Marketing is a massive element when creating a performance so our company must ensure we attract audiences, provide background information which appears interesting and appealing and therefore, increase ticket sales. In order to promote 130,000, WAKEUP Theatre’s marketing team created posters and flyers which were taken around the streets of Lincoln promoting our upcoming show. These types of advertisement should appear eye catching and informative, appealing to a potential audience member. “Competition is becoming much more intense for most businesses. It is more difficult to make marketing decisions that will ensure customers will prefer one company’s product to those of competitors” (Burrow, 2009, p. 123). As the competition to attract audiences is often difficult, WAKEUP Theatre had to ensure they advertised 130,000’s strengths. As Roy Williams’ play Fallout is based on the tragic murder of Stephen Lawrence, our adapted version also highlights this event and the frustrating journey in order to convict his murderers. Along with this strength of basing our performance on real events, our unique selling point is our inclusion of verbatim theatre, including actual speeches from the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry from his mum Doreen Lawrence, his best friend Dwayne Brooks and an eye-witness Connor Taaffe.

As Producer I created our productions programmes which would be handed to audiences members on their entry to the theatre. It is extremely important within theatre that an audience member is given some context before watching a performance. This is not only important for audience members to find out about the productions cast and synopsis, it also ensures the audience have something to read whilst they wait for the show to begin, building their excitement.

When designing the programme, I felt that this was the picture that best described our performance, as it highlights the main characters, its black and white colour symbolise the dark themes that the play is based on and finally, the clothes and overall picture represents the ‘gang related culture’ we wish to address. The information on the front of the programme is simple but informative, displaying the date, time and name of the performance with an inclusion of the Lincoln Performing Arts Centre logo.

On the back of the programme, I wrote the list of actors and roles within the Company as a whole and for the performance of 130,000, and a synopsis was also included written by WAKEUP Theatre’s Dramaturge Kelly Bramall. This synopsis provides the audience with an instant context about the production, proving to be an exciting, unique and intriguing show to watch. It is very important that a warming was written on the programme, to ensure no audience members would be offended by the strong language and violent themes throughout. As the themes within 130,000 are very sensitive due to the fact the story is based on true events, as a company we felt that anonymously donating any money we were kindly given from our exiting audience to the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust would be a thoughtful gesture. Charity boxes were placed at the exit of the theatre so audience members if they wish could donate to this trust created by Stephen’s mother Doreen Lawrence.

Work Cited
Burrow, James (2009) Marketing. South-Western Cengage Learning. United States of America.