Eye on the Esplanade: Thinking outside the building box

By Tobie Laliberté on October 21, 2022.

Thinking outside the box is a given in the marketing field. We’re often trying to find new, creative ways to reach an audience with what we are offering. Marketing starts with the product or service itself, and in arts and heritage, we are constantly pushing the limits to create discussion, stimulate the senses or ignite the passion. Everything we do is for the public and reaching as many of you as possible for any given event, experience, program and exhibition is the reason we do it.

In the last couple of years, we have been challenged in our content creation and delivery methods when the building we typically invited the public to experience arts and heritage became inaccessible. We had to revaluate what we do and how we connect Hatters to culture.

We had to strengthen our online presence with more original content as well as adding virtual tours. To this day, every exhibition is viewable on our website with a 360 tour.

We started exploring new places for the content we create in-house or bring to Medicine Hat. Last Summer we displayed an archives roving exhibition about cycling along the city’s beautiful. We also found new places to exhibit art such as the outside of the building in our vitrines

This out of the box thinking continue today. We have an amazing spatial installation at Police Point Park: The Deep Dark. If you haven’t enjoyed this work by artist duo Caitlind R.C. Brown & Wayne Garrett yet like hundreds of people have already, you have until Oct. 31. It runs from 7-9 p.m. every night. It is truly a memorable experience, and a great photo/selfie opportunity as we’ve seen plenty of on social media.

We have learned to turnaround quickly and reach the public anywhere. With festivals like Art in Motion and Together Again, all of us have reclaimed our downtown. We made the Esplanade the cultural hub it is meant to be without being pigeonholed into the box that is our beautiful facility. We will of course continue to fulfill the building’s raison d’être and have amazing shows in the theatre, like Randy Bachman’s Greatest Stories Ever Told on Nov. 1 or Cheremosh Ukrainian Dance Company on Nov. 5, stimulating exhibitions in the galleries such as Petra Malá Miller Living in the Zone and the upcoming curated in-house exhibition The Hand and the Letter, programs in the discovery centre, and experiences in the studio theatre, but we will also continue to activate arts and heritage in new ways and places for you.

On that note, I hope you are all excited for the upcoming interactive experience of the cult classic movie The Rocky Horror Picture Show at our beloved historic Monarch Theatre Friday, Oct. 28, at 8 p.m. We have partnered with the Pride Association of Southeast Alberta and Cabaret Calgary to present an unforgettable, adults only night where you can be outrageous and get away with it.

The next day, on Oct. 29 at 1 p.m., we will host our second annual The Great Pumpkin Smash where families will launch 500 pumpkins from our terrace and enjoy live music, axe throwing and more. We hope to see you there and continue to explore all of what we have to offer in and out of the Esplanade box! For all the details on our offerings, visit esplanade.ca.

Tobie Laliberté is the marketing co-ordinator for the Esplanade Arts & Heritage Centre

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