Box office and child/adult led marketing

This group discussion on 18th February raised a lot of issues familiar to us all but also some interesting questions and opportunities.  We covered a lot of ground - the main points are outlined below.

Ticket prices

As we all know it doesn’t stack up.  The cost of staging work (staffing/production costs etc) is the same for as work for adults but the box office yield is lower. Will pushing up ticket prices boost attendance rather than reduce it?  The cost of the ticket is an indicator of the quality of the experience.  However there is a tension between this and needed to remain inclusive to audiences with lower incomes.  We need to:

• Secure additional subsidy for work for children
• To be bolder and more confident about ticket pricing
• To find ways to ensure audiences are not prevented from attending due to economical reasons.
• Think about concession rate tickets - tickets are often priced with the adult ticket more expensive than a child ticket.  This gives out the message that the adult is more important than the child.  If the show has been made for children then the adult should be the concession ticket!    

People are prepared to pay more for big “family shows” pantomimes or extravaganzas what is it that drives this decision?  We need to:

• Be more confident about our work.
• Find ways to get across the message that small scale work for families can offer a valuable, enriching experience often more affecting/intimate and high quality than some commercial shows on offer.
• Provide quality work – music gig attendance and film attendance figures are all up so if the work is good people will pay to come and see it.

Schools audiences

Schools audiences reduce ticket yields but audiences are quicker to book as one teacher makes a decision for over 30 ticket sales where as with family audiences it takes many adults to generate similar sales.

There is question around curriculum links – work sells that is marketed with explicit benefits for schools.  However, is it possible to market any piece of work with some link the curriculum or other? Marketing work as such can then alienate family audiences so this is also a consideration.

Press

Editorial is very anti children as they are not the key audience.  Lots of reviews just don’t run and coverage on work for children doesn’t bring in advertising.  However print is not the only medium and in America local press publications are dying out.  The web is a key development in the future of information sharing and engagement.

Online marketing

There are exciting possibilities through web marketing especially for young people but many young children are also competent web users.  Historically marketing has been pushing out messages to passive audiences.  Now online audiences are far more active and make decisions from other peoples recommendations.  There are huge possibilities for marketing to family audiences through forums like mumsnet.co, beebo, children’s networks.  Through plugging into these networks you can make quick and easy connections and engage people to twitter and spread word of mouth.

Live verses digital

With film audiences children are the ones to make decision.  With live performance it is adults.  Film has the benefit of huge advertising budgets and therefore brand recognition.  We need to find ways to:

• Celebrate the uniqueness of live performance – you can replicate it as you can film/music, it is a one off shared experience.