A Stage in Time: Cambridge Corn Exchange 150th Anniversary Exhibition
2026 marked 150 years of Cambridge Corn Exchange, an iconic music venue in the heart of Cambridge. To celebrate this anniversary the venue commissioned a special pop up exhibition featuring incredible stories from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. The aim of the exhibition was to celebrate its astonishing music history but also discover, explore and celebrate the use of the building prior to it becoming the music venue it is today.
My task was to deliver the marketing campaign and ensure the stories that were uncovered by the Heritage team were front and centre. The venue was rightly proud of their music history but wanted to make sure the stories of the time before it was a performance space also had ample coverage. This game me the opportunity to really think about the type of content I could work with and think about each individual audience segment.
Firstly, I engaged the venues’ database through email marketing and ensured each email was specifically curated to individual audiences. For example, when pushing the music aspect of the exhibition, I made sure to mention that Pete Weller’s drum kit, Darcey Bussell’s ballet shoes and note music from Dame Evelyn Glennie we’re on display. My customer list targeted audiences members from performances by these artists at the Corn Exchange, hopefully making a tempting offer for fans of Pete Weller, Darcey Bussell and Dame Evelyn Glennie to visit.
When it came to engaging family audiences I made sure to push the interactive elements of the exhibition, including the VR Headset experience, the story trail and interactive info boards designed for young people. I combined this with tempting audiences into visiting Cambridge for a full day out and made sure to send just prior to the Easter Holidays.
I also made sure to work with local press through an announcement press release for local event guides and I also ensured they were invited to the Private Viewing evening as a sneak peak, giving Culture Editors an opportunity to write follow up stories about the exhibition. This also included speaking to BBC Cambridgeshire and Cambridge105 FM, both of whom took up interview offers with the Heritage team.
Digitally I made use of Meta for advertising to help promote the event and coached the Heritage Team in Instagram takeovers, meeting with them to discuss content creation and the type of messaging the project needed. This resulted in high organic engagement on the Corn Exchange social channels with ideas including a Timelapse video of the pop up exhibition being installed and special insights from the team on certain artefacts on display during the exhibition.
Visitor numbers to the exhibition were constant throughout its 3 month run and ensuring to tailor each piece of content to specific audiences helped to explain to audience what they’d see during their visit. Taking the time to create engaging and interesting organic social media content also helped to push some of the more historical stories to the forefront of the campaign.
Once closed the exhibition continued in a digital format on the Corn Exchange’s website and I made sure to set aside budget early on, this ensured this aspect of the project still had budget available and allows it to be promoted to people who may not have been able to visit the exhibition in person.
Key Takeaways from A Stage In Time
Specifically curating copy and content for individual audiences yelled hit results.
Maintaining close contact with local press to increase coverage both in print and on the airwaves.
Closely managing the marketing budget helped to ensure every aspect of the project was adequately promoted.
Find out more about A Stage in Time here: https://www.cornex.co.uk/news/a-stage-in-time-celebrating-150-years-of-the-corn-exchange