With the show soon approaching, we were always keeping a close eye on ticket sales; our initial aim was to sell 200 tickets and so we were keen to come up with some new, fresh marketing tactics to spread the word of our show. Our social media sites were running successfully and we were up to date on our ideal number of followers and general interest. However, we realised that we needed to find new ways of interesting every kind of audience member we hoped to attend our show, and not just those who are regular users of social media.
Our first step was poster and flyer distribution. Our strong, vibrant image is one which stands out and so we wanted to place it where it would be seen and remembered. We placed our flyers in the university library, Lincoln Performing Arts Centre, local pubs, shops and cafes; all were happy and willing to promote our show by making the flyers available to customers. Our posters were displayed in various areas of the university campus and some local businesses. We received a lot of praise on our colourful, fresh image and we were instantly relieved that we had chosen the particular colour scheme and style as it stood out amongst other bland and dark posters.
Our next step was the competition launch. We wanted people to get excited and involved in our theme and also increase general interest. The competition was online and conducted through Facebook and twitter; the rules were to upload a photo of yourself with the person/object/animal/place you love the most. If using twitter we asked entrants to tweet us the photo and if using Facebook we asked to be tagged in the photo. For both sites the picture must be captioned with three words describing it and the hashtag #threewords; the winner would be the most creative. The prize for the competition was two free tickets to our show which we had received through our own student accounts and therefore had not had to pay for them. We felt that offering free tickets would give the show a more exclusive appearance, as though they were at short supply and hoped that even those who did not enter the competition may go and buy tickets in fear of missing out. The competition was not as successful as we had initially hoped and if we were to do it again then perhaps less complicated rules would be necessary. However we did have a grateful winner who received the two tickets and expressed her enjoyment of the show afterwards.
We were also extremely lucky to have been given the opportunity to promote our show on two local radio stations. Our musical director Gabby was in contact with a presenter at the university radio station Siren FM and therefore was able to organise us a spot to appear on the station. Gabby then went along with our director Tom and my marketing assistant Phoebe and they filled a ten minute slot with discussions of our show and the process so far. A few weeks later we were invited to be interviewed on BBC Radio Lincolnshire which was a fantastic opportunity for us to reach people all over Lincoln, outside of our social circles and possibly those who don’t use social media. One of our writers and performers Lauren visited the station on our behalf and gave a detailed explanation of our rehearsal process from the very beginning, the themes and structure of our show and when the show would take place. We are extremely grateful for the support we were given from our local community and the willing of those who helped to promote our show.
Finally, with only one week until the show, we went out into the city of Lincoln with our ‘board of love’ (a white board and marker pen). We wanted to encourage the public to talk about love and their experiences of it because this is the way in which we collected a lot of our initial writing material. We asked each person we approached to describe love to us in three words and write it on our board. This was in keeping with our show’s title of Three Words and we wanted to know what our title meant to different people. It took us a while to find people willing to stop and speak to us as we did find not everyone was happy to be approached. However we did come across a lot of people who were happy to be involved and were also interested in hearing about the general concept of the piece and what is was for; in these instances we gave out flyers and invited them to come along and see the show. With the permission of those involved, we took a picture of them with the board and their words and posted the pictures on our social media sites. Some of the public accessed our Facebook page and tagged themselves in the photos; perhaps enjoying their moment of fame which was lovely to see! The experience was particularly enjoyable as we compared what different people thought of as love. It was not always a relationship with a lover but a particular place, animal or moment they had experienced; this really tapped into the entire concept of our piece and how everybody has different experiences of love. We also enjoyed seeing the difference between the older and younger generation’s perception of love and relationships; two particular older women discussed how they did not see love as an exciting experience but a routine which was expected of them. From others we received more detailed and intimate feedback and it was wonderful to be a part of Lincoln getting romantic!
Work Cited:
Evans, G. (2014)
McKenzie, S. (2014)
Walker, L. (2014)
Wall, K. (2014)