Sam Freeman

Storytelling | Theatre | Arts Marketing

Author: Sam Freeman

  • Theatre Marketing – Getting Data Quickly

    Theatre Marketing – Getting Data Quickly

    We’ve all been in that meeting right? You know the one where 12 people are gathered round the table, slowly losing the will to live, while someone mutters the words ‘audiences’ in the middle distance. Occasionally someone will stir, breathing in a little too firmly as if about to make a valuable point, only the…

  • Building The Perfect Theatre Subscription

    Building The Perfect Theatre Subscription

    I like subscriptions – they’re great – one sale resulting in tickets sold for multiple performances. We’ve done them lots over the years – sometimes successfully, sometimes with minimal impact – but, if I’m honest, I’ve never given them the attention they deserve. So I started pondering how I could make them better. Not just…

  • 2024 Resolutions

    2024 Resolutions

    Hello there… (General Kenobi) It’s that time again where I look back over the last 12 months, lament the passing of time, realise I’ve not achieved half of what I was hoping to achieve and then write some new, equally unachievable resolutions for the new year. Or at least that’s how it usually goes. This…

  • Father Of A Boy – Wee in my face

    Father Of A Boy – Wee in my face

    I’m glad I wear glasses for many reasons. They make me look smarter than I actually am, I’ve never been hit in the face while wearing them and, like Clark Kent, when I don’t wear them (and combine them with a clean shave) then I can become entirely unrecognisable. But that’s not the reason that,…

  • Father Of A Boy – Sleep

    Father Of A Boy – Sleep

    We have a baby. I’m tired. But I’m not as tired as my partner. My partner who is getting up in the night to feed and comfort sometimes 8 or 9 times. Sometimes waking me for nappies, sometimes letting my troubled sleep continue. 11pm to 5am is the witching hour – time passes in slow…

  • Father Of A Boy – Birth

    Father Of A Boy – Birth

    I’m now a dad. I’m not really one for big announcements when real life stuff happens to me (it’s different when it’s work), but largely I keep myself to myself. But I thought I’d share this – sometimes you have a life event so huge that, for me, it feels like writing about it helps…

  • Arts Marketing: Come and work with me?

    Arts Marketing: Come and work with me?

    This is an unusual blog for me. Usually I’m writing about arts marketing ideas I’ve had, or something to do with graphs & data, maybe even some ticketing type geekery. This isn’t that. It’s a plea and sales pitch. I’m looking for a Head Of Marketing to join our team at Theatr Clwyd, it’s an…

  • Tour Autopsy: Every Time I Close My Eyes

    Tour Autopsy: Every Time I Close My Eyes

    I’ve been touring my second storytelling show over the last month or so – Every Time I Close My Eyes (All I See Is You). Regular readers will know this is my second tour (the autopsy of that tour is here) and I like to take a little bit of time to evaluate what I’ve…

  • Portrait of a shark by a fictional marketeer.

    Portrait of a shark by a fictional marketeer.

    Beginning: What’s the point in a house style? I saw a tweet from a clearly pissed off creative the other week lamenting the arts marketing team of a theatre forcing their brand’s house style on their show image. I’m going to be really up front and say that in my professional career while I’ve been…

  • Arts Marketing: Jack Of All, Master Of None

    Arts Marketing: Jack Of All, Master Of None

    A lot of people have been visiting my blog recently. This is unusual. This isn’t a popular blog. And look, I’ll be honest, I think I prefer it a bit more exclusive. I’ve had international visitors, well, rather visitor, someone in Ashburn in Virginia is obsessed with this blog (48 visits since January). They’re even…

  • Exploring Data: Show Search

    Exploring Data: Show Search

    I’ve been writing arts marketing blog posts for what feel like a long time now. I decided in my 2023 New Year’s Resolutions to make a few changes to how and why I write them. Increasingly I felt like I wasn’t saying or doing anything particularly original – instead merely regurgitating some version of what…

  • 2023 Resolutions

    2023 Resolutions

    Welcome back annual readers. Another year on the slow march towards our terminal decline. Another year where I check all the stuff I didn’t do in 2022 then make equally unrealistic plans for 2023. I always start by evaluating my 2022 resolutions then move on to 2023 – enjoy x 2022 Resolutions Write a new…

  • Arts Marketing: Visualising Your Data

    Arts Marketing: Visualising Your Data

    A horrific injury I cut my thumb open cutting an onion this evening. Blood absolutely everywhere. Carnage. I was making a lovely Indian dish (recipe stolen from Gusto) with finely sliced onion. What makes it worse is that I was doing the chef impression that I do when I think no one’s looking. You know,…

  • Arts Marketing: what to measure, why and how

    Arts Marketing: what to measure, why and how

    An introduction where I mention my holiday. I’ve been for a relaxing holiday. ‘It’ll be great’ I was told by colleagues, ‘clear your mind’ they said, ‘don’t even think about what’s happening back here’ they reiterated. And it was a great holiday – relaxing, stress-free and calming – we went to Murcia in Spain where…

  • A New Storytelling Show

    A New Storytelling Show

    Over the last 6 months I’ve been writing, creating and then filming a new storytelling show. If you saw my last show Every Little Hope You Ever Dreamed (But Didn’t Want To Mention) then the style and feel will be familiar. The story however is a bit different. I wanted to try something a bit…

  • Arts Marketing: Are Offers Always Bad?

    Arts Marketing: Are Offers Always Bad?

    A continuation in my current series of posts on pricing, offers and ticketing with a robust aim of allowing to to procrastinate long enough to avoid thinking about the thing I’m definitely meant to be doing (new show). As always, tweet me, like, share and message if this is useful! Best, Sam A Whimsical Opening…

  • Arts Marketing – Pricing Solutions for Potential Problems

    Arts Marketing – Pricing Solutions for Potential Problems

    This is another of my slightly shorter blog posts about arts marketing – again, time dictates I can’t write the mega 5k word epics that I used to churn out semi-regularly. After my last pricing post was hawked around the internet by TRG I thought I’d write something even more niche to really quell any…

  • Arts Marketing: The Potential For AI Images

    Arts Marketing: The Potential For AI Images

    I’ve been writing a lot of long, long, long blog posts recently about arts marketing (see A Beginner’s Guide To Theatre Pricing and 50 Easy-To-Do Tips). They take me a while to write, partially because I like to write stuff that I think will genuinely be of value, but mostly because they’re rammed full of…