First impressions:
Weighty, pleasingly square, more contemporary than you might expect.
You open the cover and:
Get a long and boring introduction from the CEO. *yawn*. I can’t be arsed to read it all but it appears to just name check all the artists that are appearing at the Wigmore Hall. He’s obviously not been reading my blog.
Delving Deeper
After this there’s a simple to read calendar, divided into genres. Bravo. Sadly it only lists lists artists, not repertoire. The Wigmore Hall is lucky, lots of these names WILL sell tickets to its knowledgeable core audience. However there are still lot of unknown names here, where repertoire would be more of a selling point.
Copy Check
Lunchtime Concert:
“John Mark Ainsley is now arguably the doyen of British tenors and a natural successor in repertoire associated with Peter Pears. This recital pairs some of the earliest music from his partnership with Benjamin Britten with the mature Winter Words and music by their great friend Francis Poulenc, written for his vocal partner Pierre Bernac”
Does this make you want to go and see the concert? Depends how much you know about music. It assumes a high level of knowledge about Britten and Pears, and makes no reference really to the music at all. It doesn’t give you a sense of what is like and only talks about dry features (facts about the music’s history) rather than benefits (This concert is the perfect antidote to your boring lunchtime sandwich, or something about how the music will make you feel).
The Guts
It’s all gone downhill after the promising cover. Acres of dull standard artist shots supplied by agents and seen in countless brochures. No sense of the venue, atmosphere or performance. All the headlines are artist names, even when they’re unknowns and the repertoire would be much more of a sales driver.
Navigation
Poor. Everything is lumped together chronologically. That’s fine if it were just classical but there are some interesting jazz and family events hidden in there. These audiences may well not bother wading through all the classical stuff to find them. Likewise with their late-night series. I hope these series have their own print, as they will need it. They are listed separately in the calendar however.
How do I book?
Easy, listed on almost every page.
In conclusion
Not dreadful. Not brilliant. Not exciting, but does the job for core bookers. 6/10
