I’ve found another reason my town is so utterly crap and why moving away is so badly needed… looking around the web for something else, I discovered that the incredibly sexy Ed Byrne is here in town next week… now I am on the mailing list for our theatre precisely so I DON’T miss things like this – yet all they send me is emails begging for frigging money! I’d give them a lot more cash if I didn’t keep hearing about stuff I want to see after I’ve blown out my leisure spend on paying to see shows further away from home! There isn’t even a poster up at the theatre for it… what gives with that?
A few months ago, both Alan Carr and Tim Vine were here yet there was no mention in any of the spammy nonsense they email out; I found out once the tickets were already sold out.
I have already mentioned (many times; I am aware I repeat myself often, it’s the most effective way of having people take notice!) that there is so rarely anything worth seeing here, so why are they not marketing the backside off everything that is? You would expect a comedian like Byrne to have sold-out long before now, even at £20 a ticket (not much for some of you, I know, but that is the most expensive ticket I have seen for our piss-assed little theatre!) but there are still ‘loads’ of seats left according to the dour-faced trout I spoke to yesterday. I have not even seen any advertising for Mark Watson’s show; in fact I would not have even known it was happening were it not for his blog! (Not linking; seriously you should already know your way there by now, I’ve told you often enough and can’t be bothered with typing the code stuff!!) In fact, I was sent a notification through the post couple of weeks ago telling me the time had changed and giving new tickets, surely good marketing would have been to throw a flyer of some sort into the envelopes telling people about upcoming shows of interest. Chances are someone coming to watch MW would be just as interested in Ed Byrne, wouldn’t they?
I’d love to be able to see more here in town. Travelling to see shows is honestly a nightmare – public transport is suckish and expensive and if you choose to drive, you are travelling for an hour before you even feel you are starting the journey. I realised just how cut-off we are geographically when I was researching for the upcoming move. I will need at times to travel to London; in fact I have turned down some amazing opportunities for that very reason over the last few months. From here, it is a drive of almost five hours; impossible to do alone without becoming one of those horror ad poster-faces for motorway services. The places I have looked at moving to in Wales are almost on the same line as we are, yet the journey is only two and a half google-hours. I regularly take trips of up to three hours, so I know that is perfectly within my capabilities.
I do think our theatre is fighting very hard to bring the residents of our town to a higher level, but they really need to learn when to just give people what they want rather than trying to drip-feed culture to a population who are really not interested. They put on some nice ballets, plays, have orchestras and choirs perform; those things are hammered in the press, poster campaigns all over the town but few tickets are sold. This is a mostly working-class town with the ideals and expectations that come of the status. Wages are incredibly low, unemployment high and few have any discernable disposable income so they will not waste any money on going to the theatre for something which does not interest them. People want to laugh, they want to forget their plight for a while and just be entertained, yet our theatre has little hold on that. I remember being at the theatre a couple of years ago (Al Murray – brilliant show!) and overhearing a woman during the interval asking at the ticket desk about a medium they had heard was coming to town. They were told quite categorically they had heard wrong and that there would never be a medium in the theatre. I found this a strange response, so called the next day for more information to be told “mediumship is not considered entertainment”. I find this a funny statement indeed considering the disclaimer legally required for such shows states the complete opposite, but nevertheless whilst I know of many who have tried to put on a show here, all have been turned away; some eventually putting on very successful events in local hotels or the town leisure centre. I don’t know that I would go to such a show myself, but regardless, the people of this town are interested in this type of performance, so why are the theatre not listening and giving what they want?
Here’s another thing:
When I recently visited the theatre of the next town, I was quite surprised by the fact that people were buying drinks at the bar and casually strolling into the auditorium with them. Ours does not allow that, preferring to cram the entire audience into the small foyer where you have to try to drink without elbowing the next person. I thought “wow, what a relaxed theatre this is!” yet on speaking with the staff afterwards they expressed that in actual fact ours was one of very few to have such a rule. And I have to say, I think their rule is losing them some valuable income. I never consider buying a drink at our theatre for a variety of reasons; whilst I can cope with being in a crowd out of doors (like concerts and festivals etc) I really do not deal well with indoor ones, feeling cramped and claustrophobic; I do not relish the idea of trying to drink whilst in such a small space you can barely lift your arm without knocking someone else, theatre drinks are expensive enough and I certainly don’t want to be trying to suck a glass of wine out of my dress; I don’t like to rush a drink, nor leave one unfinished and with such a short space of time, generally only one person working the bar and hundreds of drinks to be poured there is precious little time to drink at leisure before abandoning your efforts to return to your seat. I am sure I can’t be the only person to feel this way, so why do they not realise their sales are not what they should be?
Share with me your own theatre woes; or boast about how great yours is. I don’t really care either way – I have said what I need to say!
Didn’t mean this to be such a whiney post – I’d apologise, but no-one forces you to read, so thank you if you have. If you’ve just skipped to this part, then I feel I should at least reward your scrolling efforts with something worthwhile!
Not related to the post at all, but I watched it, it made me chuckle, so I marked it to include here at some point! The brilliantly funny Isy Suttie....
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