The inaugural World Ballet Day LIVE on Wednesday 1 October 2014 highlighted an enormous global love of ballet as audiences joined to watch the live online stream, engaging across social media channels in unprecedented numbers.
Streamed online for 20 hours from 12pm Australian Eastern Time, World Ballet Day LIVE saw a collaboration of five of the world's premier ballet companies, each allotted four hours of the feed. The Australian Ballet led the charge, followed by Bolshoi Ballet, The Royal Ballet, The National Ballet of Canada and San Francisco Ballet.
Across the five companies' YouTube channels, a total of 195,430 live plays were recorded over the initial 20 hours, and this number is expected to increase exponentially as viewers continue to enjoy the footage over the coming days. Viewers watched an average of28 minutes, enjoying over 16,100 cumulative hoursof footage from The Australian Ballet.
With a Twitter reach in the millions, #worldballetdaywas the top trending topic in Australia at 11am on the day, one hour prior to the live YouTube stream. Throughout the stream, World Ballet Day LIVE also gave audiences the opportunity to engage with their favourite dancers and artists via Twitter, with hundreds of questions tweeted and promoted onscreen.
Globally, #worldballetday trended above other major international topics including #ebola and #isis.
World Ballet Day LIVE also prompted a flood of web traffic, with The Australian Ballet witnessing an immediate 517% uplift in website visits at the 12pmcommencement of the live stream, and incremental traffic continuing well into the following morning as San Francisco Ballet drew the live stream to a close at 8am on Thursday 2 October.
This global first initiative also drew audiences from around the world to The Australian Ballet's website, with over 1000% uplift in visitors from USA, Japan and Canada.
Artistic Director of The Australian Ballet, David McAllister, is thrilled with the level of online engagement. "It was such a great experience to have the focus of the world on The Australian Ballet's studios for four hours," he said.
"Each company excelled and showed why ballet continues to be an enduring art form that reflects the unique culture of each country. For us, the athleticism and daring of our dancers was seen in all the excepts we presented, from Graeme Murphy's iconic Swan Lake to Tim Harbour's world premiere work Ostinatoand Stanton Welch's La Bayadère."
Said The Wall Street Journal's Pia Catton, "Binge-watching television is kid's stuff compared to gorging at the online smorgasbord known as World Ballet Day. For once, saying 'I could watch ballet all day' was literally true. And I have the eye-drops to prove it."
World Ballet Day LIVE represents The Australian Ballet's commitment to reaching new audiences and building an engaged and active online community. The company carries this agenda forward into the 2015 season which celebrates the unique beauty, artistry and athleticism of ballet, including an opulent new production of The Sleeping Beauty, a world premiere from Tim Harbour with sets by trailblazing Australian architect Kelvin Ho, and a range of new digital and broadcast initiatives.
The full live stream of World Ballet Day LIVE is available in full until 8am Saturday 4 October, Australian Eastern Time on The Australian Ballet's website.
At that time, the footage will be replaced with a highlights package of approximately 40 minutes from each of the five companies.
Visit australianballet.com.au/worldballetday for more information and to watch the footage.
Explore the 2015 season ataustralianballet.com.au/beauty.
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