Crowd control

As more and more companies compete for box office success at the festival, producer Richard Jordan explains how best to get and then keep your audience.

With more than 1,800 productions playing at this year’s fringe, establishing a show and then maintaining its presence for the three weeks at the world’s biggest arts festival is a challenge.

Edinburgh’s biggest strength is that it embraces everyone by offering an even playing field for the presentation of work. However, it could also now be close to reaching saturation point, with the average audience number being three people per show.

For a company, getting to Edinburgh is only half the battle - it’s then that the real work begins. There are obvious advantages in the placement of a show in one of the five big venues, with their extensive brochure publications and media deals. But numerous past examples exist across the fringe of company’s and artists being discovered, which is what makes it both such an exciting festival to attend, and why companies return year after year to participate.

The fringe is the epitome of the expression, “The effort of what you put in, is what you’ll get back”. The work of building an awareness of your show at the fringe must begin a number months ahead of you coming to the festival.

A strong poster, and leaflet design, which includes printed on the back some good copy that sells the show to an audience is vital. It’s also important to start establishing awareness for the production with journalists and critics through a good press release, and selecting a good publicist who will become one of the key people in any company is critical.

For the majority of companies the publicist will be a freelance, hired for the duration of the festival to promote the show on their behalf.

It is important to shop around and meet several publicists, for these will be your direct link to the press and it’s vital that this is someone who understands your company, the product, and the aims of what you want to achieve from your show playing the fringe.

It’s often a good idea to reference work you noticed in past years, and then look at who did the publicity for that production. The Fringe Press Office offers free advice to performing companies, and the staff there are key people to make friends with, ahead of and during the festival. While not providing individual publicity for productions, they have current press and publicists lists, alongside a wealth of accessible knowledge and experience.

There are always shows that immediately catch the press and public’s eye - a recent example has been Edinburgh’s increase of site-specific shows, which have become increasingly popular in past years.

The novelty of seeing a show in a car, public toilet or an island in the Firth of Forth, all provide an immediate allure to the seasoned festival-goer, looking for a truly unique festival experience.

Equally eye-catching are the various publicity stunts which have become a regular feature at the festival. Perhaps the most successful master of these was Jim Rose, whose notorious Jim Rose Circus Sideshow in the early nineties achieved an unrivalled notoriety, helped largely by Edinburgh City Council’s much- publicised annual attempts to close the production down.

In more recent years, possibly the most memorable and extreme publicity stunt was that of Aaron Barschak, who dressed as Osama Bin Laden and gatecrashed Prince William 21st birthday party at Windsor Castle to promote his forthcoming fringe show, Osama Likes it Hot.

While guaranteeing world media attention and a sell-out show, it illustrates a valuable lesson on how a stunt can backfire. If you’re going to do an extreme stunt, careful thought must also be given to how it’s handled after the event, alongside ensuring that the product equals the sum of its parts.

The key thing to selling a show in Edinburgh is the reviews. The importance of your quotes being displayed quickly should not be underestimated.

Some venues have a policy to only display four or five star reviews. In my view, everyone should have the right to have their reviews or quotes on display - be they good or bad. A company has paid to hire the venue and ultimately it should be up to the public to make up their own minds - I know there are numerous times when I have not agreed with a critic.

The best publicity and way to maintain an audience at the fringe still remains the cheapest - word of mouth. If you have the budget, postering, leaflet distributions services and newspaper advertising is available to any company - but those groups on the Royal Mile everyday, grafting away and speaking to a theatregoing public, may be the ultimate winners. It provides a rare chance to speak directly to your potential audience, whose feedback, comments and reactions may not just influence your fringe experience this year, but also for many more in the future.

* Richard Jordan is the administrative director of theatre management company Richard Jordan Productions.