The world of performing arts is in a completely different universe compared to the bits, bytes and IT infrastructure that Keith Nolan and the IT team at Royal Ballet and Opera spend their work time in.
Nolan, who is Royal Ballet and Opera’s head of technology delivery, says: “These days it’s fair to say any business runs on IT, so we have that duty to make sure that that we’re thinking about a technology strategy and a digital strategy that allows our customers to buy tickets and to see the shows.”
Nolan, who spoke to Computer Weekly for a recent podcast, believes that innovative technology can be used to lower costs, which means more money can be invested in putting together world-class performances. “We can spend that money on what the public expects to spend it on, which is great costumes, great performance, great artists and trying to showcase Britain’s art form on stage,” he says.
The venue was previously known as the Royal Opera House (ROH) in London’s Covent Garden, but its full name is actually Royal Ballet and Opera.
Nolan says the online digital experience is a key part of Royal Ballet and Opera. “We have shops, we have restaurants, we’re open to the public during the day and people can just come in and visit us. We are a public attraction. We require lots of digital experiences, lots of systems like point of sale and digital signage, which make our space attractive to guests and tourists around London.”
Lockdown drove fundamental changes
The lockdown that resulted from the Covid-19 pandemic had a profound effect on the arts, and technology has helped it adapt to the post-pandemic world patrons now expect. Among the technological developments that gained a foothold during the Covid pandemic is streaming.
During the pandemic, Nolan says Royal Ballet and Opera started sharing content online through its social media channels, YouTube and Instagram: “We felt that we needed to maintain a connection with our patrons and with the country and the community that sits around dance and singing, trying to offer something back during those darker times when we were all at home.”
Like a typical business, the Royal Ballet and Opera needs back-office functions such as IT support, human resources and finance, all of which rely on IT infrastructure.
Royal Ballet and Opera is a Nutanix customer. Prior to the pandemic, it operated two large datacentres. Nolan says: “The reason we started working with Nutanix is that we were very aware, like most organisations, that whether we had private datacentres or we existed fully in the cloud, our total cost of ownership was really quite high.
“Nutanix allows the IT teams to save money by hybridising some of the Royal Ballet and Opera’s more centralised IT infrastructure. Moving to Nutanix has enabled Royal Ballet and Opera to shave 25% off its datacentre costs. [With Nutanix], we could go from two datacentres to one, which was a huge cost saving.”
Royal Opera and Ballet has also consolidated its Azure and AWS cloud instances down to just AWS, using Nutanix’s NC2 to provide granular control of its public cloud resources, leading to further IT cost savings.
Streaming
The IT team also works with the broadcast team, which is used to stream shows to UK cinemas. “There’s a lot of IT infrastructure that sits around broadcasting to cinemas,” says Nolan. The IT teams need to maintain the internet connections, firewalls, and what he calls “advanced stuff in terms of precision time protocol” for the broadcast systems.
A year ago, the ROH stream was launched. Nolan says this streams performances recorded from stage onto a video-on-demand platform: “And like a Netflix or Amazon subscriber, you can download an app on your Amazon Fire stick or on your Apple TV or on Google TV, and you can stream our content. It’s really exciting to be able to share that with our patrons.”
The Royal Ballet and Opera also runs a learning platform and has an entire department dedicated to providing educational content to teachers across England, with lesson plans and video guidance on how to sing and how to dance streamed to schools.
The future
Looking at some of the technologies that Nolan finds exciting, he sees opportunities to apply artificial intelligence (AI) and automation to reduce production costs further. Royal Ballet and Opera already uses virtual reality headsets to help artistic directors visualise how the lighting on stage will look.
At the ISE Show in Barcelona in February, Nolan says he saw some very interesting technology, which offers the potential to automate manual movements of lighting to track an artist or actor on stage: “Previously, it wasn’t possible to get a computer to track the movement of a ballet dancer: they are jumping, doing twirls and moving very fast.”
But the technology he saw uses wireframes of actors combined with an AI camera. “A performer moves across the stage and clever AI is used to predict and move the lights with them,” he says. For Nolan, this is very powerful and means Royal Ballet and Opera can have more lighting options in the future, which means audiences get a better show.
No one really thinks of IT when they watch a production at the Royal Ballet and Opera. It is a back-office function, behind everything the Royal Ballet and Opera needs to do to put on a show. Nolan says: “We’re always looking at technologies that can bring the total cost of ownership.”
But, for Nolan, saving IT costs enables Royal Opera and Ballet to focus on “what we do really well, which is putting on great world-class-leading shows”.
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