Duncan May reveals how a structured approach to promotional activity enables Ambassador Theatre Group to sustain a commitment to excellent theatre alongside commercial success.
Scotland?s most successful pantomime ever has just closed at Glasgow?s 100 year-old 1,800-seat gloriously be-cherubed and fruity Matcham King?s Theatre, which has been part of Ambassador Theatre Group (ATG) since September last year. Aladdin starring Elaine C Smith and Gerard Kelly, attracted an audience in excess of 100,000 people and grossed comfortably over £1m. We do nothing that you will find remarkable or revolutionary to promote a £1m pantomime - or indeed any large show in a large theatre. All we do is devote adequate resources and thoroughness to the job and, absolutely crucially I believe, we are totally committed to the broadest life of the theatre alongside its commercial success.
Be on sale
Our pantomime for next Christmas, Sleeping Beauty, is about to go on sale, but next year we aim to be promoting the following year?s pantomime to audiences as they leave the theatre. There is no substitute for getting the marketing message across and being on sale as early as possible. At the moment we have a continuous season available for purchase to mid-June. Along with Sleeping Beauty we should have the majority of late 2003 on sale by next month. Every morning all ATG theatres? advance sales figures are distributed throughout the company. We continuously re-evaluate generic and individual show campaigns in the light of the previous day?s movement and its relationship to the financial deal made with the producer.
Using print
The King?s Glasgow and all other ATG regional theatres produce three seasonal brochures per year: the summer in February, the autumn in June and the new year in October. In our case this brochure is a 24-page A5 booklet with a print run of 150,000, mailed to 90,000, with the remainder intensively distributed within a 45 minute drive of the venue. The show-by-show sales advance is built around the strategic sales and marketing measures published within and supporting each seasonal brochure.
Making friends
We aim to have between five and six thousand Friends involved with a theatre of the size of the King?s. Overseen by a Development Manager, Friends of the King?s pay upwards of £15 per year to receive priority brochure mailings, top level priority booking over the first couple of weeks, strategic ticket discounts, special events and newsletters. The primary objective is not to generate development revenue (though that in itself is most welcome) but to build loyalty and frequency. First nights should be full without fail, and the theatre has identified its most loyal customers for future reference and for promotion to a higher level of membership. At my last venue, the couldn?t-be-more-different four year old glass and concrete Milton Keynes Theatre, there are several hundred of these higher level members who are offered the additional benefits of an exclusive bar and dazzlingly meticulous priority personal service. Fifty corporate members enjoy similar privileges. Glasgow needs a touch of refurbishment before either scheme could be launched here.
Group sales
Groups account for around forty per cent of Glasgow?s pantomime business and thirty per cent of Milton Keynes? overall business. At the King?s we have eight part-time District Publicity Assistants (DPAs) covering the theatre?s catchment from Ayr to Stirling and from Helensburgh to Biggar, offering theatre talks and backstage tours and relentlessly promoting group rates and personal service to the 2.5 million people within easy travelling distance. They have a secondary responsibility to maintain and monitor print distribution within their patch. We have a dedicated Group Sales department handling the resulting business. The DPAs? work complements that of the Education Officer who fosters relationships with schools and devises workshops and other supporting activities. There is a further, often forgotten, compelling reason to vigorously pursue group sales. Many people are persuaded by a friend or colleague as a group organiser to make their first theatre visit in years. If they have a good time, they will book again on their own account and without the incentive of a discount.
Going public
Two or three weeks after priority bookings open we open booking to the general public, including Internet and Ticketmaster 24-hour sales. Former ticket buyers and those on the mailing list will have received their brochures long ago. They are immediately invited to join the Friends for instant priority booking and discounts - or to wait in a queue with everyone else later. This is also the point at which the theatre?s Press Officer can get to work on promoting the new season and individual shows.
The final push
Once established, all of the above should generate over half of our business and encourage repeat attendance. If only that was enough. In a large and vibrant city like Glasgow there are many other excellent ways to spend an evening?s leisure. So late and last minute booking means that a commitment to competitive advertising - press, radio and outdoor - is an unavoidable part of the marketing mix. However we try to make this business supplementary and think of it as bonus income: a theatre that relies on late booking and, worse still, regular tactical discounting, is on a downward spiral.
And does it always work? Sadly not. In the four or so years I have worked for ATG I have experienced at least one, nameless (it knows who it is, and we probably put it on sale too late) show that lost us around £25,000 in one week. We all know that sometimes you just can?t give it away. But it is remarkable just what is possible, week in week out, with an adequately resourced firm strategic commercial grounding and an audience that is properly connected to a theatre that has been given a heart and soul.
Duncan May is Head of Marketing and Development at the King?s Theatre, Glasgow. e: duncanmay@theambassadors.com
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