Oliver Lansley - How to promote your show!
Who: Oliver Lansley
What: Performer, Writer, Producer, Director
Where: England, UK
1. What do you see as your biggest challenge in producing your show?
The first and most boring challenge is always financial. As a company we don’t receive any official funding. Plus for me it’s always important when producing a show that the money ins match the outs - This may sound like an obvious thing but the funding system in the UK means that so many shows are put on at a huge deficit, which will be impossible to re-coup. This is why with all the recent Arts Council cuts so many companies have gone out of business. The fact that we as a company are financially independent is something I’m very proud of, however it does mean we have to make a lot of sacrifices - chiefly on peoples wages! But unfortunately it’s the only way we can get by.
The other main challenges are the creative ones but that’s the fun bit!
2. How do you go about marketing your show (using both traditional marketing and internet marketing strategies)?
Marketing is always an essential part of making a show work - particularly in somewhere like Edinburgh and you have to really compete for people’s attention so it is important to cater your marketing strategy to suit where the show will be on - what may work for Edinburgh may be totally different for a run in London or an International tour. The obvious routes are advertising, flyers, posters etc but if budget is a concern you should try to utilise less conventional methods as much as possible. Emails, websites and networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace are all ways of getting information about your show out to a wide audience at little or no cost. It is also an opportunity to share images, music, reviews, even videos/trailers of your shows to encourage people to see your show. Marketing is all about standing out, getting your ideas across and giving people a reason to come and see your show above anyone else’s. Because of this it is extremely important to create professional looking publicity for the show as that is what people will use to make the decision as to whether they will see your show or not. Sometimes bad publicity is worse than no publicity! So the more professional your artwork appears the more professional people will think your show is. Even if you don’t have any money to spend on your publicity with a bit of inventiveness and work you can still produce professional results.
3. How do you time frame this for all the fringes/festivals you plan to attend each year?
We start thinking about marketing as soon as we start planning the show. Picking the right image to represent your show is extremely important. So as soon as you know what your show is and how you want people to view it you need to start planning your campaign, making sure you give yourself you plenty of time to get this information out to press, promoters and punters etc well in advance of the performances. this will allow reviewers etc to make a decision on whether they wish to see your show and to book it into their busy schedules.
4. How do you see the internet as assisting you in your profession?
The internet is an excellent networking tool and an essential way of getting information to a large number of people. It can also save you a significant amount of money on your marketing campaign. Emails, websites etc are all low cost, convenient ways of getting your marketing seen.
5. You are extremely organised in producing different Virtual Flyers for your show, The Terrible Infants, how do you approach this task?
The main thing to focus on is what you want to get across. The first thing to focus on is the information you need to impart. Then the best way in which to sell your show - images, reviews etc and finally the style in which it is put together. We are so used to marketing campaigns, trailers and adverts for films and TV that you need to make sure your flyers are stylish, well put together and convey a certain amount of production value.
6. How do you go about creating your video preview?
We usually produce short video slide-shows, which can be made very simply on basic home editing software. Video footage of theatre is very hard to get right and can often seem amateurish so we often simply use strong still images from the show as well as any relevant information or reviews.
7. What would you say is your top marketing tip?
Pick the right images to represent your show and make sure they look good. Question whether or not you would see the show based on your marketing, look at movie posters, trailers, ads, figure out what works, look at the way they are laid out and think about what would work for your show and represent it well. Then focus on making a professional job of it. Also don’t over do it, simplicity is often a very effective tool.
8. Being a performer draws on many learned skills aside from your natural talent to perform. What are the most important skills you feel performers should acquire to produce and market a successful show?
It is exceptionally important, particularly when coming from a performers point of view to be prepared to put in all the hard work required. Producing can be a hard and thankless task and it is always tempting to spend the most time on the more fun aspects of your work and neglect the rest. As a performer it is natural to focus purely on the show and performances etc and to neglect the more boring tasks such as marketing, contacting press and administration. However there is absolutely no point in having a really great show if no one gets to see it. So many people are under the impression that if you have a great show people will find you, though this is often not the case - a well marketed ‘bad’ show will almost always get better audiences than a poorly marketed ‘great’ show.
9. Have you taken any educational courses that have helped you in your professional performing career?
Not really, I personally have always been very much of the school of learning from doing. To me there is no better way of learning, particularly as a performer, than being in front of an audience. However this is a personal choice.
10. What is your top motivational tip?
Keep going and make sure you believe in what your doing. That is the most important thing.
11. Where do you stand on a work/life balance? And, how would you express this as a percentage?
I’m a bit of a workaholic so my work/life balance probably isn’t great! This profession can be quite consuming, fortunately it’s also quite a social profession so the lines between life and work tend to merge. My work sort of is my life so it would be hard to split them up into separate percentages!
12. What do you believe are your 3 career milestones to-date?
Playing the lead in Steven Berkoff’s ‘Greek’ at the Riverside Studios in London.
My first play being published - ‘Immaculate‘ by Nick Hern books.
My first original TV writing work - ‘FM’ a comedy lab for Channel 4
13. Of all the things you have done in your career, what are you most proud of?
There are lot’s of things I’m very proud of, for different reasons so it would be hard to say one thing but I’m very proud of our current show ‘The Terrible Infants‘.
14. Where do you want to be professionally in 5 years time?
Happy, successful and working on projects I believe in.
