The Grand Venue is a nonprofit arts venue in Clitheroe, England that hosts live music, theater, school shows, and creative learning programs. It aims to bring big city culture to a small rural town and encourage artistic development. Facilities include a world-class auditorium, recording studio, private event spaces, and an outdoor skate park. The venue focuses on nurturing well-rounded development for all ages through its diverse programs, events, and activities.

1. HEAD OF
MARKETING
AND SALES
THE GRAND VENUE | CLITHEROE
MY ROLE
LAURA KERRIGAN

2. A PROUD COMMUNITY LEGACY FOR THE RIBBLE VALLEY THAT
NURTURES CREATIVE LEARNING, POSITIVE EXPERIENCES AND FAMILY
VALUES FOR ALL AGES IN THE NORTH WEST

3. LIVE
EVENTS
CREATIVE
LEARNING
RECORDING
STUDIO
PRIVATE
HIRE
SOLOMON
SKATE
PARK
Since opening its doors early 2008, The Grand has become one of the North West's best-loved mid-sized live music and arts
venues, voted in the top 10 premier venues. The venue is a unique state-of-the-art multimedia, live music and performing arts
concert venue, committed to the cultural, social, spiritual, educational, and emotional development needs of young people and the
broader community through a series of projects, events and activities. With a combination of live music, theatre, school shows and
guest speakers, The Grand strives to create a sustained journey within the Arts for all ages, offering opportunities for engagement
every step of the way.
We are a not for profit organisation that serve a community with an otherwise low engagement with arts, due to it’s remote
location and socio-economic barriers within the constituency. It gives people the feeling of bringing big city culture in a small rural
town. The Grand’s ethos is to encourage artistic development, raise aspiration and nurture well rounded individuals. It is thanks to
this unique proposition that we appeal to artists and managers who may never have considered a regional venue to feature as part
of their tour, thereby attracting tourism and exposure for the Ribble Valley as a whole.
OUR OFFERING

4. The Auditorium is world-class and designed with incredible attention to detail, sublime acoustics, augmented with the
highest specification in digital audio and cutting-edge lighting technology, combine to create an exciting performance
environment. We have a wide variety of events across many genres. Standing events hold 420, Seated holds 260 and
catered events holds 120. The Auditorium is equipped with a fully licensed bar.
We continue to build within our programme collaborations with other Music and Arts venues/ providers such as Band
on the Wall, Ribcaged, Ribble Valley Jazz and Blues and other local freelance providers to support the activities within
the Grand.
LIVE
EVENTS
CREATIVE
LEARNING
PRIVATE
HIRE
The Grand’s Creative Learning team works with schools and organisations to provide projects that allow individuals to
imagine creatively, reason systematically, work collaboratively and learn continuously. We carefully select projects that
compliment the National Curriculum. The Grand's 'Journey' strategy has been designed to highlight a pathway to
develop young people through art and music. The venue dedicates many of its operating hours for the expressed
purpose of providing a creative place for young people - from early years to late teens.
13 core projects within the Primary Schools
13 core projects within the Secondary Schools
4 core projects for Families
We not only have a great state of the art auditorium with a licensed bar and café that can be hired for weddings,
conferences or private events. We also have session rooms for bands to hire, a boardroom for meetings and a
portable skate park

5. The Grand Studio’s unique setup boasts the best-equipped studio in the North West offering professional recording
services to bands, musicians, singers and DJ/Producers. The studio comprises two spacious live rooms designed to
create a natural and expressive acoustic and the highest spec control room, which has been developed to optimise
professional industry standard recordings. The studio and venue are inherently linked and any live shows can be
recorded, mixed and mastered in the studio and taken away by the artists given performers a truly comprehensive
experience.
The Grand being a Charity and a Limited Company by Guarantee follows its charitable objectives with the primary
activity of the Grand to support young people and the broader local community in terms of personal development in the
media, music, arts and performance fields. In addition the Grand is raising awareness and support for its own Solomon
project which aims to provide relief to suffering and poverty and also improve education of children in Kenya Africa.
The skate park boasts a great reputation with the ‘UK’s leading skateboard magazine ‘Sidewalk’ hailing it to be “a
concrete beauty.” During the Winter months the St Mary’s Centre is host to the Indoor Skate Park. The Grand being a
Charity and a Limited Company by Guarantee follows its charitable objectives with the primary activity of the Grand to
support young people and the broader local community in terms of personal development in the media, music, arts and
performance fields. In addition the Grand is raising awareness and support for its own Solomon project which aims to
provide relief to suffering and poverty and also improve education of children in Kenya Africa. We also use our
success to enable and assist in fund generation and execution of local charity and tourism projects such as The CAP,
Debt Relief, Clitheroe Food Bank, The Little Green Bus. In addition to this we have ensured that the youth demographic
of our area have additional facilities such as a Nationally renowned concrete Skate Park.
RECORDING
STUDIO
SOLOMON
SKATE
PARK

6. The Grand Venue is the answer to a growing need for a professional accessible, creative
resource for families in the Ribble Valley community.
Through an innovative and fun programme of events, classes and courses we want take
all the family on a creative journey that elevates the social, spiritual, educational, and
emotional development of our community.
We will encourage schools, local businesses, and like minded partners to ensure we
continually evolve and grow our offering and create a positive impact. We will be your
friend through childhood and adulthood
CREATING
A JOURNEY

7. Through brand planning, measurement, narrative understanding and channel
strategy, we want to create a digitally networked story with a path to purchase –
one that’s always on, always consistent, and elevates the Grand’s purpose
through conversation for this connected, new media age.

8. BROCHURES Our Events brochure incorporates 4 months of events and is distributed as such. The brochure currently incorporates events,
touches on some creative learning and some of our facilities. We place these 5000ish in local business throughout The Ribble Valley and
surrounding areas. The main focus for distribution is the Hospitality Industry such as Hotels, Restaurants, Cafes and Caravan Parks. Many of these
brochures are collected by existing customers that visit The Grand Venue.
We have a B2B Journey Brochure that is distributed to community and education peers.
LEAFLETS We have 10,000 A5 folded listings leaflet with basic event information. We place these in local business throughout The Ribble Valley
and surrounding areas. Many of these brochures are collected by existing customers that visit The Grand Venue
FLYERS In advance of individual events we distribute flyers externally and internally at the Grand. Internally we ensure their distribution to cross
sell opportunities. These flyers are either produced in house or supplied by promoters
POSTERS We have several poster sites in house and via local business. These are often targeted by demographic or genre. We have started to
group genres or months into one design
IN HOUSE TV’s In House we have 5 display units that feed latest event graphics. We also have a cinema screen that can be played prior to an
event
THE GRAND WEBSITE We have a website with over 15,000 unique visitors per month and a further 9,000 returning visitors per month
THE GRAND SOCIAL We have a social landscape that connects with over 10,000 people every single day. Twitter 3000+ and Facebook 8000+.
Instagram has just been started.
EMAILS We have a mailing list of previous visitors to The Grand of over 10,000 people. Through audience segmentation we have the ability to
target genre specific messaging. We currently send out a weekly email. Open Rate 25.45%
FAMILY PACKS For many of our classes such as Streetfeet, Be My Band and Back Stage Pass The Creative Learning Team produce packs outlining
the details that are distributed upon individual enquiries or uptake. These are also sent by email to attendees of previous initiatives.
SCHOOL PACKS The Creative Learning Team create programmes to work directly with schools. These can come in the form of partnerships that
allow schools to build the scope of the National Curriculum offering such as Music and Theatre as well as Private events such as Pantomimes,
Career Days and Student integration into the system.
OWNED

9. PRESS
We have an ongoing contract to advertise a quarter page bi weekly with the Clitheroe Advertiser, Longridge News, Garstang Courier and Burnley
Express to provide Monthly Highlighted Events.
On an adhoc basis we advertise with the Blackburn Telegraph
MAGASINE
We have been testing advertorial in Lancashire Life and Ribble Valley Live for Venue Awareness and What’s On listings. In addition we have also
tested The Primary Times to raise awareness of our Youth Offering and What’s On.
In addition we are on the back page of the Discover Ribble Valley Tourism Magasine and abi weekly front page listings in the Castle View
magasine
PROMOTED SOCIAL
Our posts, page and events on Facebook are often boosted and converted to ads.
For boosting we focus on a 25 mile radius of the Clitheroe area and tag to relevant touch points from the post.
RADIO
We are currently working with Bee Radio and 2BR to build a What’s On Sponsorship Partnership for events in the area. This includes up to 28
bursts per week. 50% of the bursts are generic such as October Half Term and Christmas at The Grand. The rest are event specific.
EMAILS
We have a mailing list of previous visitors to The Grand of over 10,000 people. Through audience segmentation we have the ability to target
genre specific messaging. We currently send out a weekly email. Open Rate 25.45%. All emails are sent through Constant Contact
POSTAL
We have a mailing list of previous visitors to The Grand of over 10,000 people. We often tailor mail outs to those audiences. Due to the
age/behaviour of Jazz attendees we often prompt purchase via post.
FLYER DISTRIBUTON
The Castle View Magasine deliver adhoc flyers to Clitheroe postcodes as requested.
PAID

10. SOCIAL
Engagement is high so WOM builds quickly. Events are also promoted by the bands as well as us.
PRESS
We have in-house PR that produces weekly editorial for inclusion in publications such as the Lancashire Evening Post, Ribble Valley Live,
Lancashire Life, Blackburn Telegraph and Clitheroe Advertiser. The publications also add them to their online offering.
STANDS & EXPOSURE
We have stands at Lancashire based Freshers weeks, Local Music Festivals such as Beat Herder, Cloudspotting and Ramsbottom Music Festival as
well as working with internal staff and Ribble Valley Tourism to gain further exposure at local initiatives such as Field Days, Food Festivals and
Agricultural Shows
PROMOTION
We recently handed our 300 Bags for Life with a free ticket to an event to visitors of the Clitheroe Food Festival and waving flags at The Tour of
Britain.
PARTNERSHIP
We have many partnerships with Schools, Church’s, Venues, Music Groups and Community members, all of which are utilised to build our profile,
awareness and advocacy. On many occasions this is through subsidised use of The Grand Venue.
3RD
PARTY SITES
Websites such as Visit Lancashire and Skiddlehold all our event and venue information
EARNED

11. NEW
CRM
SITE

12. BRAND
PLANNING

13. PARTNERSHIP
STRATEGY

14. GRAPHIC
DESIGN