Here’s food for thought for live theatre and performing arts managers. In cinema, SMS is now having a substantial impact on sales. Takings for Matrix Revolutions dropped 66% between its first and second weekends, driven, it seems, by the prime market – teen boys – madly SMSing each other that the film sucked:

“The cinema managers tell us that they are seeing the little lights of the handsets go on a few minutes into the movie, as the kids start texting each other”

“…distributors [can] no longer buy success by saturation advertising, because word of mouth now spreads at the speed of SMS. “

Live arts constantly beomans the lack of a promotional budget. They often speak lovingly of ‘word of mouth’, but clearly the challenge is to move that word of mouth into the 21st century.