The Future of Cultural Institutions with Aliki Zachariadis

In this episode, we explore how the Philharmonie Luxembourg is transforming the cultural experience through innovative marketing, community engagement, and digital strategies. Guest Aliki Zachariadis shares insights on making music accessible, rebranding efforts, and embracing technology to shape the future of the arts.

Disclaimer:

The views and opinions expressed by the guest on this podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Philharmonie Luxembourg.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

But the more you listen to what your audience wants, the more you can actually build a perfect experience for them and build a perfect program for them. So I think it's really important to put the consumer at the heart.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Hello, and welcome to Codex Futures, a triptych podcast decoding how we'll live, learn, and play in the future. Each episode, we dive into a different industry to uncover the trends, cultural shifts, and powerful forces reshaping it, and what those changes mean for the people driving innovation forward. In today's episode, we're really thrilled to welcome Aliki Zachariadis, head of the Marketing and Digital Division at the Philomony Luxembourg. So together we'll explore the future of cultural institutions and the arts, how technology, digital communities, and changing consumer behaviours are reshaping the way that we engage with music and the arts at large. So, Aliki, thank you so much for joining me today. We're really excited to chat. Thanks for having me. Super excited to be here. Well, I suppose just to begin, it would be great if you could tell me a little bit about your role heading up the marketing division at the Philharmonie Luxembourg and also your journey into that role, which I understand has been illustrious and also has come through lots of different organizations.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

So, like you said, I head up the marketing and digital division here at the Philharmonie in Luxembourg. The role of the division is very much to build the image of the concert hall. We also have an orchestra, the Luxembourg Philharmonic. So we look after their image, promoting them as our country's ambassador. We also work on presenting and selling all our concerts. So the ticketing team falls under our division. And we work a lot around building understanding of our audiences, which is very important in terms of then building the customer experience for them. So it's a very varied role in terms of what we manage. It's not the traditional marketing role as we think of it. It's it really encompasses sales, customer experience, digital experience. And then how I got into the role and what I used to do before. So I spent 20 years working in London and I was in a completely different industry. So I was working in cosmetics, I was working in spirits. And prior to that, I used to live in Luxembourg. So it was really sort of returning home for me when I decided to take on this role. But I do have a really strong passion for music. I used to play the violin, I used to play the piano, I still do. And I also used to play in a youth orchestra. So it was wonderful for me to be able to sort of bring the two passions of marketing and music together and discover this completely new sector from a marketing perspective. So it's been um a really interesting four years now.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

Four years, gosh, and what a dream role for someone who's so passionate about music. There can't be many, yeah, many opportunities where you can really blur both marketing and a lifelong passion for music. So that's so lovely. There's so much to dive into with you. I mean, the fact that your role is so varied and covers so many different spheres of what the Philomony do and are part of is quite astounding. So I'm excited to dive into that. But before we do that, I'd love to get a sense of moving from cosmetics and spirits and the luxury sector into the world of culture and the arts. How have you kind of made that adjustment and what have the biggest learnings been from making that move to, I'm assuming, worlds that in some ways are completely different, but perhaps there are also some similarities that you can draw on?

SPEAKER_01 3:30

So I think my biggest shock when I moved into the role was the fact that the KPIs are very different. In London, when you work for big corporations, you're very market share obsessed. And here it's very different. You're very mission-obsessed. And it's a wonderful thing because there is this much stronger purpose that takes over. So it's very much mission over market share, and that's wonderful. Of course, we have to sell tickets and ensure the concert hall is full every night, but we also sometimes take some risks and say, you know, our mission is to make music accessible to all. And so we're not gonna just program concerts that we know are going to sell out immediately. We're going to program, you know, concerts that we feel are going to bring something in terms of a learning or development for our audiences. And so we know that we're only going to sell a hundred tickets potentially, but we know it's part of our mission. And so that's been a shift that's been actually very good for a mareteer to stop obsessing every day about your marketing. And then the the second part, which many people don't think of this way when you think of the of cultural institutions, but I've had to think more and more like a startup. And it's true that when you're in a big organization, it's it's very political. Spend a lot of time doing presentations, trying to showcase your products, projects internally, and you spend a lot of time doing that. And here it's a much leaner organization. So decisions go very fast. And if you have an idea, it's very easy to just get sign-off, to, to put it out there, to test, to learn. And you have smaller budgets, so you also have to be more creative. But I'd say things move a lot faster. You don't have to present to each other with uh 100 slides PowerPoint. And so that's been a wonderful experience. And we love this sort of entrepreneur mentality within the team.

SPEAKER_00 5:26

That's brilliant. And I suppose being able to combine that sort of feeling of being in a startup sort of mindset, albeit it's not a startup, of course, and being able to also blend that with a mission-led sense of purpose and ambition must be really exciting. I'd love to get a little bit more insight into something that you've done, a project or initiative that you're particularly proud of that has really championed your mission of making music more accessible to all. Yeah, and tell me a little bit about what that journey has been.

SPEAKER_01 5:55

And so when I joined four years ago, one of the first things that I was told was, why don't you have a look at the brand image? And it's true that, you know, our mission of making music accessible to all means that we have our loyal customers that always come here and they love us, but there's also a really big, you know, part of the population in Luxembourg that still doesn't come here. And we had a really big think about how do we attract these consumers. We did a piece of audience research to understand why they were coming here, why they weren't coming here. And that led us to understand that our our image perception was very important. So we started a big rebrand project. And we, you know, it took us just under a year to really relook at all our identity from our logo to all our publications or our marketing support, but also tone of voice. How do we speak to our audience? Do we need a different tone of voice depending on our customers? How do we communicate about concerts? You know, in the past it was all about showcasing the big artists that were coming here. But when you're talking to an audience that has no clue about artists in the classical music sector, you really have to think again about how you communicate. So we've really changed our strategy from promoting individual concerts to promoting the philharmonie as a whole, making them want to come here. Um, and we really took the mindset that, you know, our competitor here is not another concert hall. Um, our biggest competitor is Netflix. And it's a night, you know, a night in at home watching a movie. And so we really wanted to encourage people to come and experience a concert in our hall. And so through our rebrand, through this change of strategy, we've actually been able to recruit new consumers and we've lowered the age of our audience from the average of 70 years old four years ago to now an average of 40 years old. And that's really impressive.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

And so that's probably what I'm the most proud of today. That is astounding. That really is astounding. I mean, congratulations. Um, and I know that you've done some really interesting things in the brand identity refresh. Could you tell us a little bit about, for example, the logo, which I believe has got a lovely story to it? Yes.

SPEAKER_01 8:17

So when, of course, when you when you come into a new role and you want to reinvent the logo, you can go in multiple directions. But to me, it's always important to anchor it into the heart of what the institution is about. And for us, it really was the iconicity of the of the building. Um, a bit like the Sydney Opera House, the Philharmonie is super iconic, you know, it's on our local passport, it's really recognizable. And so our it was very clear we wanted the logo to represent that building, but in a very modern, fresh way. And also we wanted to put music at the core of it because, of course, we're not just any kind of building, but there's music living here every single night. And so we created this animated logo, which basically animates itself to different types of music. So we can we can input some music into this uh AI tool that we have, and so the logo animates itself, and we basically see sound and music dance through the columns of the Philharmonie, and we try to also streamline all our brand architecture, the um the orchestra in our house, its own version of that logo, but it's um it's very much a copy of it so that they feel like one brand. And there is also a very cute story around how we created the kids logo because we were working with an agency that um, you know, made us a couple of proposals, but we weren't quite there yet. And I kept challenging them that, you know, it doesn't feel right yet. I wanted something that really would scream that it's a philharmony also for children, without saying the philharmony for kids. So one evening I thought, why don't we just ask children what they think? And so I printed out the logo and I gave it to some children, and I said to them, can you just redraw in your own way our logo? And there was this little girl who came back and she created the logo with some smiley faces instead of letters, and it was so inspiring. So I scanned it, I sent it to the agency, and that's how we got the idea of animating some of the letters of the logo as the little faces that feel all the emotions that children feel when they come to our concert. So it was really nice how we really use children to create something for them.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

That is so special. I think that's maybe one of the best examples of making music accessible for all, from not just in terms of, you know, inviting people into the concert hall, but actually integrating them into some of that process too. That's so lovely. And what you said about Netflix being your biggest competitor, I think is such an interesting mindset shift. And when you think about cultural institutions and concert halls, I think there is perhaps a perception that it is a time for silence, seriousness, grown-upness, and perhaps less so things like play and experimentation. Netflix, on the other hand, is about relaxing, flopping out on the sofa. And I just love to get a sense of if that is your biggest competitor, what did you need to do in order to meet your audience where they are and encourage them to take a night away from the sofa and watching Netflix and actually come into the concert hall?

SPEAKER_01 11:25

I think one of, you know, when you watch Netflix, often there's a lot of double screening that happens, especially with our generation. So, you know, we're watching Netflix, but we're also on our phones. And one of the things that we try to stay true to is that when you come to a concert in our hall, um, we ask you to switch off your phone. And sometimes it's quite hard, but we love that, you know, 90 minutes of time where you completely disconnect with the world. I mean, I love doing it myself, and I put it in airplane mode, and I know that for 90 minutes I'm just gonna focus on the music, and it's almost a time of meditation. So it's very different to watching that Netflix show. You really it's a time where you can just, you know, let your brain relax after hard days of work and and just think of other things and let yourself sort of dream. So it's an experience that is so different and amazing for for yourself. So that's I'd say the first part. The second part, and you touched upon the word play. And I think as a concert hall, it's important that it's not just one-directional. We don't just want people to come in our hall and sit and just listen to a concert. We also want them to engage. So we encourage a lot of music making in a fun way. So we create, for example, jam sessions. People can come, even if they don't know how to play an instrument that well, they can come with their guitar or we provide the instruments and they can really jam together as afterwork sessions. We have some lunchtime music making sessions for those who have no clue about music. So they come and they get to play the drums or sing together. And there is this element of, you know, collectiveness, which we also have in our amateur orchestra. So that's, you know, if you know how to play an instrument, but you're not a professional, you can join every Monday and play an instrument in this collective environment. So we love these moments where you don't just sit, but you're actually playing an instrument, whether you know how to do it or whether you don't. And this engagement, I think, brings also our whole to life.

SPEAKER_00 13:30

That's brilliant. And that's so far, but that's such a kind of jump from what you would expect from a concert hall. When you think of concert halls, you think of a 7:30 concert, 10 p.m. finish, and everyone leaves. But actually, it sounds like the philomony is a much more dynamic space that's got things all throughout the day as well for all different types of people. I think on that note, it sounds like the philomony is so much more than a concert hall. And I'd love to get a sense of how you would describe the role it plays in people's cultural lives and also the potential role it could play in the future, perhaps for people who are not currently attending concert halls, be they the philomony or anywhere else in the world. So we really, you know, like I said, we see it as a place of daily escape of disconnection.

SPEAKER_01 14:18

But it's very important for our audience that it is also a place of social gathering. And we hear that a lot, that um our audience, you know, they come earlier, an hour earlier before the concert, because they want to meet with their friends or they want to network. And you really get a sense of that, you know, they come, they have a drink, and so it really sort of brings the community together. And when you think of the role of Philarma back in the days and you know, where the name came from, they were music societies. So they were places where music lovers would gather. And I think over the years, these concert halls have evolved, but the true root of what you know, what they are has stayed the same. And it really is, you know, a place where, you know, all these people that love music just gather. And it's incredible to see how friendships form when people don't know each other, but they just, you know, come to listen to the same piece, and so they bond over that. So that's really exciting to see. Also in a country like Luxembourg, which is so different to any other European country because we have over 50% of expats, there's a high turnover of people coming into Luxembourg living, you know, after a couple of years, and so a lot of people feel alone and they don't have anyone to, you know, go out with. So often we encourage them to come to our concert hall because you know they they come to a concert or they come and they make music uh and they meet people. So it's a great of way of integrating people into the country. So I think it's also got a bigger mission. And then finally, we have a sort of charity arm called the Fondation Aimée, which is basically a charity that helps bring music to those who couldn't normally access it. And I find its purpose so beautiful because we try to help people come to our concert hall, those who can't. So we go to old people's home and we provide, you know, transport and we bring them to concerts, but we also take musicians or orchestra and we go to them if they can't actually come to us. We do a huge amount of projects with with hospital, sick, um, with sick people, with sick children, um, psychiatric wards. We even had a project with uh prisoners in jail, and we brought them here and we created a hip hop video with them. And so we really try to touch everyone, and so we have this bigger purpose even than just touching, you know, you know, the normal population that could normally access um access music. So I love I love that charity that um that is part of who we are as well.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

Sounds like you're going so far above and beyond and almost have a sense of duty to community, to be a community builder. Um so that's really amazing to hear. I'd love to see the hip-hop video. Brilliant. And thinking a little bit more about democratizing music, the way that you're building communities, the way that you're offering a sense of daily escape, a space to social gathering, all of that seems to be in many ways antithetical to the things that we are challenged with all the day in a digital world. You know, you're fighting against um digital relationships in favor of coming together in in real spaces and sharing uh an interest in music or, you know, other kind of forms of the arts as well. How would you think about democratizing music from a marketing perspective in the digital world that we now live in? How do you bridge that sense of duty to community and that philanthropy with the need to be online and public-facing in a digital world?

SPEAKER_01 17:48

So when we have to touch everyone, we have to think about making music accessible in this digital world. I touched upon it at the beginning, but the way we speak and our tone of voice is very important. We really want to make sure that we don't just talk in a very elitist manner, just talking about music in a way that nobody would understand. So we really worked on our tone of voice, making it accessible. We also want to ensure that we break down all the barriers that musical, you know, classical music halls have. So when you go on our website, which we redesigned two years ago, we included a lot of sections for newcomers, like a section around my first visit, where you can really read around all the codes of classical music. Do you clap, you know, in between movements? What is the gong about? And so there's all these things that um, but some audience members have no clue about, and so they can read about it. We create, we have these little uh robot videos on our on our websites, uh, which we call video bots. And with these video bots, we get inspiration from social media like TikTok. And it's again, newcomers don't often want to watch a video of you know five minutes. So these video bots are very much TikTok inspired, they last 30 seconds, and they basically guide you in your experience with classical music or the concert hall. So that's also a great way for us to engage with uh with newcomers to guide them in their selection of concerts, etc. And of course, when it comes to marketing, pricing is also very important when you want to make music accessible. So we have special prices for under 30, they get tickets. We've created an app called Fill 30, and basically under 30s get uh tickets for 10 euros the day before the concert. So that's really making sure that uh young people, students get access to culture that could sometimes be a bit too expensive for them. We also have something called the Kulturpass, and it's for um for people from low-income families or sectors, and so they get tickets for 1 euro 50. So we, you know, they can come and see Langlang, which is one of our most expensive concerts, for for a euro fifty. So it's incredible on how, you know, we're also ensuring that everyone gets access to our programming.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

That's incredible. I love that there's so many different pricing models that make sure no one's excluded. Thinking about all of the digital tools you're now using to help bring newcomers in and ensure that you can uh meet them where they're at with short, snappy videos and and so on. How are you balancing that with perhaps the more long-term devotees that have been coming to concerts for a long time? And how do they kind of do meet them and ensure that their needs are still catered for? You really need to find the right balance.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

And when we launched our digital transformation, I could see, you know, some older customer being scared. And in the past, the only way you could buy a subscription was by filling in a paper form. And then two years ago, we said, now the only way you can do it is digitally. So we were really scared of that switch, but we knew it was the right thing to do. And we really guided people through that change. We have a ticketing team and people can book appointments. And we said, if we're gonna do the shift, no, we're not gonna have a paper form hidden in our drawer, and if they come, we're gonna give it to them. We said what we're gonna do is we're really gonna educate them on how they can fill the digital form. So they could come, they could take an appointment, and then we would fill the digital form with them. So it was very much sort of hand holding and taking them through this digital change that had to happen. And that switch happened extremely seamlessly. People really followed us, understood why we had to do it. So it's really finding that right balance. It's interesting to see that in Luxembourg we're digitally behind countries like the UK. Probably a lot of tickets, you know, when we think of concert halls in the UK are bought online. For us, it's almost more of 50 50. Okay, it's not quite 50 50, but still people love to call, they love to come in person. And so So we also thrive on having our ticketing team and offering that sort of personalized service because when people call, when people come in, um, it is still better than AI, the recommendations that we can make. And so, you know, our our team that know almost every single customer by heart, and they can really say, you know, sure, you want to come to that concert, maybe this one is more appropriate, you'd love it more, so they can really give that one-to-one uh recommendation. So although, you know, we are switching to finding some AI solutions, we are still balancing that with that personalized human service, which is still very important. And at the same time, when it comes to marketing support, yes, we're digitalizing a lot of it, but we we still have paper programs, we still give free evening programs that are in paper. And even though I'm a digital person, I still love to get the paper versions because you collect it and you keep it afterwards, and you know, it's like getting a new book, the smell of it when you open it just before a concert is beautiful. So it's great to still have, you know, that balance in in marketing support as well. So we try to do to do the two in parallel. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 23:08

It's it reminds me of the sort of uh service you get in luxury hospitality, where you really get that personalized care and they know everything about you in terms of your preferences and perhaps where you like to sit and things like that. So that's a really lovely thing to retain. I feel that that's getting more and more rare. How do you feel about this uh drive with AI that we're seeing, which is impacting all aspects of our societies? Where do you find it useful? Where do you find it a hindrance? What are you excited about or perhaps more nervous about when it comes to the adoption of AI and how you might be integrating it?

SPEAKER_01 23:43

So I'm super excited about AI, and I think everyone should be. I think if you don't jump on the AI train now, you're really gonna miss the train. So I'm really encouraging everyone at the Philharmonie to embrace AI. We are using it more internally at the moment, very much, you know, we treat it, we like to call it our intern. We don't want to just, you know, give things to AI and then use AI, but we really sort of use it to do the groundwork and then we take that and then use it. But it's true that sometimes when we're working on creating titles for over 200, 300 concerts, it's and we don't have time to listen to the whole program of these 200 concerts. It's useful to use a tool, you know, an AI tool that is going to do that groundwork and then help us in understanding better the program. So we really use it in that way at the moment. Then I do think that there's huge opportunities in using AI when it comes to personalized service. You know, I would love to have a tool that really understands that consumer. So exactly what I was just saying about that personalized service. I think we should have a tool that really understands your preferences and, you know, maybe is linked to your your playlist and see what you like to listen to in your own time and then makes recommendations of what you'd like to to hear in our concert hall. So there's huge opportunities. The risk is that, you know, a bit like algorithm of social media is that it shows you only the things that you would love. And coming back to our initial mission, which is also to sort of widen your horizons and and open your your heart and your mind, we still want you to be able to explore things you wouldn't normally explore. And so that's the only thing, you know, I keep at the back of my mind in terms of AI and how does that um how does that how does that work?

SPEAKER_00 25:35

That's a really interesting challenge to frame. I suppose it can be such a powerful tool in terms of recruiting new people to come and come to their first concert. But from that point on, there could be an opportunity there to center the human touch again and help them to encourage them to see other things that they might be interested in or attend other concerts that might be out of their comfort zone a little bit. And I know that I've seen some really lovely things on your social media channels across YouTube and Instagram and TikTok. There appears to be a slightly different strategy across each platform. I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit more about those and also how uh effective you found they've been in terms of recruiting people. I'm thinking of that number of the average age being dragged all the way down to 40 from 70 in the last four years. Has that been a driving factor, the way that you've been using social media?

SPEAKER_01 26:25

Yes, for sure. I mean, we've got one of the biggest Instagram accounts in Luxembourg. So we are so proud of the work that the social media team is doing. Then we also launched TikTok maybe two years ago, and our editorial strategy for TikTok is that you will see on TikTok everything you don't see on our other social. And so we really use TikTok as a way to show behind the scenes content that we wouldn't normally expect on a classical music hall social media. And we use a lot of humor, we try to tap onto the right trends. And when we launched and we started doing that, we got a lot of comments of people saying, Oh, I didn't realize the Philharmonie Luxembourg had humor. And it really helped change our tone of voice, the, you know, and that perception that we had. So I do think that the social media content that we create, also depending on the platform, has really helped rejuvenate, you know, our image, recruit new consumers. And we still treat Instagram more as you know, where our loyal customers are going to be. TikTok is very much more of a recruitment tool. So we try to use both in parallel and create some exciting content that we wouldn't normally expect.

SPEAKER_00 27:40

That's brilliant. And has it been an effective tool? Have you seen people coming into the philemony via TikTok?

SPEAKER_01 27:46

Yes, we've seen actually, you know, quite a lot of young people say to us, we heard about you, or we, you know, you we found out about this concert, or because we saw it on TikTok and oh, we love that video you did there and then. And we've had quite a couple of videos go viral now. I mean, I still don't understand the TikTok algorithm of why one video goes viral and one why one doesn't. Still mind-blowing, but we try different things, and you know, like you said, there's no mistakes that we can make. So we really let ourselves try different things and and have fun. And we always have um a trainee in the team who, you know, because they're always young, we like TikTok to be managed by, you know, the young generation because they're they were born in it, they were born with it, and so they know how to use it. So we always love to see our trainee be the face of TikTok. So if you go on our TikTok account, you see her, you know, walking around the philharmonie and uh and talking to the various teams and and having fun. It's just uh yeah, it's just a lot of fun creating all this content.

SPEAKER_00 28:46

I love that. I love that. It's a great account. I'd encourage anyone listening to go and A, look at the TikTok account and B, also just check out the building if you can go in person and see the incredible architecture because it is truly astounding. Um I love what you just said about people not realizing that the Philemony had a sense of humor or could be a place for more lighthearted fun. What other things do you think you're doing a good job of debunking in terms of perceptions outsiders might have about the cultural arts industry? Or what do you think outsiders perhaps underestimate about the cultural arts industry?

SPEAKER_01 29:20

So I think in terms of our image, you know, they really see us as elitist and too serious. So we use social media to do that, but we also use our campaigns to do that. And we try to work on new projects that that explain that. So to give you an example, all our campaigns now are very playful, very entertaining. Our current season campaign is all around tasting the music, and you see this little supermarket basket being filled with everyday item, and we want, you know, classical music to feel like it's an everyday item, and that you know, you can try different things, but it doesn't feel you know just for the happy few. Um, and so our campaigns are super colorful, they're very animated, and it's exactly what you wouldn't expect of our concert hall. So a lot of people are talking about that. Um, secondly, we just released a book, and again, when you think of a concert hall, uh launching a book, you'd think they're talking about their orchestra or their architecture, but actually we just launched a cookbook. So we we paired 20 musicians with um 20 chefs in Luxembourg and they reinvented recipes that were close to their hearts, talking about the links between gastronomy and music. So again, it was very unexpected. So we tried to do unexpected things. And then to answer your question on what are people underestimating this sector, I would say they underestimate the complexity and the timelines of planning concerts. You know, often, you know, I had the this this just yesterday, uh, someone, a consumer, came to me and said, you know, I really want to have a concert next year of this artist. And they don't understand how difficult it is to first you you plan two, three years ahead. So our artistic planning team, especially when they work with orchestras from abroad who plan European tours, it's it's so complex. And then you need to find the right date. And when you're planning concerts almost every day, it's such a difficult jigsaw to fill. And they have this huge, you know, Excel spreadsheet where they fit all the concerts in. And, you know, if someone needs to go to another city and perform there and they change the date. I mean, I I'm happy I'm in marketing and not in artistic planning, loving to manage that. But that is so complex. And then the second thing is probably because we're quite a small country and we talked about this personal experience, people who regularly come here feel like they're completely at home. They sometimes know the philharmony better than we do. They sometimes know the program better than we do. And so it's sometimes really hard to, you know, keep everyone happy. And so we need to have that mindset that whatever we do, there's always going to be people who will not be happy or complain about something. I always, you know, tell my team, you know, don't worry. We are also creating things for the these audience members that don't regularly come here. And so as long as we're not upsetting anyone, we need to make sure that we always have our two hats on. And so that's also very complex to manage versus a normal brand that is just going to have one consumer type that buys into that brand, and that's much easier.

SPEAKER_00 32:34

Yeah, yeah, that must be really hard. I mean, I don't know how you even go about describing all the different segments of your audience because you've got subscribers and I'm sure first timers and lots of different uh different types of audiences that are coming through the doors. How do you do your best to kind of target all of those different people? Um and I appreciate that they can't always be happy. Not everyone can always be happy, but do you have uh different uh strategies for different audiences or how does that really work?

SPEAKER_01 33:04

Yeah, we very much have a sort of strategy that thinks about two very specific tribes and customer types. We call the first one musical connoisseurs and then we we call the other ones cultural explorers. And so everything we do, we think of the two types. Um so some of the marketing material is created for cultural explorers, like our big campaigns, that's for them. But we know that with musical connoisseurs, what works is direct marketing. All our paper brochures, our emails, they're more catered for them. So the language that we use is slightly adapted. We go into more details about concerts, our our tone of voice tries to stay the same, but we we do try to go maybe more in depth or less in-depth, depending on the audience type. It's the same for our digital content. When you go onto our YouTube channel or our social media, uh, Instagram, for example, you will find very short reels that talk to the cultural explorers, and then you will find longer streams that are for musical connoisseurs, or we have series like The Art of Conducting, where we interview conductors and they really talk about their art. And so that's more for people who want to enrich their concert experience. Not everyone is going to go into that, but then we have content more like a presto series that is very much short, snappy, you know, a second piece of content. And so we really try to play both cards whilst keeping that brand image and that tone of voice consistent between the two. So we have to find the right balance.

SPEAKER_00 34:40

Yeah, of course. I have to wear many hats, but it sounds like you're doing an excellent job of it. And so when you said that you love to do unexpected things, I've seen some brilliant examples of this on your on your social channels. I don't know if you've got any favourites. The the cookbook was a fantastic example. I also just saw a campaign where you put the Taste the Music um kind of out-of-home poster over another brand's out-of-home poster that was suggesting to come and drink, I think, drink beer at the Philemonia, which was really playful and really, just really delightful to see actually. What other kind of unexpected things would you like to do? How far do you want to push? Do you have any kind of ambitions for 2026 that feel unexpected or perhaps more practical? Where do you see that kind of journey going in terms of the way you are developing the marketing strategy?

SPEAKER_01 35:27

So we, you know, you pinpointed it just correctly. We love to do unexpected things. We did a book, so I'd love my next project to be a film. So we're actually working with the team on a film that's not going to be uh, you know, an institutional documentary, but we really want to do something for the arts. So I can't tell you much more. But it's something we're exactly. This is our next big project. And then just more practical things that we're working on is very much, you know, coming back to AI. I would love to build AI in the user experience. I think that is my next big thing. We're doing also some more practical things in terms of the user experience, like we're currently building a mobile application. We feel that that would just simplify the whole purchase experience and the whole experience of pre-concert. So that's something we're we'll be releasing at the end of at the end of next year. At the end of this year, sorry, we're already in 2026. Then from an artistic perspective, it's also very important to us to support the local music scene and all Luxembourgish artists. So one thing that we're really doing this year is we're launching a new platform for local artists, giving them a stage. So whether they're a small ensemble to bigger artists that are already known, we have different tiers where they can come and they can perform here and they get all our technical support, all our communication and marketing support. So we're sort of really helping them develop their careers, and that's again part of our mission and very important to us. Incredible.

SPEAKER_00 37:03

And I'd love to touch on that idea of local versus global. I think, I mean, Luxembourg as a as a country is such a fascinating one because it's small but mighty and in a very interesting location within the context of Europe. I know that you have people driving in from Germany, for example, to come to concerts because they can come straight over the border very easily. But there's a sense of real local pride as well. Uh I don't know how many people are aware of the language, Luxembourgish, or not. Certainly wasn't until fairly recently. But I'd love to understand more about how you balance that idea that you mentioned at the very beginning around the philomony actually being, you know, somewhat responsible for the brand image of the country and how you support the local community, how you show up for the local community, and perhaps how you also show up on a global stage as well, because the philomony is up there with the greats. Um, you know, it's it's alongside so many brilliant other concert halls that we're all very familiar with, be that in London or Sydney or New York as well. So, how do you kind of balance those two different sides to the philomony?

SPEAKER_01 38:08

It is quite complicated. And, you know, touching upon languages, I think one of the things that people underestimate is the use of language in Luxembourg. You're very lucky in the UK that everything is in English and everyone understands. And in Luxembourg, we have three different official languages. People speak French, German, Luxembourgish. English is not an official language, but we have so many expats that a lot of people speak English. Navigating this language scene is extremely difficult. So when we write our programs, we try to write them in two languages. We write them in French, we write them in German, and they're not a direct translation of each other because a lot of people also speak multiple languages, so we don't want them to get bored. So they get to read a different text in French and a different text in German within the same program. And then we've also included um a new double page in English so that if someone really doesn't understand any of the other two languages, they still get a sense of the program of the evening. So we are navigating all of that, and it that it's just so particular to Luxembourg as a country, and it's it's wonderful. And then in terms of managing local and international, so like I said, we do try to support a lot the local music scene and local artists through this initiative, which we called Heimspiel, which is a Luxembourgish word for home play. So we got inspired by football, so that's where the name comes from. And so that's what we're launching this year. But of course, you know, in Luxembourg, we don't have coming back to football, we don't have an amazing football team like other countries do. So our orchestra really plays that role of being ambassadors of the countries. They tour a lot and we're very proud of that. They really build the image of the country, and they go to, they go to Spain, they go to Belgium, they've been to Korea before, um, South America. So they they have these international touring moments which are incredible. And we are also part of the European Concert Hall Organization, which groups all the biggest halls of Europe, and so we meet per section. So, you know, all the marketing people meet together as a community and we exchange on key topics and how to make you know our concert halls evolve. Um the artistic planners meet together, and it's a wonderful forum to exchange ideas and make sure that we also all collaborate. And for example, there is um a European incubator called Rising Stars, which is actually celebrating its 30 years this year. And what it is is that every concert hall nominates who they feel are rising stars in the sector. And then these young artists get to perform in our concert halls and tour around the concert hall. So we really give them not just that local stage, but we give them an international stage, and we see these rising stars become major classical music artists. Um some of some of the biggest artists of today actually started in that rising star incubator. And so it's wonderful to see how that collaboration between the concert halls really helps in the sector.

SPEAKER_00 41:10

So interesting to hear that there is there is such cross-pollination and kind of active active collaboration between all those different concert halls. I I didn't know that. I think that's quite incredible to think of it more as a network of people, you know, all driving the same ambition to democratize music, I guess. With that in mind, so democratising music, making music accessible for all, has been your mission for the past few years. And it sounds as though you're doing an incredible job of making that mission a reality. With the forces of change that are kind of always shaping culture and are increasingly shaping culture at a rapid pace, I would say, with digitalization, with technology, with political unrest, all of the things that kind of shape what's happening in the world. What do you see the biggest forces of change shaping cultural institutions to be? What do you think about planning for the kind of next five to ten years ahead?

SPEAKER_01 42:03

I really do think that technology is a major force of change for cultural institutions, whether it's AI or other sorts of technology, but I think as organizations, we are thinking and we all ought to think about how we can make that concert experience evolved. We spoke about different audiences we need to engage. And if we are to recruit younger audiences, I think it's it's important we also see how technology can help us. And I think you know, building AI as part of the journey is one thing, and that's great, but we also need to think about the actual concert experience. Could there be augmented concert experiences in the future? How can we use technology to really build appeal for classical music? Because we need to keep the arts alive and we need to make it engaging for those new generations, and that's not easy. So I haven't got to the solution yet on what that could be, but we're definitely thinking about that. And I have to say that it's also challenging to have those thoughts when the artistic planning team are, you know, their job is very much to bring these beautiful pieces that everyone should love. And my job is to also bring that reality to say it is a wonderful piece, and these are wonderful artists, but this new generation, they're looking for additional things. And how can we bring that relevancy?

SPEAKER_00 43:26

And so that's really not easy. That must be really hard to balance, and it's that constant pull between uh honouring and respecting the canon of classical music and the artists that come with that, but also having an eye on the future and making sure there's an environment where those very pieces and those very artists can continue to thrive. So I imagine that's a constant um sort of balancing act. And with that in mind, I know that classical music makes up a huge amount of the program, but it's not all that's in the program. How has that evolved over time and what is on of And how have you kind of developed that program to ensure that you are recruiting new people in, meeting people where they are, ensuring that you're preparing for the future?

SPEAKER_01 44:08

So we have quite a big part of our program is non-classical music. So we have an artistic planner that is dedicated to bringing jazz artists, world music, pop, urban, singer-songwriters. What we have to be very careful on is to, you know, bring artists that wouldn't normally go to a rock concert hall, because we have a rock concert hall in Luxembourg. And so we we try to find that balance, not to steal artists that would normally go there. We don't want to, you know, bring everyone here, you know, and be in a competitive environment. We try to find that right balance of if an artist, if an audience member would prefer to see that artist in a sit-down setting and not dancing in a concert hall, we think that our environment is better. So that's how we try to judge on whether a concert is a better fit in our place. And then, you know, we we really try to look at uh every genre of music, and that has expanded uh over the years. And we also try to sometimes mix genres together. So a great example was two weeks ago we had the beautiful Rites of Spring uh that was performed by our orchestra, so one of the sort of iconic classical music pieces. Everyone knows, if they don't know the name, they will know when they hear it. Um, and then the second part of the concert was someone reinventing and reinterpreting the Rites of Spring with a movie that was Indian inspired. Uh, and so it was amazing to see the similarities between it was a mix of sort of electronic music and classical music, and so the similarities with classical music, and so it was a beautiful concert, really showing those two styles, but I think it's still hard to convince an audience to come to these types of concert because some people just want to come to classical music and some people just want to come for non-classical, and so you know it is our mission and it is my job to try and really create that, you know, curiosity to come to these types of concert. But I find that blending things together is something very interesting for us.

SPEAKER_00 46:18

That's really interesting. And how do you find that perhaps your uh longest standing uh subscribers and um and attendees find the blending when they might be more used to uh uh just seeing the Rites of Spring without the second half being, you know, the the musical adaptation with the film as well?

SPEAKER_01 46:38

How do they definitely it's not a concert for those really musical connoisseurs that just appreciate classical music? It's not for them. But what's great about these these audience members is that they understand the need to engage with younger audiences. And so they really feel like it's part of their own mission to make younger generations come to the concert hall so they completely understand why we do these types of things. Um so they're very supportive, even though they might not come themselves.

SPEAKER_00 47:09

That makes a lot of sense. I've been really struck throughout this conversation, actually, by the amount of sectors that you have mentioned that are outside the remit that you might consider to be of cultural institutions. I mean, you've mentioned film, obviously, social media, gastronomy, philanthropy, football as a comparison as well. There's so many sectors that your work seems to be touching that go beyond the walls of the philomony. What do you think the lessons there, the lessons that you have learned and that perhaps could be applied to other industries who may not think that there are lessons to be learned from cultural institutions? But I would say after this conversation, that would definitely be rebutted.

SPEAKER_01 47:48

Um, I would say that the one thing that we're always trying to do is staying true to our mission. And I think that's really important. Whatever brand or company you work for, it's to really have a very clear purpose and that you then explore all the different ways that you can do this. So, you know, our purpose is creating um sharing musical experiences that open hearts and minds. And so we really look at, okay, how can we open hearts and minds? You know, is it through cooking recipes at home and listening to music? Is it through watching a movie? So you can take that idea so far, but staying true to that core mission. So I think that's that's really important. And then the second one, it's coming back to the differences when you asked me about the differences between the sector I was at before, which was all about market share. I would say it's so important to remember that that mission and that meaning that you put into the work that you do is so much more important than short-term market share. Because I think it's it's with what we've done over the past couple of years staying true to that mission, but exploring various different things that we have been able to increase the number of visitors that come here. And so if we had market share to judge ourselves, I'm sure we would have seen the long-term results. So I think it's much more important to think about that long-term vision and what can you do as a brand to engage your audiences and really understand them, versus thinking about, my God, you know, I really need to sell more and increase my market share over the next uh 12 months.

SPEAKER_00 49:24

That's such a valuable lesson. It's and it's lovely to see how it's all come to fruition so far. Final question, really, if we're looking to the future, given everything that you have achieved and the way that you have been able to open hearts and minds and really live by your mission over the last four years, where do you want to see the philomony in the next five to ten years if you could have a big dream?

SPEAKER_01 49:45

Well, I hope that we continue to learn from our audience and I hope we continue to really put our audience first. Um, it's true that often in the cultural sector, we push things to our audience. We say, here's a concert, buy tickets, we hope you enjoy it. But the more you listen to what your audience wants, the more you can actually build a perfect experience for them and build a perfect program for them. So I think it's really important to put the consumer at the heart. And I hope that listeners today change their mind about what a cultural institution like ours is, that they don't see us as stiff, serious, elitist, and that they could see that we can also be a lot of fun and playful. And so I really hope that we continue, we stay true to that over the next couple of years, and that we remain sort of one of the most innovative, you know, groundbreaking concert hall, bringing new innovative ideas. That's really sort of my hope for the Philharmonie.

SPEAKER_00 50:44

I look forward to seeing all of those dreams unfold, as I'm sure they will. Thank you so much, Aliki. This has been wonderful. Thanks, Ellie. It was wonderful speaking to you. If today's episode sparked new ideas, we'd love to hear from you. Email me at ellie.bonny at triptych.com or click on the link below. Follow Triptych on LinkedIn and subscribe to our Codex newsletter as we explore more perspectives shaping tomorrow.