What to avoid at the Barbican
NewsApart from the filthy, stinking lavatories which are a national disgrace.
Take in the Centre’s marketing pitch to ‘new audiences’. It seems to feature an AI robot called Dakota.
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Pass the sick bag. Please check with youth before doing this sort of thing. Apart from anything else, this assumes an audience who uses the phrase „classical music“ (who does that).
Whichever misguided musos are „reinventing classical music marketing“ by trying – as they think – to get hip with the kids, please stop before you kill it for everyone. Arts Council hatred is bad enough without these „exciting“ „unique“ „adjective“ people, language trained by BBC presenters, finish the job.
spot on !
PS However checking back a day later I notice the promo clip itself has attracted 39 comments (more than here). And reading through them, all those comments are positive. So perhaps – it hurts me to say this – they know something after all. Perhaps some of those comments will turn into sales?
Unlike here, one cannot assume those comments are genuine and non-promotional
Not sure why it’s so painful for you lot to accept that this content clearly resonated well with the target audience on it’s intended platform.
It’s obviously not intended for the audience who lurk on a cynical gossip column.
Please carry on though – I’m sure bashing and patronising the undervalued arts marketers who are willing to to do these jobs is a far better way of attracting new audiences than actually coming up with ideas.
Lady Dakota Warren (as she is known on Instagram and YouTube) has a young (I would guess student-age) following (119K on Instagram, 185K on YouTube). Her YT channel is about literature — prose and poetry — so her appeal is to the literate, people who actually still read books for pleasure. This is a smart promotion: it presents classical music not as a silo for a few cognoscenti, but as interacting with and illuminating literature, film, history – a broad culture that belongs to everybody.
I’m glad you noticed the positive comments, and I deprecate the dismissive sneer of NL.
The place should be levelled, just start again. Brand new shoebox concert hall with acoustics like Boston. All these billions floating around. Billions for covid, billions for this that and the other, multi millionaires, governments sitting on billions churning over in high interest accounts……
Whichever hall you patronize, please wear a mask. Fellow audience members don’t need to contract Covid (or another disease) from sitting near an unvaccinated person.
FFS. At least check some facts before spouting off. You can catch Covid from anyone. Being vaccinated doesn’t give you some magic power.
Absolutely correct. It is sad after four years that a good number of people don’t understand the function of the Covid vaccines. They are absolutely necessary, but they are not a magic prophylactic for contracting or spreading the virus. It will, however, potentially help prevent serious illness.
Protect yourselves…get vaccinated…or just be stupid.
“Being vaccinated doesn’t give you some magic power.”
“Died suddenly”
Added to “like Boston” could be many of the new concert halls opened in the 1980s and later in Asia. Some are akin to the finest anywhere.
The place has always been one of the least attractive concert venues in London. The concert hall auditorium seems fine but finding your way around the interior of the Barbican Centre is a nightmare. Getting there by public transport is another nightmare; the route from Barbican station to the site involves a lengthy walk along poorly-lit passageways; when you finally see the Centre in the distance, there is no clearly signposted way to circumnavigate the staircases, ponds and various levels to find the entrance. The whole environment is like a 1950s council estate; dank, depressing and unwelcoming.
The Barbican Centre is worlds away from the South Bank Centre, which is teeming with restaurants, shops and tourists. You can choose to go to Embankment station and stroll across Hungerford footbridge, with a splendid view of both banks of the Thames and the London Eye, or go to Waterloo and over a short footbridge, which gets you straight to the site. The concert halls and National Theatre are well-signposted and clearly visible. Their interiors are welcoming and easy to navigate.
The Barbican Centre was a white elephant from the moment it opened. They should demolish it, use the site for building flats for the homeless and replace it with another concert hall and theatre close by, modelled on the South Bank Centre.
Don’t let’s exaggerate. It’s not difficult at all to find the main entrance on Silk Street which takes you directly into the centre. It’s an easy walk from Moorgate or Barbican station and there is no need to “circumnavigate the staircases, ponds and various levels”.
just walk at street level. you’ll get there ok
When I first visited the Barbican shortly after it opened (for the RSC productions of Henry IV I/II in 1981), I had troubkle finding the way in. I declared loudly in the intervals that I would not return unless the owers that be painted a coloured line along the pavement to guide would-be audiences from Tube station to door.
Lo and behold, the following season, there were yellow lines embedded in the walkways leading you to/from Barbican, Moorgate, St Pauls and Liverpool Street stations.
Furthermore, since a high walkway approach from Moorgate was sadly removed, the main entrance at Silk Street is more prominent and easier to reach, remaining at street level.
I do concur about the poor state of the toilets though. I usually use the ones behind the Brasserie restaurant, still bad but less busy! Ssh, don’t tell anyone!
The RFH is pleasant but the South Bank surroundings can be grim and never seem to improve. By the way, does anyone else feel that Waterloo Bridge is a national disgrace? Should be the basis for one of the world’s great views but not now. Ugly, needless concrete barriers everywhere, for instance. Totally uncared for.
Royal Festival Hall seems more intersiting. it’s a place I would like to see and it’s a place that makes me think about Haitink. There must be his soul.
A wrecking ball quick! Like for the Gasteig
Nik is right – but I only discovered that after the concert I almost missed. I relied of Google Maps which for some reason indicated a right turn instead of just going straight. I too landed up close to the building but with a waterway that had no crossing and not a signpost anywhere. I almost didn’t make the beginning of the Kissin recital. A day later I received an email asking me about the Barbican experience and expressed my anger.
I’m gonna douse myself in the Arts, yes, but will I get doused by a malfunctioning toilet while I’m there?
What to say. First, that promo is an utter embarrassment. For one, it has the production values of a primary school concert film. It doesn’t begin to understand the basics of persuasive content and professional production values, lighting and editing etc Even with the 50p budget, much, much better could easily be achieved with some imagination and creativity.
As for the Barbican itself, I adore it and have seen so many wonderful concerts there over the years. I may be in the minority of finding the architecture inspiring, not depressing but I understand the polarised opinions. Yes, I curse the toilets each time I go and the Members’ Lounge is not impressive but in the scheme of things these are small gripes that can and should be improved. As for transport, it’s a 10 minute walk from the tube or bus stops, not exactly demanding.
London desperately needs a new world class concert hall but please, let’s keep the Barbican.
The comments are all positive on the post and it clearly resonated with the target audience. If you know better why not suggest some actual ideas rather than bashing the efforts of others?
I feel like dousing myself in a shower after that little screed. And although the programmes she so insipidly introduces sound quite interesting, is the Barbican not offering any canonical works? Is this “classical music enthusiast” actually planning to attend any “classical music”?
As for the lavatories, is there any excuse for any venue not to maintain a high standard of cleanliness in their facilities? Are there no laws? Britain seems obsessed by “health and safety,” to the point that kids are barely allowed on swings in parks any more, yet adults paying doubtless substantial prices to attend grown-up pursuits — like “classical music concerts” — cannot have access to decent washrooms?
Unvaccinated: “The place should be levelled, just start again. Brand new shoebox concert hall with acoustics like Boston.”
———
They’ve pretty much done that on two major occasions – if modest alterations are counted, 3 or 4 – with NYC’s former Philharmonic Hall of 1962, then the former Avery Fisher Hall of 1976 and now the current David Geffen Hall of 2022. Same thing with Royal Festival Hall in 2007. The concert hall of Sydney’s Opera House was even more recently tweaked too. So been there, done that.
Why Symphony Hall in Boston, built in the late 1800s, or Disney Hall in Los Angeles from 2003 has managed to avoid a lot of that angst is something that only a bit of luck and complicated engineering principles can explain.
The concert hall in the Sydney Opera house was not just tweaked. It was subjected to a multi-year renovation which included closure for 30 months costing between $150 and $200 million (not sure if this was A$ or US$ but still a very large amount). Prior to the renovation everyone knew the acoustics were awful. In 2007 the Sydney Morning Herald critic had written about “low frequencies which turn to sludge, high frequencies ping around, and the presence of drums makes jazz sound like the 1812 Overture.”
Following the renovations, in 2022 the concertmaster of the Sydney Symphony declared the new acoustic “a miracle”. The Morning Herald’s critic was equally praiseworthy stating the alterations had created “a sound for the generations.”