STATE ORCHESTRA'S TOUR.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 February 1920, Page 2

STATE ORCHESTRA'S TOUR.

THE BUSINESS SIDE. The statement just issued concerning the splendid success of the New South Wales State Orchestra's tour of New Zealand is very gratifying to those who have been concerned with the organisation and conduct of the enterprise. It will be remembered that before the orchestra came to New Zealand considerable doubt existed amongst the public as to whether such a tour could be carried through successfully, especially from a financial point of view. Probably these forebodings would have proved well founded if the business side of the enterprise had not been under the direction of capable and experienced business men. There can be no doubt that one of the secrets of success in these matters is judicious advertising on a liberal scale. Few people realise the tremendous amount of work entailed in the advertising arrangements for a tour comprising over thirty concerts in thirteen towns, all performed before great houses. In the advertising of Verbrugghen's Orchestra the number of individual advertisements appearing in various papers totalled; Nearly five hundred. The orchestra had to be advertised' in each .town it hftd to visit for some time ahead, and the advertisements had to be changed from day to day, as the date approached, whilst varying programmes were inserted in the different centres, these also being changed from concert to concert. The task of conducting such an advertising scheme proved a very complex one, as advertisements were appearing simultaneously from one end of New Zealand to the other, all referring to different concerts, on different dates, in different places, and these had to be changed daily in the forty-nine newspapers concerned. It is interesting to know that the total number of single copies of newspapers containing orchestra advertisements amounted to over 8% millions, which gives some idea. of the "gross" circulation of a properly planned modern advertising campaign. It would be obviously impossible for any member of the Orchestra's staff to attend to the multiplicity of deta,il connected with such publicity, and for this reason the entire arrangement of the advertising was placed in tne hands of the Charles Haines Advertising Agency, Ltd., who conducted the campaign from beginning to end without a single hitch. In addition to the ordinary announcements in the advertising columns, the generous support given to the orchestra's tour by the whole Press of New Zealand is acknowledged by the committee. Reaisiing the orchestra's educational value to the public of the Dominion, the newspapers throughout the country supported the scheme liberally by means of leading articles, musical reviews, and adequate reports of the orchestra's progress from to\yn to town..