This weekend, the Sibiu State Philharmonic became the first Romanian philharmonic to have a mobile app that enables them to keep in touch with its audience. From now on, those interested in the concert schedules and general news and updates on their activity can download the app for free, from App Store or Google Play.

We had the plan of launching this app even before the lockdown, but this unusual period of time we all spent waiting for the concert activity to restart enabled us to finally put the plan in action. Now, not only our cultural programme is a bit more modern, but also the way we communicate with our audience. It’s a step to a new normal

Laurențiu Străut – Sibiu Philharmonic PR Officer

The app was launched on July 4th, during the Romanian-American Festival that the philharmonic hosted in open air, on Cetății Street in Sibiu. The launch comes in line with their sustained efforts of making this public institution more visible and active online, given the harsh restrictions that event organisers are facing during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since they were not able to move on with their usual activity in recent months, the Philharmonic team together with the members of the orchestra have created a lot of audio-video materials. These all fitted perfectly on the newly built platform, consisting of website + mobile apps, filarmonicasibiu.ro. The interconnectivity of the website and mobile apps helps them to be more efficient in distributing information and can help the philharmonic team to communicate all their projects to an engaged target audience, one that has a high interest in what they have to offer.

What does the app do?

Events Calendar

The app constantly updates the users on the Philharmonic program, through the events calendar module. Whenever the organisers wish to promote a particular event, they can send a push notification about it, making sure it reaches a big percent of the app users. From the calendar, the users can also set up reminders for events that interest them and can also purchase tickets.

Gets users notified about what’s new

Push notifications can be used not only to announce important events but they can be an extremely effective form of communication for any announcement that the organisers want to send out to their audience.

Push notifications are the most powerful “tool” of any app, because of their targeted transmission, and therefore have much higher opening rates than those from social media. They are also measurable, helping the sender learn what type of messages are best suited to increase opening rates over time.

Smart links that generate free app installs

On the integrated website that comes with each app built on the Eventya platform, each profile gets a smart link. This link can prove very helpful in distributing the app. The link opens directly in the app, if the user has the app already installed, or in the corespondent application store (Appstore or Google Play) if he doesn’t. The user will be redirected to the correspondent profile in the website when he/she opens the link on desktop or laptop. This makes sure that we don’t loose the user and provides free, organic app installs.

Users can watch video concerts in the app

The Sibiu State Philharmonic app allows users to listen and watch video concerts and audio recordings performed by the Sibiu orchestra. While many other philharmonic apps monetise this content, the Sibiu Philharmonic decided to offer these recordings for free, enabling as many people as possible to have access to them.

In times like these, arts and culture can soothe the loneliness and anxiety that come from being isolated for long periods of time. It is thus very important to use technologies that enable us to offer a sense of “normality”.

We are extremely glad to host the Sibiu Philharmonic App on the Eventya platform. By enabling them to communicate more easily with their audience we hope to make their activity more visible for younger audiences. Read more about how a philharmonic can use their mobile app to promote their activity here..

You can download the app for free, here: filarmonicasibiu.app.link/asCULTa

Foto: Focus Photos Agency