieve its goals of a modern image and a larger audience.