Against the wall

Things are tough financially. They have been all year, but today the first day of what used to be the “closed season”, really brings it home. This is the point when even though all our countryside is free to access all year round, and more and more pay-for-entry places are open during winter, people have less opportunity to visit.

As an organisation, we aim for a 20% operating contribution, which is to say, that we want to generate from our operating turnover an extra 20%, which next year can be allocated to conservation projects. We’re way below that target right now, and we’ve only got the lean months to try and scrape a little of it back.

Why? Well the credit crunch hasn’t helped, but frankly, in my region, the biggest problem has been the weather. It rained, it seemed, all summer, and especially, it seemed, at week-ends and when we had an event on. Obviously we should try to be less dependent on visitor related income. But that learning point doesn’t help the present situation. My region is responsible for over half the operating contribution shortfall. What are we going to do, in these lean winter months to try and narrow that gap?

I’ve been thinking about what my team is able to do, and I’ve been charged by our regional committee and by our regional management team, to come up with a “tactical plan” in improve income. There are some no-brainers , investing in promoting the winter openings that are going on before Christmas.

This year, more of our houses will be open and dressed for the season than ever before, including Ightham Mote, where the Great Hall with be decorated with a traditional tree for visitors to enjoy from Thursdays to Sundays from 6 November through until 21 December.  At Bateman’s, visitors can enjoy a Kipling Christmas during the first three weekends in December.  At Standen, the original light fittings will illuminate the house while traditional decorations will add a festive touch, for four weekends from 29 November.  At Uppark, you can experience life ‘below stairs’ and discover how the servants prepared for the seasonal celebrations from 6 to 11 December.  And finally, from 4 – 7 December, Polesden Lacey will be treating their guests to a true Mrs Greville welcome with staff in period costume, decorations, festive music and a 16 foot tree.

But can we do more to change people’s perceptions that everwhere is closed during winter, and what can we add regionally to the adverstising and press releases that properties themselves are doing? Can we agree promotions with properties that give people 10% off on the shop for instance, and cane we market all the different offers that tea-rooms and resturants have on, under a simple to communicate regional theme? I think we also need to make sure that the properties are all doing what we may be taking for granted, devising their own appropriate offers, marketing them effectively not just with advertising, but in press releases and roadside banners.

And after Christmas, how best should we be promoting visits in January and February? We’ve already decided that the region will create a couple of calendars, one of things to do during half term, and and another for adults of all the lecture lunches and the like, and distribute them on-line at properties and in the papers (if we are lucky). We just tried a viral e-marketing campaign offering a kids go free voucher for this last half term, it’ll be interesting to see how successful that was.

One exciting thing may be happening. I’ve been banging on for years about putting our Father Christmases in his old pre-Coca-Cola costumes. Well… I hear he’s been routing about in his wardrobe…

Big Green Days Out

Two Sundays, two Big Green Days Out, at Chartwell last week, and Nymans today. The weather was a million times better today, but bothe places put on a good show. I was so impressed by the effort of the teams and the guest organisations.

But even taking account of the weather, Nymans put on the better show, and why? I think it boils down to investing in renting decent sized marquees. If it had rained today as much as it had at Chartwell, visitors to Nymans would still have been more comfortable, and better able to mill about the stands. The two marquees that Nymans hired also made a better job of making the day feel complete, together, a quality addition to the offer.

Events

I spent a good deal of the day yesterday discussing the summer season of events in the region. Ticket sales have not been good, and it’s not surprising. Who wants to book an outdoor event while the weather has been as poor as it has this spring. Now we’ve seen a turn in the weather, I’m hoping we’ll see an improvement in ticket sales.

But in fact, declining sales have been a trend we’ve recognised over the last five years. When I joined the Trust, we were organising our own large scale events at a number of properties (my favorite was Ian Brown’s comeback at Claremont Landscape Gardens), but we could see that, with every other green space or back garden jumping on the bandwagon, there was a more fragmended demand for such events. After a couple of costly misfortunes at Petworth (where a performer’s sore throat turned a massive profit into a costly loss, for example), and a perception of outdoor event fatigue in our audience (I think its very interesting that Glastonbury didn’t sell out this year), we pulled back from running our own large events. Our current events strategy is to continue with outdoor theatre, where the rewards are not so great but more properties can participate, and at larger venues, hire out sites to events promoters. This means we only get a facility fee of thousands of pounds, rather than a profit of hundreds of thousands, but the risk is also  reduced.

This strategy should mean there’s less work to do as well, but yesterday I got involved in concern about one event that so far has had miserable sales. We could say “sod it, we still get our fee,” but even though the event is run by somebody else, there’s still a risk to the National Trust’s reputation iof the event turns out to be a miserable failure.

Fingers crossed for a glorious summer.