A month ago, we welcomed a brand-new team member to the office. Meet Tyler Clarke, our new Marketing and Administration Coordinator. We sat down with Tyler to find out how she came to be here, why she loves art and the content she’s consuming right now.
1. How did you get into marketing?
Quite by accident really! My background is actually in Theatre. I’ve spent the last two years freelancing as a Stage and Production Manager, but more recently I began upskilling to take on Producing roles. Unbeknownst to me at the time, producing also means publicity and marketing. Quite often in theatre, producing and publicity are combined into one role due to tight budgets, so a lot of producers end up having to teach themselves marketing skills on the fly.
2. How have you ended up at the New Zealand String Quartet?
The old-fashioned way, with a well written CV and cover letter! I spent a few months working for the 2022 Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts in their Ticketing and Sales team where I gained some really valuable experience and insight into how arts organisations run. This, combined with my freelance theatre publicity experience, empowered me to seek out more opportunities to develop these skills and apply for this job. I’m so incredibly fortunate to have found, in the NZSQ, a team that is willing to let me learn and grow within this role.
3. So, you’re a self-taught Marketing Coordinator?
I sure am! I have a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Theatre from Victoria University of Wellington, but very little of that was focussed on marketing and publicity. Everything I know, I’ve learnt from industry mentors, trial and error and locally run workshops. Theatre is such an incredibly inclusive and uplifting industry to work in and there’s no shortage of people willing to share what they know.
4. Where does your interest in the arts stem from?
It all began when I was 8 years old, and I started taking these after-school community drama classes on Tuesday afternoons. I fell hopelessly in love with live performance and continued performing throughout high school as well. These days I’ve stepped away from the stage and prefer to operate behind the scenes, but that has not dulled my passion in the slightest. I think my favourite thing about the arts, and especially any kind of live performance, is the knowledge that any show or concert could be a beautiful, staggering, life-altering event. But you won’t know unless you go…
5. Do you play an instrument?
I do not! I am an avid consumer of music, but I have a disturbing lack of musical talent myself which I discovered when I was 12 years old and spent three weeks attempting to take guitar lessons…
6. What are you looking forward to most in your new role?
I always love meeting new people and now I have an entire industry full of new people to work and collaborate with. I’m particularly excited to learn more about chamber music as it’s not an artform that I’ve explored before.
7. What a typical week look like as a Marketing and Administration Coordinator?
Well, I’ve only been in the role a few weeks, but at the moment we’re gearing up for our big national tour. So, my week usually involves designing print ads, reaching out to media outlets, creating social media posts and sending information to community groups and businesses to help spread the word.
8. What do you get up to on the weekend?
Just about every Saturday morning, my partner and I walk down the road to a little café on Taranaki Street called Sixes and Sevens for doughnuts and coffee. They have the best doughnuts I’ve ever had. Ever. They have an ever-rotating selection of flavours, and they never miss the mark. If you haven’t tried one already, I highly recommend you do so! Other than that, I’m currently teaching myself how to sew and trying to find time to read more.
9. What are you reading?
At the moment I’m reading a book called ‘The History of Bees’ by Maja Lunde which is a beautiful piece of cli-fi (climate fiction). Before that, I was reading ‘The Absolute Book’ by Elizabeth Knox, who is a kiwi author. I’m trying to read more work by kiwi authors because there’s sometimes a perception amongst New Zealanders that New Zealand fiction isn’t interesting. What I’ve read so far is proving that wrong!
10. What are you watching?
Stranger Things. We’re up to Season Two at the moment and I am hooked! If you’re after another recommendation, I always tell people to watch The Great. It’s Catherine The Great, empress of Russia, played by Elle Fanning opposite Nicholas Hoult and it’s possibly the funniest show I’ve ever seen. If you liked The Favourite, then you’ll like this.