Creativity has many stages on which to shine at the University of Kent’s Arts Centre, Gulbenkian. Every year, over 1,000 events are held at the venue that includes a theatre, cinema, cabaret-style café performance space and access to a concert hall. Their programmes include film screenings, theatrical and contemporary dance productions, musical performances and live comedy. It is a venue bustling with innovation, inspiration and imagination.
It will be no surprise that a lot of work goes on behind the scenes to bring so many events into the spotlight. David Haigh is the Operations Director at Gulbenkian. He oversees the management of events, co-ordinating with many colleagues, artists and collaborators who come together to plan cultural events. Managing the elements needed to put an event together is a complicated juggling act. Not only does Haigh use his skills to keep all those balls in the air, but he also passes them back and forth between a whole troupe of behind-the-scenes performers. And, eventually, he needs to make sure every ball hits the right target.
When Haigh decided to bring in centralised information software to streamline communication between all contributors, he opted for Yesplan—an intuitive, cloud-based system that makes collaboration simple and streamlines the workflow.
For Haigh, choosing Yesplan came down to a matter of pounds and sense. After consulting his team, it was clear that access was the number one priority—everyone working on an event needed easy access to the system. He wanted a system that could be customised to cater for the variable elements of specific events. And he wanted it for a reasonable price.
Haigh’s research found that other software could centralise information, but required additional licenses at prohibitive costs just so his team could access the information. When compared to its competition, Yesplan made complete sense. Significantly less expensive, it still offered all the features that Haigh was looking for.
Haigh’s team recently began using Yesplan to co-ordinate their events. Their weekly operations meetings have already gained a simpler workflow thanks to having all necessary information on hand. His team finds Yesplan easy to use and are tailoring the system to suit their needs with confidence. Haigh’s favourite aspect is how simple it is to customise Yesplan.
“This has been particularly helpful with the cinema, where we have added data fields to help manage this process.”
But the most useful feature? The email notifications. Whenever something is changed in the system, everyone who needs to know automatically receives an email. This is a real time-saver, meaning people get notifications that effect whether they catch or pass the juggling balls. Along with no longer needing to contact each team member separately, this gives the whole team confidence that everyone else knows about important updates.
Haigh is thrilled with the customer support he has received. ‘Personally, Yesplan has been brilliant and I would recommend it to other people.’
He’s also excited about the possibilities for growth built in to Yesplan. ‘the scalability of the system is such that as we develop it more across Arts and Culture within the University, it will play a significant role. It has certainly benefitted the organisation.’
Yesplan takes the stress out of organising and managing events. And with all those juggling balls hitting their targets, the passionate folk at Gulbenkian can focus on their goal: empowering and supporting artists, youth and the community.
