How are we going to pay for this? It's one of the most common questins I hear. The average production with a cast of ten to twelve and one unit set starts out at about $1000 and goes up from there.
One of the best ways to offset the cost of printing, sets, costumes, royalties and the rest is through program advertising. The beauty of it is you will already be making one, now you can make it work for you! Here are three types of program ads that I have used with success! I have also included an ad order sheet from Family Theatre Warehouse, fell free to use it as a pattern. (caution: Family Theatre Warehouse and the logo are incorporated so get your own name!)
1. Business advertising: Local businesses love to support the community, well okay there are some Scrooges out there, if you set your rates at a fair level (make sure it doesn't cost you more to print than you get paid) you may be surprised to find that yesses are about equal to nos. While it would be great if corporate America would look out for the little guy I recommend you go straight for the mom and pop types. This type of advertising has several benefits; it provides revenue for you, exposure for the client, tax deductibility either as a charitable donation (if you are nonprofit) or as an advertising expense, and it lends credibility to what you are doing to say that you have business sponsors.
2. Congratulatory ads: these are ads that actor's friends and family can purchase to say, goo job! Make sure you give them a break in price since they are probably giving up something to help out.
3. Specialty ads: We charge a little extra for perks like: live mentions before the show, and live commercials at intermission or during those long scene changes. We write these with characters from the script and have done several over the years. All of our clients have been thrilled withthe results and its kind of fun for the audience also. Yeah, I know crass commercialism,but hey you can't EAT artistic integrity.
Using these methods we will ad between two and four thousand dollars to our budget and we really don't work at it as hard as we could. Just remember you hate pushy salesmen so be nice! If they genuinely want o but can't help ge them to collect donations for a garage sale or ink cartridge drive, but most importantly remember you are representing your theatre, make them want o come and say nice things about you!
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