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Posted: 3:22 PM- When Pioneer Theatre Company purchased out-of-state advertisements last fall for this spring's production of "Les Miserables," the response from Idahoans blew away expectations.
Now that the production is being extended again, the company is preparing to tap the Idaho market once more. It will do so with help from a $7,500 matching grant approved Wednesday by the Utah Board of Tourism Development.
"We always highlight a lot of our state's recreational activities. This is an opportunity to show culturally what we have," said Leigh von der Esch, managing director of the Utah Office of Tourism. "The board is interested in showing not only what you can see in Utah but also what you can do. Arts and culture play a big part of that."
Pioneer Theatre Company is the first regional theater in the country to produce the show set amid a French revolution - the longest-running musical ever, seen by more than 58 million people since opening in London in October 1985. The Salt Lake City production opens April 27 and will run through mid-June.
To capitalize on that opportunity, the company received $35,0000 last September from the Tourism Board's cooperative marketing fund to promote the show in several Idaho cities -- Boise, Idaho Falls and Twin Falls -- as well as Las Vegas. Along with $35,000 of its own money, the company conducted three-week newspaper and radio campaigns in those communities, said managing director Chris Lino.
While the Las Vegas promotion fizzled, he said, results from Idaho "were beyond our most aggressive projections. In those first two weeks we sold more than 2,000 tickets to people from Idaho. We have never advertised out of state. We don't budget to advertise out of state. But we made back our investment three times over."
That's why Tourism Board members readily endorsed the request to help fund a second round of newspaper and radio ads in Idaho's largest cities. Board members know that besides buying theater tickets, many of those Idaho visitors will book rooms in Salt Lake County hotels, eat in local restaurants and probably will spend a few more dollars here and there.
"Since these are smaller communities in Idaho, we marketed this as a weekend getaway to Utah's great capital city to enjoy the theatrical experience of a lifetime," Lino said. "Our money buys one week of ads. The state buys the second week and that yields results."
Von der Esch said the response of Idahoans led her board to an obvious conclusion "We had a good return on investment from this," she said. "Regional theater is very important around the country."
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