I’ll be honest, I hate having to publicize my shows. Probably because by the time I get round to the task I’m too exhausted to really care, although I know I should be putting a ton of effort into it. Publicizing stuff is hard. There’s a reason working on publicity is a full time job itself. It’s not just the – relatively simple – stuff of traipsing round a city harassing people to put up your posters that will probably be covered over in a couple of days, there’s a bunch of other stuff to consider too.
How do we target our audience? Who is our audience? Where do they live/hang out/work? How do we get their attention? Where should we send our press release? Then there’s the big demon of social media engagement. What, really, does that even mean? Because I don’t think I, or any theatre/arts business have really figured it out yet. I know, I just know, it is a great source for engaging potential audience members and theatre friends in chat about your work – used correctly it’s like being in Starbucks having a good old chatter, right? I don’t know, I just find myself sitting up late at night scheduling tweets and blog posts and feeling like I’m banging on about the show to no-one in particular as my words get lost in the ether.
Publicity is hard, and maybe we put too much into it and care too much about it. That, however, is due to the ridiculous expense of putting on a show and how much I desperately want to make the money back so the programs don’t get cut. I’ve said it before but really, it all needs to be less about money, (sigh).
Act Out 