||| August 26, 2025 by William Rogers

Will Rogers Round-Up: Here Students, Students, Students…

 With all the talk about attracting students lately, I thought I would compile some links and resources to help jumpstart ideas to reach that elusive demographic.  Hope you enjoy.

1) You don’t  have to get a gimmick, but it may not hurt.  Check out some of these programs organizations have created to help attract the bargain hunters among us.

• Playwrights Horizons (NYC) – You can read about all of their student ticket offers, but check out the LIVEforFIVE Lottery that makes 40-50 tickets to the first preview performance of each production available online for $5 each.
• Writes Theatre (Chicago) – Even if you know very little about Kate Lipuma, Writers’ Executive Director, you probably know she loves her Twitter.  So the Tweet Seats program is a perfect fit.
• The Philadelphia Orchestra (Philadelphia): Not only does their inexpensive eZseatU program offer college students tickets to the entire season for a one time fee of $25, they also host special college nights around five performances each year.

2) Lets face it.  If you start talking about getting student audiences, I would be willing to bet the word “Facebook” will most likely be mentioned in the first 30 seconds.  We get it, the happening youngsters (and oldsters…and middlesters for that matter) are on Facebook.  So here are some helpful Do’s and Don’t to get your page operating like well-oiled, virtual machine

• 4 Proven Steps to Facebook Page Success (SocialMedia Examiner)
  
• Top 6 Social Media Mistakes and How to Fix Them (SocialMedia Examiner)
  

3) The University of Chicago has developed a program called Arts Pass.  The idea is that the student's ID now serves as a discount card to any number of cultural activities in the city.  The best part for the student is that all the offers are contained on one screen on the UChicago website, an environment they are already familiar with and know how to navigate.  If you haven't already signed your institution up check it out and do so.

Tags: Customer Service, Diversifying Audiences