So, here it is, strap in, I’ve got some truth bombs to release, I’m going to let rip, welcome to the fast lane of opinions, the deep fat fryer of fact, I may even use CAPS LOCK, or maybe Randomly Capitalise Words for little or no apparent reason, underlining get ready, CRTL + U, prepare to have what’s morally right smeared into you face, yes you, in this blog.
Are. You. Ready. For. Controversial. Opinions.
***silence from the crowd***
Are… You… Ready… To… To… Ermm… Hello…
Oh, wait a second, hold on a moment, it turns out I don’t have any controversial opinions about Theatre, Marketing or pricing, nor do I have any truth bombs to let off, I’m not even sure where the fast lane of opinion is.
Now obviously I’m being a knob – maybe you were lured in by the possibility of conflict – it’s exciting right? No such luck.
There have been a few posts of late with people slagging off how other people run their venues. I mean don’t get me wrong, everyone does it, it’s just rare it’s as up front on twitter. That said we’re closing in on Christmas, and sure, if I’d spent the last 9 months obsessing over panto sales I might release some opinion grenades too.. So… My take..
For all policies in theatre (and for the excitement levels you hoped for prepare for them to slide from this point onwards), and particularly in relation to pricing and how it’s done there isn’t, I don’t think, a right or wrong answer, it’s a hundred shades of grey, a complex mix that relates to and encompasses the audience demographic, the organisation, the type of work they show, the funding they get, the pressures they’re under from outside stakeholders and the aims and objectives of the company – that’s not even the full list.
Every policy (and almost every decision that is made in theatre, and, probably, in life) always, has people who benefit and people who don’t – all of which don’t just relate to audiences and accessibility but also the ability for an organisation to stay open, to pay staff and artists fairly, to meet funding demands, to make sure that the creative engagement work in the community (that is key and vital) still happens, maybe even the number of actors you can afford – that’s not even the full list.
We (subsidised theatre) should, absolutely, and unambiguously, be responsible to make sure that as many people as possible have access to the work on stage – we should be enabling the most vulnerable in our communities to access arts, culture and theatre. We should be doing our best to help those who need us.
But, in a world where arts salaries are not excessive, teams are often slim, arts people work regularly above and beyond and organisations operate to break even, we should remember that despite that decisions are, in my experience, for the most part, made with audiences at the forefront of the mind, but also bearing in mind that…
- Accessing theatre is harder if the theatre is closed down.
- Accessing theatre is harder if the subsidy is reduced to an extent where offering any discounts is impossible.
- Accessing the arts is harder if to keep a theatre open all the education, access to the arts and creative engagement teams are cut.
- Using the arts for real good and change can be impossible if engagement projects with the most vulnerable groups don’t happen.
- Accessing theatre is harder if infrastructure is cut so that people don’t know what’s on, there’s noone operating the venue or noone is around to chat to audiences and be that reassuring face.
- Audiences don’t always do what we want them to, don’t always think about the bigger picture, aren’t all socialists and want the best for society in general (but many do!).
What works for one venue mightn’t work for another, but it feels tricky to deal in absolutes, to say what one organisation does is wrong or right.
There’s a clarity question of course, decisions we make we should be accountable for – if we say tickets are From £XX we should be able to tell people how many tickets were that price, how to access them, why the prices work that way and, if people can’t get prices at that starting price then what other options are there to help those who can’t afford to access the arts if not instantly, then in changing and motivating behaviour. (I also suspect we spend a disproportionate amount of time focusing on price as a barrier to engagement while the art itself gets off quite lightly…)
I spend my life desperate for simplicity, but simplicity isn’t always easy or, indeed the right solution when the overall picture and process to reach a decision is complex and nuanced.
I have huge admiration for the work of many theatres, from those who make decisions to have single ticket prices with discount/concession led additional access points and those who use dynamic pricing to offer a wider range of prices providing access points in a different way. Which is right? Who knows, possibly one of them, possibly neither, possibly both.
So there we go. I’ve said very little, had few firm opinions other than to say, context is important.
Here’s a final little sign off though – if theatre’s are being forced to act more commercially than ever before, if there are more in need than ever before, if we feel tired of always having to make compromises to get by, if we frequently have to get by, then maybe the problem is society, capitalism and the world in general.
So that’s depressing.
Night x
P.S. As a serious note, if you read this on twitter and decide to retweet it then make your tweet magical – along the lines of “You won’t believe what he has to say about Arts Marketing” or “The bad boy of Arts Marketing speaks again” or “So. Fucking. Nuanced” – Any of those will be fine x
Why not get rid?
How Unity’s changed?
Then came a design step change – we started thinking about values, what our work encapsulated, what was important to us. We also, ordered every brochure from every other theatre in the country and went through them with a fine tooth comb. If there was something clever we highlighted it, if the tone appealed we cut it out, if we hated it we found out exactly what we hated. It was a useful exercise in finding the things that we related to, that were exciting and dynamic. We had a challenging moment with our long standing designer and eventually parted ways and so auditioned (such a theatrical word, I mean “went through tendering”) from 8 designers to see a) how they related to the brief, b) whether we thought we could work with them, c) if they brought things to the table and d) price.
Obsession/Deconstruction
I was incredibly lucky in having a succession of Marketing Officers and Box Office Managers who were liberal with their opinions and were passionate in leading the charge. I can’t stress enough how important they were in making things develop and move forward. Two things that spring up that’s useful for brochures 1) make sure you’ve someone with a good bullshit detector and 2) be prepared to compromise sometimes. The bullshit detector is incredibly useful because we all write with a voice that is unique to us – sometimes it will sneak into things we’re writing (copy for example) and needs to be sought out and put right. In my case I can occasionally write “bullshit”. Or, more specifically, overly complicated complex sentences with an excessive amount of exclamation marks. Sometimes when you get deep into “brochuring” or “the marketeers burden” you can need this jolt to get you back on the straight and narrow and stop you hallucinating reviews and shows that are “unmissable!” The compromise element is that sometimes you can’t win every battle, it’s better to pick and choose what you’ll compromise on and give yourself more time to work on something else – after all time is finite.
So I drove over to Wales and the icy rain started to fall, literally rain with ice, as if rain alone wasn’t quite hardcore enough. It was with a little trepidation. When you start a new job you’re entering the unknown – what if they hate you, what if it’s awful, will it ever stop raining?!?
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Arts Marketing: Six things I wish I’d known…
I have been given two pieces of rock solid theatrical advice in the past 15 years and both I’ve used when directing shows. The first was from a now-acclaimed performer and creative who said the key to any show was to “get in quick, say what you have to say concisely and get out quick”. The second was from a brilliant and respected Artistic Director having a flippant moment with the brilliant “audiences will forgive a multitude of sins when you have a nice set”. The first I think applies to much in life and the second when put into the context of me being about to direct a show I’d written, rather galling. Both however were effective and have driven my logic around theatre, firstly that it’s about not wasting time and secondly it’s recognising that theatre is more than the words.
As many people now know I’m leaving Unity Theatre where I have spent the last 6 years as Marketing Manager. Inevitably as I wind down this part of my career to move onto a new and exciting future I start to think about the changes I’ve know, how they’ve effected me and what I wish I’d known 6 years ago when I started. With that in mind I thought I’d write down 6 things, not top tips (I’m not quite that arrogant) that I wish I’d been told at the start. If they’re useful please tweet me or comment at the bottom of the page.
This took me a long time to realise and it only really sank in when Paul Clay, a brilliant arts manager, said it to me. When I started I believed that I could turn everything around in a year, that everything that needed updating, systems replacing and ideas formulating, could be done in 12 short months. It doesn’t work like that. Good change, I think, is built brick by brick and not imported wholesale – especially when your organisation is not overburdened with cash. Unity’s website development took 3 years to reach where it is today – not perfect by a long stretch, but a mile away from where it started. Having a clear idea of the endgame is key, but it has to be tempered with reality. I had a running phrase with one of my Marketing Officers Paul (who is an amazing musician) that “This time next year it’ll all be perfect”. Invariably it wasn’t. We’d reach a year later and yes, by the standards of 12 months ago things had improved, our expectations had risen, meaning that we were looking for the next step rather than taking in the step we’d already taken.
I once had an argument where another arts marketeer described something I wrote as “awful”. I, internally, described them in slightly less pleasant terms and got wound up by it. There is no definitive rights or wrongs with creative (e.g. images, copy etc…). There are factor that effect its success; whether it speaks to your audience (which is different venue to venue), whether it fits your brand identity etc… but ultimately the mark of success is whether the show sold. I would also be wary of directors, actors and others who tell you that they’re the most qualified to write or create images. As a marketeer we are the ears and eyes of the public – we have to filter through the arts bullshit, through pretention, and find the gems, those bits that will relate to as wide an audience as possible and not just the people who work constantly in the arts, on shows or with other creatives. When you’re being concise and making a strong sell (or invitation) your role is to sell tickets and the brand. It’s okay to say that, well, actually noone has ever bought tickets because of the lighting designer or the DSM apart from family members (sometimes that can also extend to the writer and director) – people want to know what it’s about first, what it says second and who says it third (unless you’ve a star). Bare in mind that even as I write this I can remember exceptions to the rule – so also remain flexible.
As a final aside to this I am also of the opinion that “experience” can also be, on occasion renamed as “baggage”. Also just because you work in marketing or admin makes you no less or more a creative person than anyone who defines themselves as creative – it’s merely that they happen to be being creative differently – if they think they’re better than everyone because of it then be wary (or shoot to kill).
The point where something needs to be looked at is the point when someone says it doesn’t need to be (and also when they say it does too). There will be a moment when you’ve redone the website, sales are going well, the e-bulletin is hitting, social media is bobbing along and you’ve upgraded everything. Don’t stop. Don’t f**king stop. Start re-examining, don’t be satisfied with where you’re at, look to what’s next. Sometimes you have to experiment to try new things – we discover improvements by failing. If you’re trying new things and failing regularly, so long as you’re learning as you go and implementing those failures it’s no bad thing. Our aim is for long-term success not short-termism. A to-do list can be good for this (but also occasionally soul destroying).
This is a general thing. Management is about making systems work and managing them – leadership is about having vision, pushing in a direction and taking people with you. This can happen as a CEO or as an usher and anywhere in between. They’re different skill sets and they’re not always in Ben Hur type situations, but recognising these moment and supporting them and when other people are doing them can be really rewarding. Oh an shut up more. Let people talk. I don’t do that enough. Listen then speak. But obviously not everyone at the same time.
Those meetings where we all gather round to chat. It feels lovely and democratic, every opinion is heard, angles looked at. They are useful for an hour maximum – once a year – everyone can have 5 to 10 minutes – but invariably people leave disappointed if you don’t follow the path they suggest. There are things that need group chats and things that don’t – it takes a while to distinguish between the two and sometimes you’ll get it wrong – but I would encourage action in most situations rather than endless debate. Try it, get it wrong, learn from it. It’s faster and while you may occasionally look like a dick so long as you have humility occasionally it’ll be fine. Also, for some things people will never know. Changing how you write a mailing doesn’t need debate, just do it. Worse case scenario is that someone will get pissy with you. They’ll get over it.
Sometimes we forget we were employed because people believe in us, our skills, our opinions and our ability to make the right decision. I’ve had points where I thought “what the shit am I doing” and “am I making a terrible mistake”. Those doubts are natural. They make you redouble your checks and work harder to make things effective. There will be a point where you’re on the precipice (for me it was a new brochure design and rebranding), you’ve done the work. Jump.
Oh and have a marketing friend or friends. Ideally outside your organisation. Chew the fat with them. I go for cake with the brilliant Sarah Ogle and it’s amazing how just sharing an issue, frustration or an idea can lift a dark cloud or inspire a new thought.