I’ve been promoting and running comedy night Popcorn Comedy in Birmingham since March. It’s a really fun night to put on because we get great up-and-coming acts thanks to the sterling work of founders Jon Petrie and Holly Walsh, and it’s a chance for people to try something a bit different.
Aside from a few technical issues now and again, it’s a pretty straight-forward night to prepare. We put a couple of dvds together, get to The Victoria, cable everything up, test the sound and video, whack a playlist on, make some Popcorn, and bob’s your monkey (I’ve skimmed over a lot of effort here, but you get the idea).
But, and you knew it was coming, there is a very stressful aspect of the whole comedy show process. It’s promotion. I’m not sure if it’s a Birmingham thing, but it really can be like drawing blood from a stone at times.
There are only a few ways to promote a night like ours. Online (listings, facebook, twitter, mailing list), flyers, posters, tv and radio, word of mouth, newspaper features and print advertising.
The online aspect is usually fine. But you’re promoting to a small pool of people in your social networks or people organised enough to use listings sites properly. We’ve had newspaper features, which is nice, but that’s a one shot deal. Print ads cost money, so, no. And TV and radio probably wouldn’t hit our target audience.
So realistically, we’re left with flyering and postering. Which is fine. Well, unless you live in Birmingham that is. If you’ve tried to do it here, you’ll know it’s a nightmare. You can’t flyer, you can’t poster, and subsequently promoters of all events face the prospect of shutting down due to a lack of numbers.
Venues don’t want to cross-promote, understandably, but as a result, it looks to the average punter like there isn’t much going on in the city. And when I say ‘average punter’ I mean, someone who likes going out, but isn’t switched on to the whole social networking/blogging/RSS thing.
We had a big free flyer board at the Created in Birmingham shop (R.I.P), it looked like this: 
It didn’t get too crowded, despite its central Bullring location, and was a genuine source of info for stuff going on in the city.
Perhaps this needs rolling out across the city. Designated spaces for promotion in places where people can find them. Or perhaps there’s a digital option to cut print costs, such as electronic flyer boards around the city and an upload process.
I don’t know, but there must be another way to promote smaller events and boost what is a sadly flagging scene for independent events. Any suggestions, or stories of how other people get on with promotion, would be appreciated muchly.
Hi Ian, I feel that pain – promotion is such a weird science.
I’ve not done much flyering, but whenever we put something out online I get into this strange and quite unpleasant zone of noodling around the internet trying to get other people who I’ve never met to talk about our work. After a while it becomes addictive, but quite depressing. Then I get into the can’t-stop-checking-stats mode which is an even worse downward spiral! And with all the social networks so active these days it’s not like it was even a couple of years ago when you’d get loads of blogs chattering about stuff in their own unique ways. Now people just seem to hit ‘like’ and that’s enough for them.
I’m not sure what the holy grail answer is for flyering… I know that the Ed Fringe they sometimes do papering (I think its called) which is basically giving away all the tickets to a free event to encourage word of mouth for the paid ones. They also talked about the virtues of flyering within the last two hours before the event started to catch people in the area who are at a loose end!
Myles
Hi Ian et al,
This is exactly the problem Stu Coleman was seeking to address when he set up Scene not Heard. Until recently it’s been basically his solo effort at trying to document what’s going on in one place, because basically, no one else seemed prepared to do it.
Organisers of individual event programmes are naturally going to expend most of their efforts in promoting what they’re doing, venues (as has been mentioned) don’t cross-promote, the mail don’t give two hoots about venues that don’t hold thousands, and the average music fan is therefore at a loss for a reliable and impartial portal to access info through.
One of the things we’re putting together, is a map of brum venues along the lines of the london underground map. Each node is a venue, with hover over for details, and click on to take you to the url where the events are listed. A simple interface which; a) would allow promoters to only list in one place, b) serve the same function as the noticeboard Ian mentions.
By treating all venues and promoters equally, the aim is to make the map valuable to audiences, and then hopefully the venues will see the benefit of being on it.
I think the key to successful promotion is to create a single point of access to live music info which is supported by promters and venues alike. You don’t need the thirty or so venues which actually host Brum musicians and comics to agree to cross promote in order to do it for them, and that’s what we’re aiming for.
Do get in touch if you want pitch in, or have any suggestions. We’re not doing this for money, it just needs to be done.
Cheers.
“One of the things we’re putting together, is a map of brum venues along the lines of the london underground map. Each node is a venue, with hover over for details, and click on to take you to the url where the events are listed. A simple interface which; a) would allow promoters to only list in one place, b) serve the same function as the noticeboard Ian mentions.”
I know that this chappy here isn’t exactly what you mean, but I’m going to mention it anyway (given that it might prove handy as a data source for someone who reads this and decides to try and set up such a map).
If you send over further info about your (or any other cool) comedy nights, then I’d happily put them on our website’s events page! http://www.electric-banana.co.uk/events.php Err….as long as you don’t bombard me of course
Contact me on andy@electric-bananan.co.uk
Thanks Ian.
Andy Parker
Leeds city council support the live and club night scene by having large pillar-box type constructions in the city centre where promoters are able to post their posters and flyers for upcoming events – great for visitors to find out what is going on.
Unfortunately Birmingham has Birmingham city council who don’t even provide toilets for their residents in the city centre so I guess something like a large pillar box to help develop the promotion of city events is well out of the remit. There appears very little interest in the council to develop the Birmingham nightlife industry in the way that Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds councils have done so successfully (maybe it helped Liverpool secure the city of culture bid as well previously…..).
Birmingham CC are seemingly obsessed with promoting the ‘big project’ – Gigbeth, Artsfest etc. – events that are targetted to benefit only a few venues and have little overall impact on the city generally. Maybe in these days of austerity the council can be encouraged to spend money on the simpler and smaller things in life…
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