En la Cuerda Floja

Improving visibility through the involvement of local organisations from other sectors

It’s a comprehensive research for new audiences, for new ways to reach them and to give visibility to the meeting economically.

With the support of the local government, we gave visibility to the meeting as a relevant and important proposal for the city. We invited a tightrope walker to walk across the city hall along with the music of the municipal band of the city. The idea was to involve as many people and local organizations as possible, in order to share and promote the meeting aims with a very tight budget.

The event was a complete success, with more than 3000 attendants. After this action, new audiences came and enjoyed the performances planned in our theatre during the meeting.

We were achieving the 4th edition of the “En la cuerda floja” meeting, but still Contemporary circus was a complete stranger for our potential audiences. This idea of classic circus, with animals, quite decadent, was preeminent in people’s mind.

Despite an increasing attention from a little segment that was more open minded, for this edition we wanted to be more ambitious and to expand effectively, offering good proposals and excellent workshops.

But it wasn’t enough to reach audiences that were unfamiliar with contemporary circus or just uninformed about the cultural field. That’s why we decided to bring a poetic and colourful action to the streets, to the very heart of our city.

First of all, we contacted all the parts that could be interested (citizens, organizations, city council) to present the project and to discuss it; we were open to incorporate complementary ideas and suggestions.

The Municipal music band of Santander was very enthusiastic form the beginning and they proposed to play during the performance. We proposed to use the city hall building and its square to make the parade. We already had contacted the tightrope walker (Oliver Zimmermmann): he proposed to do two walks. We got in touch and involved all the local media that we could (TV, newspapers, radio...) and also invited neighbours as volunteers that helped us to prevent risks during the days of the performance, among other ways of participating.
We complete our strategy by ordering posters and flyers, to spread basic info about the meeting and the parade throughout the city

More than 3000 attended the parade, and consequently knew about the existence of our project. Some came later to our venue and became interested in our circus proposals.
We are aware that there is still a lot of work to do, and that we have to be very creative to take the best advantage of our small budget.  But this is the proof that it is possible: with creativity and energy you can talk to new audiences, despite an adjusted budget.