According to Luminato CEO Janice Price, the road to becoming an internationally renowned Canadian arts festival doesn’t stop at the Canadian border.
For the first time ever, Luminato, which launched its seventh annual festival on June 14, will collaborate with the New York Times to podcast and stream the contents of the visiting TimesTalks speaking series. The series features artists of various genres in conversation with four New York Times culture journalists who have traveled to Toronto specifically for the festival.
Some might question why a Canadian festival that receives Canadian funding would feature American journalists in its schedule so prominently. Price said this is part of her mission to not only attract international attention, but to help put homegrown artists in a broader, global spotlight via the Times’ audience.
“Don’t we want the people who live in New York to come to Toronto for their culture? Isn’t that sending an amazing signal about our city and our country, if we can encourage people who love arts and culture to come to Toronto to see our festival? How can that be a bad thing?” Price added that Luminato also partners with the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail and St. Joseph Communications—all Canadian media outlets.
Other Luminato partners include L’Oréal Canada, Kia Canada, TELUS, President’s Choice, Manulife Financial, the City of Toronto and Sun Life Financial. The agency hired to rebrand the festival was Pentagram, an American agency that specializes in the arts, while the Toronto-based Flip Publicity handles Luminato’s PR.
“We want to highlight and profile our own amazing Toronto and Canadian artists in unique works that could only be done at the Luminato festival. We’re also trying to have those artists in our festival to give them a global platform, as we increasingly become a global festival,” she said.
Luminato has previously worked with the Atlantic and the New Yorker. This is the festival’s first year collaborating with the Times. Price said that having international press attend the festival could also boost tourism to Toronto. She noted that there are over 70 flights per day between Toronto and New York, and that part of her role is reminding people how easy it is to travel to Luminato.
With a limited advertising budget, Luminato arrived at the collaborative agreement based on editorial content that will stay archived online. “We could never have bought and paid for the kind of media presence we got in those pages,” said Price of the co-branded Luminato ads that have been appearing across Times properties. (It would have cost Luminato $95,130 US to place an ad in print for the duration of one weekday.)
Price said the deal is mutually beneficial, since the Times also becomes embedded in Luminato’s brand. Laura Langdon, vice-president of marketing at the New York Times, said Luminato is an “important” place for the Times to be. “[The collaboration] is a way for us to get the brand out into the marketplace in a meaningful way. We go to markets where we think there’s interest from a brand perspective,” she said, noting that the Times likes to explore beyond its home market a few times per year.
“I just think it’s really important that we not be afraid to go outside of those boundaries,” said Price.
