One Producer in the City

Let's do an experiment...

Recently I have been fascinated with how the internet has been responsible for incredible shifts in power and market share and what's most fascinating to me of all is the concept that with the right platform a small fraction can institute a paradigm shift.

So I want to do an experiment and I hope those of you reading this will join me, because I feel it will be informative for all of us. I want to see if the Theatre blogging community, readers and bloggers alike, can cause something beyond ourselves to happen, just by building buzz. I'm going to give it a week and see what happens and carefully collect the data. All the info on the experiment is below. Get those goggles on. This should be fun.

We're going to take fellow blogger Leonard Jacobs of The Clyde Fitch Report and see if we can make the same thing happen for him that happened for Betty White:

Some Facebook fans felt Betty White should host Saturday Night Live. In one month, a million folks signed a petition- Now the 88-year old start will co host SNL on May 8th

So we're going to do the same type of campaign. Here's how:

1) Visit WNET’s Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/wnet-thirteen.

2) Click on “Become a Fan” up top.

3) Paste a message onto WNET’s wall using one of the options below.

Option 1: Why does WNET “Need to Know” Leonard Jacobs? Because he's an especially fine culture reporter with great on-camera chops. Watch his media reel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxLwLwy9j7I.

Option 2: How could WNET “Need to Know” Leonard Jacobs? Easy -- visit his website, The Clyde Fitch Report, at www.clydefitch.com.

Option 3:When should WNET “Need to Know” Leonard Jacobs? When he's representing liberals at Fox News -- on the live-streaming show "The Strategy Room."

Option 4: What does WNET “Need to Know” about Leonard Jacobs? That he's a smart, savvy culture reporter, writer and editor. He’s what “Need to Know” is all about.

Now here's the REALLY important part: Only paste once and see if you can get others to paste. If you paste multiple times yourself, it's just spamming and that doesn't teach us anything.

So there you have it. Will we make any significant shift? I'll check in with Leonard throughout the month and see.

The other very interesting part of this experiment for me is all about how many of us can be spurred into action when the benefit is for someone other than ourselves?

Are we willing to give the kind of gifts that Godin talks about in Linchpin and are we willing to expend the emotional labor when we don't expressly benefit?

Does unbridled generosity pay off when using an internet platform?

Tune in for the findings!

Excelsior!

What's in a name?

How about 38M?

        We've all heard it said that your title is the number one thing that sells your show. Well below is a story about a how an entrepreneur used his title to grow his business. I think every producer out there could learn a lot from this video as well as the other videos on his website. So here on the blog, for the first time ever is an embedded video for you to watch and I'll see you all next year.

Excelsior!

How I built my first company from Andrew Warner on Vimeo.

What's your story?

So let' say you have a show that goes up in a number of weeks and you really want it to get out there. You hire a great PR person, you buy thousands of postcards, you send messages to everyone you know and you still get almost no press. What do you do?

Fire your PR person?

Cry?

Spend even more money?

Climb the NY Times building?

Nope.

You identify what your story is.

Nobody in the press or media world cares that you're putting on a show you love. There are plenty of people putting on a show they love. Nobody really cares if your playwright's a new guy or girl and this is his/her first play. Michael Riedel isn't going to come knocking to comment on your artistic progress on a show that you wrote with your weed smoking roommate who's sleeping with your best friend's girlfriend (unless of course any of the aforementioned have a Broadway credit that fits snugly above the title somewhere) Start with this:

Nobody cares. I need to make them care.

What does that mean?

Have a story. That's right. Think of what it is that is actually worthy of print in your work. We all love a story. It's what producing is built on and I would argue that a good story is ultimately what sells a show once your done spending all that money on your marketing. Now your story may not be for everybody. That's good. You want to have a target audience, a small group of passionate people who will fuel the word of mouth to move your show to the next level. Take a minute today to think about your current project. What's the story? What would the press be interested in talking about? We got a bunch of blog hits as well as some interview requests when we broke this story.

Why?

It's something to talk about.

So what's your story? Everyone's waiting...

Now go out and get some ink!

Excelsior!

Being spoiled

So here's what I don't get. When somebody offers you the opportunity for free promotion of your show, why is it that people still say no?

I recently reached out to a few theatre companies to cross promote our upcoming production. (January 20th-24th -- info is below and, if you're a blog reader, I have free seats for you at our preview on the 19th -- but more on that later.)

Most were happy to get extra exposure through Facebook, permission marketing email blasts, my blog, BroadwaySpace, Squidoo,GoingNYC our programs, industry mailings, etc. but I actually had one respond that they were already doing cross promotion with some other shows and turned this down. I tried to think why there are companies that do this and I came to one simple conclusion.

Somewhere along the line they were spoiled.

They either sold out a show because there were 20 people in their cast, or they know someone with a name, or they got most of their funding from a few wealthy parents. When you get lucky and you win a lot it's hard to imagine not winning but, let me tell you, when you lose after that streak it hits hard.

If someone is offering you free promotion, even if you have 6 other companies offering the same, take every one and use those channels. Nobody can afford to be spoiled in this business. Just imagine if you turned down someone who later ended up producing here.

How do you think they might react three years down the line when you came and asked them for something?

Thinking you don't need people in marketing a show is death and if you keep that attitude, soon nobody's going to want to come over and play.

And speaking of Death.....

Come see him in person at our next production!

Bethany Basile and Small Pond Entertainment Present
FICTIVE KINSHIP by Pip Ngo
Jan 20th-24th at 7:00 pm, Jan 24th at 1:00 pm
The 14th Street Y Theater
$20 tickets at the door, $15 with a reservation
Please make reservations at [email protected]

This intimate show written by a young playwright is perfect for a generation that is clamoring for political change. Through comedic antics reminiscent of Monty Python and Woody Allen, Fictive Kinship weaves a tale about political ambition and coming of age that's sure to reach the college graduate who's just starting to make life changing decisions or the young CEO who's about to make the biggest decision of his/her life. Presented in the beautiful little-known theater that lurks in the 14th St Y, director Krysta Gonzalez uses colors and flavors dark comedy has never seen.

Tom the self-made boy-wonder politician is haunted by Death, who's a bit more irritating than he is scary. With death tempting suicide at every turn of his campaign, it's increasingly hard to become the youngest mayor of the conservative town of East Platte. In the heat of the race, rumors begin to swirl around his fiancée's miscarriage and his embellishments about his past. His new imaginary friend seems to have the ultimate solution. Will he live to see his family thrive in a humble place like East Platte or will he lose it all? Fictive Kinship is one man's power struggle between his career, love, family, the Grim Reaper, and dead babies.

The production team has been working for over a year to turn what began as a final project at the Experimental Theater Wing into a off-off Broadway production. Much like their over achieving protagonist, recent NYU graduates Pip Ngo, playwright, and Bethany Basile, executive producer, have been writing together for 3 years. "It's become a labor of love for us, but it will be one of many." They have teamed up with Michael Roderick of Small Pond Entertainment, a theatre arts organization that seeks to educate and provide opportunities and outlets for shaping a new generation of creative talent. "All of us have the intention of getting our talent, in all areas of the production, out there and not even a depression can stop us."-Bethany

If you're a blog reader, comment and you get free tickets to our preview performance on the 19th!!!

Excelsior!

Step on the wall

When I was a kid, I loved the kiddie pool. You all remember this. It was this pool that fit in a box and the coolest thing about it was that all you did was fill it with water, and all of a sudden you had this complete structure. There was no building involved and you had a great way to cool down on a summer's day. One of my favorite things to do with the kiddie pool happened at the end of the day. When we were done and we were ready to pack the pool up, I loved stepping on one of the sides of the pool and letting all of the water rush out over my feet. Nothing felt neater than stepping on the wall. But imagine if I never did that. The water would stay in there and eventually, if enough people used the pool, it would empty itself out over time. If your show is that kiddie pool, here's why you should step on the wall:

When you build a show it is just like taking the kiddie pool out of the box and setting it up. The sides are really flimsy and it's tough to keep the structure. This is your pre-show period: you're getting all of your paperwork done, teching, etc. Then you get audiences in for previews; this is filling the pool with water. You market usually to a target group and if all goes well, that group fills your house and now the walls of your pool are sturdy and people can swim. Here's where a lot of people make mistakes.

Remember how I said that if I left the pool alone, most of the water would stay in for now, but eventually it would empty out? If you stay with your target market, you've got a full pool but the more people splash, the less full the pool is and eventually you'll run really low. Then your sales drop and you end up in trouble. That's why when my pool is full, I step on the wall. I promote my show to a different market. Maybe I send to a different age bracket, or a different experience-base, but I send it out to someone new because my core people can't sustain it forever. Remember that no matter how big your following is, they do eventually get tired of showing up. Then, you better find a new following or you're gonna be sitting in the empty pool all by yourself.

So go on.....

Step on the wall.

Excelsior!
______________________________________________________________________________________

The ER:

ZERO received a significant bump in tickets from all of the e-blasts. The real question is how long do they sustain the show? I look at an e-blast as a defibrillator. You can shock a show back to life, but something has to keep the heart beating. So producers, who has suggestions for the show to keep on going? I'll give a pair of tickets to the next Small Pond show to the first three people who comment.

If folks can wait, they will

In this industry, we have very interesting phenomenon behind any event that is created. Be it show, fundraiser, dance concert, or gathering, one thing is certain:

We always wait to see what others will say.

The challenge here is that if a show only runs one weekend, then most people don't show up until the last show because they are waiting to get feedback. Often, press people will warn that you can't get reviewed unless your show runs three weeks but the Catch 22 is often that your third week is the week when your sales are highest, so you can barely afford to run those three weeks. So the question then lies in how we can combat this mentality.

One way is to suggest the fact that there won't be enough seats and that people need to buy NOW or they'll be left out but then you run up against the people who will argue that if it's sold out this week, they always have next week, etc.

This seems to happen across the board. One time events, 3 week runs, 7 week runs, open-ended runs, etc.  Producers end up really struggling as a result of this, so again I'm turning to you the readers of this blog and asking for your feedback. Why do you wait? What keeps you from coming? Is there a way we can fix this problem?

I ask this because I'm watching a lot of shows struggle right now and I'm interested to see how many of them can be affected by the changes we institute as an industry.

So here's what I want to do:

I'm going to create a show E.R. at the bottom of this blog every day. If your show is struggling, comment here and let's see if any of the readers can help light a fire. Heck, even if your show isn't struggling but you're not getting the crowd you're used to, comment and we'll see what we can do. I have close to 200 people reading this now, if half that crowd came to one of the shows, we'd have a sold out house for someone. So let's hear it producers. What are you working on?

The E.R.'s open.

Who's in?

Excelsior!

Carrying out your "sentence"

If you want to see some really good marketing, check out the comic book section at your local book store. The comic book industry has a lot to teach us about grabbing the attention of your consumers and about getting a great sales pitch across. How?

Brevity.

Think about this symbol. How many films, foods, and actors came to mind the second you saw it? Comics build brands like no one else and the images stick with us, end up on t-shirts, hats, etc. So here's a fun little exercise. Think about your show as if it were a comic book.

Now before you laugh and say I'm obsessed -- let's face it, I am -- I want you to think about what the creation of a comic book forces you to do. I use this activity with my students when we do Shakespeare because you have to take the entire essence of the story and boil it down to one cover page and then a series of panels to tell us about each act. It forces you to make choices about what's important because you can't fit it all, and frankly your reader won't pay attention that long. So you need something quick to hook them, then get them to read.  Then you have to leave it off on a cliff hanger so that people want to buy the next issue. Now, I would posit that you have to do the same thing with your show and it starts with a sentence.

Think about this. You may be at a party and get a few minutes to tell a potential investor about your show. You only have a few minutes, and they're on their way out the door. You need to tell them quickly what they're in for. Think about the front of that comic book. What's that line that would get that person to take things off the shelf and read?

If you can distill your show into one sentence or one logo, you can talk about it quickly anytime, anywhere. The trick is making that sentence stand out. What makes it appeal to everyone else? Is it the color? Is your show purple? A great exercise is going to the store and seeing which comic is selling off the shelves. Why does it call for people's attention? Look at the wording, etc. I can bet that a lot of thought went into developing that one sentence.

I'll give you a few examples of one sentence pitches I've used in the past and a preview of the things I'm going to be involved with.  Feel free to comment and tell me which interest you. Ready, here we go:

One author's book signing on Family and Faith leads to his eventual deterioration and an admission of dark secrets.

A love story set against the backdrop of 9/11 where we learn what it truly means to be alone

Sunday in the Park with George meets Weird Science

Hopeville will be all right

One woman wants to bring the future faster and the man she loves would rather stay in the present alone in his room with his guitar.

There you have it folks. Would you pull any of these off the shelves? Feel free to send along your sentences. Sometimes that's all we get to sell the product. C'mon.

Just do it!

Excelsior!

Sold out? Impossible!

So first things first, people have started to comment on yesterday's post and I'm getting some great feedback. I hope those of you who are reading this take a minute to post a comment and I plan on having a response to the comments in the coming weeks. Now on to today's topic.

I've started to think about why shows sell out and why that situation is about as rare as this, and the more I think about it, the more I realize that more market research has to be done on what causes a show to sell out. So my hope is that we achieve at least one sold out performance of this show, this weekend and that I can gather some data from that. In the meantime, I'd like to invite folks to comment on how they had a sold out show. The best stories submitted I'll feature on this blog and perhaps we can all learn how to achieve the same results for our projects.

I've been bringing up a lot of things and I'm really interested in hearing what you all have to say.

Excelsior!

Nobody puts Mikey in the corner

So about a week ago I got a call from my mother who asked me how things were in Rochester. When I asked how she knew what I had been up to, she replied: "I goggled you and found your blog." I believe she was referring to Google unless there's a new website that uses the mispelling to reach out to all those who mispronounce the name ;)

If you're reading this mom, I love you.

Seriously though, in the world of marketing, you should get a call from your mom about your product and if it seems like you're not hearing from a lot of people about your current or future projects, you may be stuck in a corner. Now what do I mean by being stuck in a corner? Well, there are numerous ways to get your name out there and if you're only using one, odds are the only people who will see you are the people that go to that website. That website is your corner of the web and only those who choose to venture there will know about you, your show, or what you have to offer. Wanna know if you're in a corner?

GOOGLE YOURSELF

See what comes up. If it takes forever to find any info about you then you may not have the outreach you think you do. Also Google your company and you'll see how many places it is featured and know your outreach there as well. This blog may be my corner of the web, but try Googling the name and you'll see the number of results. So how does all of this work?

Get out of the corner.

I'm currently represented on:BroadwaySpace, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, My Company's website,The Indie Theatre website, as well as linked to another blog for producers, a blog for actors, and a blog network on Facebook.

These are just a few of the corners that I inhabit and you can bet I post updates on them as much as possible.

So get out there! Find some blogs to join, join some social networking sites, and even start a blog of your own and, if you do, ask me to link to it because the more places you are the more likely you won't be left in the corner and if your show is selling and going well and your company is known, then this is the kind of time you'll be having.

Excelsior!

"I see you shiver with antici...pation"

Remember going to this show at midnight? Well this line came to mind when I started to think about some of the most effective marketing I've seen lately. I'm referring to posters like this one, that tell you very little about the product but make you curious as to what it is.

Every year I travel to see my friend Lenny's shows in RI no matter how booked I am for the weekend and every year he uses the same marketing technique with me. I ask him what the show is about and he replies, "You gotta come and see it. I really can't explain" and then I'm hooked. The anticipation of wondering what the show will be gets me on the train year after year. Now that's due largely to the fact that Lenny turns out a solid project every time, but there's a lesson to be learned here:

DON'T TELL US TOO MUCH

There's a reason that movie posters use one sentence to get us to come and see the show. We live in a hectic world where people don't have a lot of time on their hands to pay attention to our shows, so we often get about one second to hook them. The trick is to get your audience curious about your product and that often means holding back. We all are excited about our work, but if we tell everyone the whole story right away then there's no reason to come and see the show. So the next time you have a show on your hands, think about what you can do to make it a little more mysterious. Sometimes it's as simple as only giving somebody the title. Some examples of great titles that worked in selling shows for me include:

Liberty and Joe Dimaggio

Live! Nude! Girl!

The Latchkey Pool

Props

Hot Cripple

Try to tell me that you weren't curious about any of those titles.

You can also use one or two lines from the show to build people's interest and if the line catches on, you can put it on t-shirts, hats, etc. A great example of this is Ken Davenport's "Ask me about My First Time" buttons.

So the next time you want to tell the world about every element of your show, take a step back. Sometimes, less really is more. Choose wisely and your audience will shiver with anticipation.

And that means more people buying tickets thanks to less talk about the product.

Excelsior!