Author: Sam Freeman
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A Beginners Guide To Theatre Pricing
I’ve not annoyed as many people as usual recently with my theatre blog posts – this one however will infuriate so many people because it’s a beginners guide and doesn’t mention a huge amount of complexity and data that underpins what I’m talking about. So, if you’re reading this and thinking “this is utter bullshit…
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Arts Marketing: Winter Is Coming
***Long shot, slowly zooming in*** A winter day, a barren scene, nothing but desolation. A man trudges through the snow. He wears the armour of a knight, but it’s battered and filthy, he’s been through battles and mostly lost. But against the odds he’s still here, still breathing. He’s cold, breath visible in the ice-tinged…
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Tour Autopsy: Every Little Hope You Ever Dreamed (But Didn’t Want To Mention)
A Slightly Long Pre-Amble I’ve been writing notes for this blog for a little while – that’s unusual – usually I write blogs in a flurry, desperately hoping they are cohesive, informative and funny. I think the only post I’ve written in the past year or so that have had some modicum of planning was…
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Tour Blog – Part 10 (Lancaster)
Audience: 32 (ish) Technical: Really great – I had the brilliant Jos (closely supervised by the amazing Katy) doing his first ever “looking after a show solo” – he did an admirable job – professional, helpful and good humoured – as good as all the other technical staff who’ve looked after me throughout the tour. Marketing: Dukes went…
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Tour Blog – Part 9 (Wigan)
Audience: 9 Technical: Really great – a very different space to all the others with a high stage – a little adjustment to the show layout and how it works was required. It’s a challenging space to do lighting in because of where the bars are, but Matt did a really great job! Marketing: Hard again. I think…
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Tour Blog – Part 8 (Cardiff)
Audience: 25 (Thu), 7 (Fri) & 7 (Sat) Technical: Really lovely again. Dan’s a bit of a genius – really reassuring, knowledgeable and calm – also shares my obsession with testing everything in good time to check it works. Will (who also is a Duty Manager and Box Office and Gallery Technician) was brill too and multi-talented!…
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Tour Blog – Part 7 (Huddersfield)
Audience: 13 (Tues) & 9 (Weds – but thank you to the LBT staff for coming along!) Technical: Utter legends. Both technicians were utterly wonderful – incredibly patient, kind and professional. The get in and set up was simple and both nailed all the cues absolutely perfectly. Marketing: Hard but we had an audience and the venue worked…
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Tour Blog – Part 6 (Aberystwyth)
Audience: 8 Technical: Paul the technician was great. By far the best dressed technician I’ve ever seen. Black shirt, black braces, black hat – far too stylish. Easy get in, a bit of a school hall-feel venue but it was quite nice when we’d played with it and for the first time performing with cabaret tables. Marketing: Again…
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Tour Blog – Part 5 (Wolverhampton)
Audience: 5 (of which 2 were staff, to whom I am eternally grateful. Technical: Amazing. Genuinely brilliant, supportive. It was such a lovely easy experience – they also win the award for the tidiest cables so far. Marketing: Hard work. The venue (and Sam Fleming in particular) worked their socks off but to no avail. It’s got me…
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Tour Blog – Part 4 (York)
Audience: 38 Technical: Again really good – Nathan was brilliant – it’s a very simple show and we simplified it even more for the lighting so that we’d have less of a rig and focus to do. The show can now be ready, from scratch in around an hour now. All the team at York were brilliant…
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Tour Blog – Part 3 (Halifax)
Audience: 8 Technical: There wasn’t any communication beforehand so I was a bit apprehensive. I got there far too early (12pm) with the technician called at 4:30pm. However, the venue is a dream, Scott the technician was brilliant – calm, friendly and reassuring – the grid has a trampoline on it (a mesh you can walk on)…
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Tour Blog – Part 2 (Harrogate Theatre)
Audience: 15 (sold 21) Technical: Ludicrously easy set up – Harrogate’s staff were outstanding – the show is dead simple, but it was just a nice easy enjoyable process. The venue was a pop up space, so it means you can be much more simple that I think I’d imagined and still get a nice atmosphere. Marketing: Again…
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Tour Blog – Part 1 (Liverpool Everyman)
I’ve decided to blog about my shows on the tour of Every Little Hope – a record for myself as much as anything else, so that I can make sure I remind myself of what I’ve learnt, what was great, what worked and what didn’t. Show #1 at Liverpool Everyman in the Bistro was technically…
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Arts Marketing: 50 Easy-To-Do Tips
First things first – 50 tips, easy-to-do or otherwise, is a fuck-load of tips. I’ve been wanting to write a big tips list* for ages – I’ve a draft folder which has around 40 arts marketing articles in, all at different stages of disarray. I thought about combining them in this article, instead, reading them…
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Arts Marketing: Freaks, Questions, Testing and Careers
How many of us send a season brochure? Pretty much most regional theatres right? Now we send them because we have an inherent belief that they work, that they bring in a huge amount of sales – but how much of these essential pieces of print is developed through research and how much is developed…
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2022 Resolutions
As I get older I’ve become more and more aware that these are things to help motivate me in life. I think back to my early twenties when I dreamt of being an Artistic Director, or late twenties where stand up really entered my life, and I worry that I’ve become directionless.
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Theatre, freedom and anti-vaxxer complaints.
It’s late. The clock has just chimed midnight. Or at least it would have should I own a clock with a bell that chimes. I’m wide awake, shoulders tight and I can tell I’m wound up. To begin. Welsh Government have introduced new rules surrounding showing your Covid Status when attending theatre and cinema events…
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The exhausting truth about booking a small-scale storytelling tour.
It’s been a long while since I wrote a blog post – to be honest, I’ve not written many for the past 9 months, a combination of tiredness, lack of inspiration and, well, doing other stuff. I’m in the midst of booking a tour at the moment for the show I made last year, Every…