Aligning the psychology of giving with the less glamorous side of showbiz

Relentlessly discussing the tough funding climate for the arts can feel like a broken record. Controversially perhaps, I’d say the arts often benefit from an element of struggle. However, on the scale from penniless rage and despair to wealthy smug complacency there’s a healthy middle ground, but we’re currently very far away from it.

There is no single culprit but rather a combination of factors responsible: the pandemic, conflict abroad, and the stability of the world’s most powerful countries.

The cost-of-living crisis means audiences book later and don’t take risks. Public funding dwindles in the face of more pressing needs. Expenditure has risen dramatically with National Insurance contribution increases, utility price hikes and increased cost of all food and materials.

In just two years set build costs alone have increased by around 30%. We run a lean operation – as all theatres do – but there’s only so much trimming of budgets that can be done.

Widening gap

At Park Theatre in north London we believe theatre is for everyone – and our mission is for accessibility in all senses of the word – in the stories we tell, in the physical building, and in the affordability of our tickets. Within this lies a strong commitment to community building through our offstage work – with young people, local partners and our flagship dementia-friendly programmes. Of course, all that costs money and, at our scale, subsidy of some kind is a necessity.

The widening gap between our income and expenditure leaves a £500,000 shortfall this year. Compared with a £300,000 shortfall two years ago, this is an alarming rate of increase. We have expanded our artistic programme to include comedy and kids shows, making the building work harder and ‘sweating our assets’ a little further.

We increase our prices but only so far that we won’t encounter resistance. But we have never received regular core funding from ACE or our local authorities, and not for want of trying. And as such we’ve had to develop some creative solutions to fundraise this startling amount annually in one of the most challenging of climates.

Operating at a deficit takes its toll

Our three main sources of fundraising are split as most are – individuals, trusts & foundations and galas/events. Individual donors are mostly part of our Friends scheme (our ‘Keepers’) at a range of levels. Trusts & foundations funding is hugely competitive but still possible, including small family trusts which support specific strands of work. Galas and events like An Evening With, are made possible by the generosity of the great and good in the industry. Of the £500,000 we need to raise, these sources meet just half.

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Whodunnit [Unrehearsed] at Park Theatre. Photo: Mark Douet

The deficit is made up in two ways. Our fundraising show Whodunnit [Unrehearsed] sees actors like Gillian Anderson, Emma Thompson, Adrian Lester, Sanjeev Bhaskar and David Baddiel don an earpiece and muddle their way through a comedy murder mystery. 2026 will be its fourth iteration and all the stars kindly give their time to support the charity. Because we bill this as a fundraising production we can charge significantly more, backfilling the hole from the previous financial year.

But we’re not able to project forward as much as we need – to grow and to invest in the future of the theatre. Operating as a ‘deficit year’ takes its toll.

We have experimented with ways to maximise regular giving at a micro level and have successfully managed to increase donations from ticket bookers on check out. The genesis of this was the realisation that audiences often have little idea of the true cost of putting on a play, and that those who are financially able to contribute more might well be happy to do so.  

A donation ‘slider’

We needed to design and build a mechanism to enable people to do just that. Basket donations generally garnered smaller amounts but didn’t really get the message across – not that your donation helps to provide additional activities but rather the price you’ve paid for your ticket is less than it costs. Your donation is a contribution towards this.

Within online booking, we devised messaging with a dropdown menu enabling visitors to add an optional £15 contribution or £30 to pay the full cost. Fascinatingly, even on higher priced shows, there were patrons who opted to pay an additional £30 on top of their ticket – proving that, given the choice, some who can afford to pay will happily support. But dropdown menus require more clicks, and we wanted the ‘user journey’ to be as easy as possible, and to pull any levers to encourage more people to engage.

This summer we launched a new website, from Cog Design. A key part of the brief was to create a donation ‘slider’ in the booking pathway. Instead of adding a basket donation, once a ticket is chosen, the buyer is presented with a slider showing the advertised price on the left and the full cost on the right. We decide on the preset amount. It means bookers don’t have to click a dropdown menu and, with the right messaging, may be inclined to leave the pre-set donation or even opt to increase it.

So far, we have increased in-basket donations by over 50%. If audiences nationwide were aware of the true costs of putting on shows and running buildings, it would be of benefit to the whole industry if other theatres were to get behind this idea. More people might donate. The alternative is bookers wondering why they are paying two pounds extra when they’ve already bought their ticket. It’s not rocket science – we’re simply aligning the psychology of giving with the less glamorous side of showbusiness.