Monday, April 18, 2011

Is The Theatre or the Show Accountable For Theatre Marketing?

Everyone involved with a show would love for it to sell every ticket. It sure is satisfying as soon as you steal a peak at the sea of people and can't locate any empty seats in the theatre. So how do quite a few productions come up short on getting rid of every last ticket? Is theatre marketing so challenging?

Yes and no. It surely isn't simple to promote a show, but it is certainly achievable. When you consider that a lot of performances incorporate some remarkably talented and hardworking individuals, I advocate that you should be in the position to promote the stuffing out of your production. Of course there can be variables out of your control like the weather along with nearby sporting events which can have an impact on your ticket sales, but your purpose during your marketing efforts needs to be to sell each and every ticket.

So who's accountable for doing this? Would it be the director? Maybe, although the director has a good deal to worry about with preparing the show for a crowd. It could be the actual venue, however I have not ended up lucky enough to be involved with a theatre that has a dedicated full-time promotion expert. (Assuming you have one, cherish that individual.) The actors likely have a vested desire for appearing in front of a full house, though you very likely cast your show based on theatrical talent rather than on promotional expertise.

So who then? The right response is everyone. For most stage productions it simply won't be sensible to assign someone in control of every piece of marketing and advertising. On the other hand you can make each person accountable for the activities they're in the most helpful role to complete. Everybody is able to play to their talents to push ticket sales because after all we all want the production to do well.

The location probably uses a particular routine of fundamental marketing they are doing for each and every run. Someone will send details out to regular ticket holders. There's a graphic designer the venue consistently works with to make promotional materials. They distribute press releases. Unless you can find a solid explanation, the director and cast do not need to be involved with those particular elements of the marketing. The venue has conducted this process before, and presumably they have learned the best strategy to use to be able to make these types of details manifest.

The director is an extremely suitable prospect regarding answering questions with the press. He or she has a comprehensive understanding of the production, has some idea what the potential viewer will enjoy, and has the proper influence that the press audience is going to be interested in the article. The director also controls the rehearsal agenda thus is in the optimum situation to synchronize with photographers and videographers who happen to be capturing rehearsal media for using in campaigns.

The performers shouldn't be putting attention very much on advertising and marketing, but they should certainly be utilizing their own individual networks. An efficient strategy is to post rehearsal images with Facebook. The cast can be tagged inside all these pictures, which are subsequently instantly displayed to every one of the friends of the tagged folks on the online community. It isn't uncomfortable and will not require a massive outlay of their time.

These are generally solid recommendations, yet don't hesitate to stray from this method if you have unique issues. Say a person involved with the performance is pretty good pals with a community correspondent. If they are comfortable with the concept, it makes sense to enable that person reach out to their good friend to ask what type of direction is likely to make your production compelling for the newspaper's readers.

In essence each individual involved with the production can certainly help to let folks know about it. The secret is to figure out at the beginning who is going to be responsible for what. Communicating is paramount.