Sam Freeman

Storytelling | Theatre | Arts Marketing

Category: Blog Post

  • Tour Blog – Part 8 (Cardiff)

    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!…

  • Tour Blog – Part 7 (Huddersfield)

    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…

  • Tour Blog – Part 6 (Aberystwyth)

    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…

  • Tour Blog – Part 5 (Wolverhampton)

    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…

  • Tour Blog – Part 4 (York)

    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…

  • Tour Blog – Part 3 (Halifax)

    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)…

  • Tour Blog – Part 2 (Harrogate Theatre)

    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…

  • Tour Blog – Part 1 (Liverpool Everyman)

    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…

  • 2022 Resolutions

    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.

  • The exhausting truth about booking a small-scale storytelling tour.

    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…

  • I’m touring a show that’s good.

    I’m touring a show that’s good.

    As many of you will know I wrote a new storytelling show last year called Every Little Hope You Ever Dreamed (But Didn’t Want To Mention). It did an R&D in January for a week at Theatr Clwyd and then did three performances in late July (also at Theatr Clwyd) which went pretty well*. So…

  • Performing, Panic, and the the problem with being alone.

    Performing, Panic, and the the problem with being alone.

    I’ve not blogged for absolutely ages – here’s my excuse: I’ve been making a show. To give the quick intro for those who are unaware… Last year I wrote a new storytelling show, it did an R&D in January and then, last Fri, Sat and Sun I did performances in front of an audience, ostensibly…

  • Nothing to do with Arts Marketing.

    Nothing to do with Arts Marketing.

    Astute regular readers of this blog will have noticed that, well, there’s been nothing regular about this blog for a while now. There’s a few reasons but most notably it’s this – I’m doing a show. Now straight away I can sense a bit of tension, “doing a show” you ask, “what does he mean…

  • Arts Marketing: Preparing For What’s Next

    Arts Marketing: Preparing For What’s Next

    Or ideas of things to do over the next couple of months… I’ve been in a weird mood since Christmas – a kind of grumpy, unfocused, curmudgeon, working hard but also not feeling like, well, I’m actually making a difference. Now, of course, some of that is the destabilising effect of being in lockdown, missing…

  • Five Thoughts For Friday (19 Feb, 2021)

    Five Thoughts For Friday (19 Feb, 2021)

    I was reading a blog of someone who, since lockdown, has written down 7 things every day, keeping a record of their thoughts and how it’s all been going. Now I totally don’t have enough thoughts to reach 7, but I thought I’d give it a go! Some are about arts marketing, some are about…

  • New Year’s Resolutions 2021

    New Year’s Resolutions 2021

    Well fuck me thank God 2020 is over right? I mean don’t get me wrong – there was some nice bits in 2020 – friends had kids, I bought a coffee machine and Newcastle didn’t get relegated. But overall, on balance, not a terrific one. Regular readers (by which I mean all four of you…

  • Vodafone: A tale of woe, poor customer service and being on hold.

    Vodafone: A tale of woe, poor customer service and being on hold.

    This is a parable about customer service. I don’t do bills. Not because I’m a Elizabethan cad, rogue or rascal. Quite the opposite. In fact they stress me out to a point approaching tears and send my anxiety into overdrive. I once cried after speaking to the water company for less than 10 minutes. I…

  • Doing R&D on a show

    Doing R&D on a show

    I’ve been feeling a bit down for the last few weeks – there’s the obvious reason for that, but also, because I’ve not done anything I count as ‘creative’ for a while now. I was feeling a bit, well, pointless. I’m also approaching my birthday, a time which consistently puts me in a foul mood,…