Les Violons du Roy announced on their Facebook account this week the cancellation of their concert atChristmas Oratorio by Bach on December 16, 2023 at the Saint-Jean-Baptiste church in Montreal. The Quebec concerts will take place.
A Christmas Oratorio of Bach one week before Christmas, under the direction of Jonathan Cohen, with La Chapelle de Québec, Les Violons du Roy and, among the soloists, a star such as the Welsh countertenor Iestyn Davies is canceled because, write Les Violons du Roy, “the concert represents a financial risk that our organization cannot assume at this time”.
This gives some chills, while opportunistic shows flourish around the same festivity whose content cannot be compared in terms of cultural value and which seem to have no problem taking advantage of the moment.
Learn to communicate again
“We have not yet launched the official campaign, but with our subscriptions and the public who knows us, we usually have a small audience which allows us to have a minimum. Here, we are below the minimum. It would have required a campaign of gigantic proportions and the risk was too great of swallowing up money without achieving something acceptable,” he admits to Duty Laurent Patenaude, co-director of Les Violons du Roy.
If the concert had been at the Maison symphonique, the management would perhaps have tried it, but not in a place where the Violins’ audience is not accustomed to it, analyzes Mr. Patenaude. The question of a total cancellation, including in Quebec, was on the table, but was quickly swept aside. “In Quebec, we have more than 590 tickets sold for one evening and more than 450 for the second one month before the event. So we have every chance of reaching or exceeding the target of 750 per evening. Furthermore, we have, in Quebec, a strong core of people very loyal to the Violons and La Chapelle. So, before canceling, we must measure the risk of loss of reputation or loyalty,” analyzes the co-director of the orchestra.
Since the end of the pandemic, Montreal has posed some problems for the Violons du Roy. “The Bourgie Hall is almost always full, but the Maison symphonique is a challenge for us. Even for the Jaroussky-Lemieux concert last year, we had a good venue, but with such a poster, we should have done better. There are people who learn of our presence in Montreal when the review appears. This means that we are not visible enough. We have no intention of going backwards, but we must rethink our strategy in Montreal,” analyzes Laurent Patenaude.
Among the systemic problems, the director of the Violins considers that “the world is not the same as before from the point of view of habits. There are definitely people we haven’t found. Some people who did not consume culture on the Web have adopted new habits. But above all I think that we have not yet found the way to promote our concerts. As we have fewer subscribers, we have to have a different media presence, find the right time to communicate, to make this or that advertisement.”
We sense Laurent Patenaude in deep reflection on this subject and very disappointed by the disappointing results of certain operations. “When you advertise on television, it has an effect, but the investment is considerable. So, is the game still worth it? More time and money should be invested in promotion. But at the same time, our goal is to put on concerts and put as much effort into producing quality as possible. »
He nevertheless ends up letting it go: “I don’t know what my colleagues think; I would do a few fewer concerts with a little more investment in each concert. But that goes against economic logic. » Here we enter into a broad reflection which cannot be carried out in isolation.