The ‘wellbeing and activity’ programme in the City Strategy sets the goal of reinforcing the status of Turku as a dynamic hub of classical music, an interesting venue for performing artists and an interesting partner in the sphere of music. This represents a challenging and interesting opportunity for the Turku Music Festival, and the Festival aims to continue to respond to this challenge.
It is intended that both established and emerging names in classical music, the agents representing them and other cultural organisations will continue to regard the Turku Music Festival as a pleasant and reliable partner and prioritise performances at the Festival over other events.
For this to happen, the managing director and artistic director must be able to invest in establishing and maintaining international networks. The execution of a high-quality festival, as referred to above, also requires that the management has a supporting competent and professional staff. However, the aim is not to increase the size of the organisation by any significant amount; instead, efforts will be made to find new partnerships.
It is intended that the local audience of the Festival will continue to see the Festival as their own, but because the local audience base is limited, growth must be sought beyond the Turku region. Bringing in new customers from further afield will in turn improve awareness of the Festival and boost its profile. However, in order to attract new audiences, the Festival must be able to offer experiences of exceptionally high quality that are unique in Finland.
Going forward, the Foundation will make even more use of customer feedback and market research in evaluating projects. Information collected from customers and assessment of audience potential must be made a more important component of the process in which decisions are made regarding artistically and financially significant projects.
What is important in attracting customers from outside the Turku region, whether individuals or groups, is not only the high-quality artistic experience but the overall customer experience as a whole. Here, too, the Foundation is well placed in being able to draw on accommodation and restaurant services in historic Turku. The development of transport services to Turku benefits the Foundation.
Improved corporate cooperation brings visibility and expands the funding base but also requires the organising of memorable events catering to customer needs, in a highly competitive environment. This in turn calls for strong partnerships and a new kind of service concept. In the future, it would be advantageous for the Foundation itself to be able to offer and design service packages instead of just offering concerts.