VietNamNet Bridge – Marketing activities in Vietnamese theatres are a “mess”, said Gerald Lidstone from Goldsmiths University of London, echoing the general opinion of many theatrical experts.

Gerald Lidstone, who has recently delivered a marketing training session for theatres in Hanoi, said that at theatres elsewhere in the world, for every 40 to 50 artists, there was often a marketing group, whose task was to research the market and study current as well as potential audiences. In Vietnam, however, marketing hasn’t received adequate attention or investment.

“I was very surprised to learn that many theatres in Vietnam didn’t set aside any money to invest in marketing. Without marketing, how would the public know about them? People working in these theatres including managers haven’t gone through any marketing training either. In their minds, marketing isn’t important, and this is a big problem,” said Mr. Lidstone.

At present, there are 129 theatres and troupes nationwide. Hanoi is leading other cities and provinces in the country in terms of the numbers of theatres (17), People’s Artists, Artists of Merit, as well theatrical prize winners.

The Hanoi theatrical market, however, is trailing behind HCM City, which only has 7 theatres. And according to critics, a major reason is Hanoi theatres’ inattention to marketing. Le Ngoc Thuy, Vice President of A&C Cultural Support and Development Centre, said public theatres, in particular, didn’t take pains to reach out for audiences and engage in other marketing activities chiefly because their survival was ensured by government money.

A theatre manager, for instance, once said his theatre received VND6billion dong a year from the government budget. With this, plus the rent it earns by leasing facilities to other units, the theatre is “sailing through”.

According to Artist of Merit Pham Duy Xuyen, Vice President of the Vietnam Circus Federation, state-owned businesses including puplic theatres are going through a difficult transition period in which they are “struggling to learn about marketing”. That said, it isn’t easy to “market” traditional art programmes, he added.

For instance, there have been efforts to promote puppetry and circus performances, but they weren’t effective. Khuc Van Hung from HCM City-based Tran Huu Trang Souther Folk Opera Theatre, disagrees.

According to him, the success of the recent heavily-invested cai luong opera Kim Van Kieu was largely due to the theatre’s marketing efforts. Several months before the show premiered, members of the management board themselves took part in a marketing campaign that included distributing leaflets to businessmen in markets city-wide and selling tickets at numerous localities convenient to viewers.

Not all theatres are slow in grasping the concept of marketing, though. Youth Theatre can be considered an example of a business that is quickly adapting to the new environment of the market economy.

Hoang Huong