Hello, my lovely readers! I hope that you all enjoyed my previous post about child actors in theatre. This time I’m focusing on the production/promotion aspects of a show. Now, this is from what I have learned over the years and from talking to people who are very knowledgeable about this subject..
When a show is prepping for a Broadway opening producers look for ways to sell the show so they can draw audiences in, convincing them to buy a ticket. A billboard in Times Square, advertisements around the city in subway stations, bus stops and atop of taxis as well as TV spots and a Twitter and Facebook Pages are all very common and useful for shows. For some shows that is all they need, as they might have gotten great reviews, which make for great pull quotes in advertisements or they might have a big celebrity that is drawing hoards of people in.
For most shows however it’s not that easy, unfortunately not every show is as popular as Book of Mormon and Evita. Like I stated above most shows have a Facebook fanpage and a Twitter account. How each show uses theirs is different but some really utilize this social networking tool, providing their followers with trivia and contests for a chance to win free tickets and merchandise. This helps the get the word around about the show in a day where social media is prominent and the free goodies are a nice little plus.
When you are in Times Square you always seem to see people dressed up trying to give you flyers to a show right? Well those people are part of the street team for a certain show who walk around Times Square possibly singing and/or dancing while handing out flyers to usually have a discount printed on them to possible patrons. This is common with both new shows and long running ones like Chicago who will gladly inform tourists who aren’t that familiar with theatre about their show, ticket pricing etc.
Now is there some show out there that does a totally different take on this-absolutely, it’s the recently closed revival of Godspell. Godspell took a completely different take while promoting the show making them stand out in that aspect. From the get go they had fun, catchy tweets about the different cast members and further into the shows run near their closing date they rolled out a bunch of new advertising/promotions in attempt to draw a crowd. The show was struggling and they desperately needed to sell more seats. So, they used different techniques from the Godspell Cast of 2032 night, Godspell Easter Egg Hunt, pay your age night and fan appreciation days (with pizza and fun prizes). Now, why offer these events, which usually included ways to get discounted tickets when the production was on the brink on closing? It’s to keep the show talked about on the theatre websites with their special events nights and as a method to hopefully draw you back again or to tell a family member or a good friend about it so that way they will buy a full-priced ticket.
You might be wondering why I am going on and on about a shows advertising and promotional methods when it did not help the show. The answer is simple, the show was unfortunately not doing well with or without these special events, but it is something that lots of shows can take a page from. When these events happened they created buzz and were talked about and other shows can learn from it as Godspell opened up a different way of promoting a new show that not only makes theatre more accessible to some but creates some more hype for a show in a different and creative way. So, I end this with a thank you to the producing/ promotion team and everyone else that was involved in these truly spectacular Godspell events you all are amazing!
Bwaygirl828
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