Book and Pray – a challenge for small venues and audiences

Chris Grady runs CGO Institute supporting and training creative producers of the future after 40+ years working in the marketing and management of theatres and festivals. He works with UK and International producers forging connections and increasing awareness of different creative landscapes. 

He has previously written for Mobius about the importance of nuturing young creatives which you can read here.

In this blog he looks at the danger of venues not realising that shows need local deep narrowcast marketing, and however dedicated, touring marketing folk can't replace that on the ground knowledge. 

I was chatting with a SPA (self producing artist) who had recently toured a new play to a group of small and midscale venues usually for one or at best two performances in each theatre. One or two were well resourced whilst others were clearly trying to balance a huge variety of events with a minimal staff and time.

As we talked the term “Book and Pray” came to mind which is meant realistically, kindly, and in no way to challenge venues or their hard working dedicated staff.  But as someone who has been a marketing manager and venue manager in the past, and now supports and mentors similar individuals in the present, I can see three interlinking problems which have got worse in the last 10 years – and were becoming a challenge 20-30 years ago.

A) There is a fear of engaging a company for a week or even a split week because of the cost and reducing audiences.

B) The mix of narrow cast marketing (really targeting those who might love this event) and word of mouth has been fractured because shows are not now running for a week or even split week.

C) The building of a loyal audience has itself been fractured by not having a marketing or management team deeply embedded in the community who can make people feel trust in the programme and the building, and there are so many different events booked in that it is harder for the audience to have a loyalty to a venue.

There are many other factors, and many theatres where they have a continuing customer loyalty/ownership and a marketing & management team who really know that audience.  

But some shows seem to be engaged on a Book and Pray basis. The tour booker and manager agree that the show could/should work at the venue. For safety they book it for just one night removing any chance of word of mouth. And the marketing person/people are left with multiple one-nighters to sell in a single month where, in the past, they might have had 4-6 full or split week shows.

Alongside this, funding bodies and ecological supporters are quite rightly wanting Slow Touring.

It needs someone/some body, and I feel it could be the funding bodies (like ACE or Local Authorities/City Councils), to reverse the ever damaging cycle of shorter runs with a long term strategy.

Otherwise SPAs and the non-celebrity events will suffer at venues from minimal marketing, because the focus is on the big names or the big risks.  Audiences will continue to miss events they would love to have attended if it was still playing.  Venues will not build the loyal audience which is out there, who will not be the word-of-mouth team they can be.

I have three (and there will be dozens) ideas for practical steps:

1) ACE/Local Authority to engage regional marketing officers (again) who can work with venues in building the core audiences. [If we give time for the low hanging fruit to buy tickets, then we can spend our effort on drawing down the harder to reach customers]

2) Venue managers bring their marketing person up to Senior Management Level and having more conversations between this vital double act, and with box office, on what shows to book and whether, by going into the Stretch but not the Panic zone, they could have each company for 1 or even 2 more performances.

3) Building deeper relationships with companies and SPAs who are in the area or wish to work in the region/community. Looking over 2-3 years on building return visits, a parallel community engagement programme, a special loyalty scheme.   The old Subscription Schemes which worked for almost all UK reps in the 80s-90s are long gone in most places – but they rewarded audiences who chose to try 3-4 or more shows in a season. Not necessarily money off – but chances to meet the company or see dress rehearsals or have priority seats.

Marketing personnel know how to do it. They know how to create audience profiles and persona/character maps. They know how to read audience data and consider how to reach both existing and new audiences. They know how to “narrowcast” but it takes time. So often I sense I am seeing a hard working person/s really only able to do the “broadcast” promotion – the brochure, posters, some generic social media. This may seem quicker because you are selling 5-6 shows at once, but it is not focussed and personal.

From the very first TMA Marketing Manuals in 1976 there has been a gathering of shared wisdom.  There is wonderful data on audiences which is often hidden from the SPA or small visiting company under the get-out clause of GDPR.  These are customers who have bought shows and shown their interest. We have box office systems which can give us the help we need to reach them. Whilst also showing who is not being reached.

Maybe Mobius and other “rival” companies could bond together and make a list of amazing good practice across venues and companies, helping build a strategy for reversal of the one-night-stand trend.

If any managers just Book and Pray my fear is that their prayers may not be answered. Instead please slow down, book shows for longer, work with the senior management marketing team to grow audiences, and build slow touring opportunities with deeper engagement with the SPAs and small companies.  

A lot is possible with some great ideas and talented marketing & venue management folk with time to do their job.

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Feel free to get in touch if you're looking for regional marketing for an upcoming tour or project.

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