My intention with this blog post was to share some thoughts (and embarrassment) on trying to find the right note when you need to! But then i noticed the inadvertent pun of the title and thought that it may be useful to take the opportunity to think about promoting our next show as well whilst I was at it. After all overselling seats is what my boss would call a high class problem and I guess it's a problem that we could look forward to!
We had a great discussion at our Annual General Meeting this year on how we can try to get more bums on seats. One of our members used to be the Chair of Ripley and Alfreton, which seems to almost sell out with every performance - and we're better than them! (Only slightly biased opinion from me there you'll notice). We also have members from the Derby Opera Company, which has sadly closed down as the cost of shows was greater than the income from them. So we have both good and bad experiences of the challenges with breaking even from musical theatre.
So what do we need to do in order to encourage people to part with hard earned money in order to come to one of our shows?
We try to keep the ticket prices fair. It does cost more than going to the cinema, but less than going to a theatre show and a lot less than going to a West End production. And sometimes our performances, and the effort that goes in to them, are up there with some of the best that you'll see at a regional level. (Or the West End on a bad day ;-))
We put our shows on in Belper Community Theatre. This has fully tiered seating, a disabled ramp built by Ian Jennison (see Life members post) and is a great, small venue for an engaging performance. We do get comments that there aren't enough toilets when it gets to the interval, but we try to offer a decent length interval to take account of this - and we serve hot and cold drinks and the odd glass of wine to help others pass the time.
We work hard to give fantastic performances. Indeed we get feedback from our regulars that anyone who has been to a BMT show will come back again and again as they are such high quality. And since we have regulars from Birmingham, Leeds, Crewe and Kent, I think that there's an element of truth there.
But since we struggle to gain an average audience of 60 percent, we do need to do something more to fill the extra 40 percent of seats.
We would appreciate it if you could tell your friends and work colleagues about our shows - I've persuaded people off the train in Manchester to see the shows -and if you could share email addresses with us, then we can let them know what's coming up next. We can email you copies of our promotional stationery - flyers, posters, booking forms, business cards, so that you can send them on to other people.
But maybe we're getting something wrong? If you have any ideas on what we could do, then please let us know. I'm sure that I will blog on different approaches for publicity again soon - your ideas would be helpful. Thank you.
We had a great discussion at our Annual General Meeting this year on how we can try to get more bums on seats. One of our members used to be the Chair of Ripley and Alfreton, which seems to almost sell out with every performance - and we're better than them! (Only slightly biased opinion from me there you'll notice). We also have members from the Derby Opera Company, which has sadly closed down as the cost of shows was greater than the income from them. So we have both good and bad experiences of the challenges with breaking even from musical theatre.
So what do we need to do in order to encourage people to part with hard earned money in order to come to one of our shows?
We try to keep the ticket prices fair. It does cost more than going to the cinema, but less than going to a theatre show and a lot less than going to a West End production. And sometimes our performances, and the effort that goes in to them, are up there with some of the best that you'll see at a regional level. (Or the West End on a bad day ;-))
We put our shows on in Belper Community Theatre. This has fully tiered seating, a disabled ramp built by Ian Jennison (see Life members post) and is a great, small venue for an engaging performance. We do get comments that there aren't enough toilets when it gets to the interval, but we try to offer a decent length interval to take account of this - and we serve hot and cold drinks and the odd glass of wine to help others pass the time.
We work hard to give fantastic performances. Indeed we get feedback from our regulars that anyone who has been to a BMT show will come back again and again as they are such high quality. And since we have regulars from Birmingham, Leeds, Crewe and Kent, I think that there's an element of truth there.
But since we struggle to gain an average audience of 60 percent, we do need to do something more to fill the extra 40 percent of seats.
We would appreciate it if you could tell your friends and work colleagues about our shows - I've persuaded people off the train in Manchester to see the shows -and if you could share email addresses with us, then we can let them know what's coming up next. We can email you copies of our promotional stationery - flyers, posters, booking forms, business cards, so that you can send them on to other people.
But maybe we're getting something wrong? If you have any ideas on what we could do, then please let us know. I'm sure that I will blog on different approaches for publicity again soon - your ideas would be helpful. Thank you.
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