Category: Blog Post
-
Tour Blog – Part 10 (Lancaster)
Audience: 32 (ish) Technical: Really great – I had the brilliant Jos (closely supervised by the amazing Katy) doing his first ever “looking after a show solo” – he did an admirable job – professional, helpful and good humoured – as good as all the other technical staff who’ve looked after me throughout the tour. Marketing: Dukes went…
-
Tour Blog – Part 9 (Wigan)
Audience: 9 Technical: Really great – a very different space to all the others with a high stage – a little adjustment to the show layout and how it works was required. It’s a challenging space to do lighting in because of where the bars are, but Matt did a really great job! Marketing: Hard again. I think…
-
Tour Blog – Part 8 (Cardiff)
Audience: 25 (Thu), 7 (Fri) & 7 (Sat) Technical: Really lovely again. Dan’s a bit of a genius – really reassuring, knowledgeable and calm – also shares my obsession with testing everything in good time to check it works. Will (who also is a Duty Manager and Box Office and Gallery Technician) was brill too and multi-talented!…
-
Tour Blog – Part 7 (Huddersfield)
Audience: 13 (Tues) & 9 (Weds – but thank you to the LBT staff for coming along!) Technical: Utter legends. Both technicians were utterly wonderful – incredibly patient, kind and professional. The get in and set up was simple and both nailed all the cues absolutely perfectly. Marketing: Hard but we had an audience and the venue worked…
-
Tour Blog – Part 6 (Aberystwyth)
Audience: 8 Technical: Paul the technician was great. By far the best dressed technician I’ve ever seen. Black shirt, black braces, black hat – far too stylish. Easy get in, a bit of a school hall-feel venue but it was quite nice when we’d played with it and for the first time performing with cabaret tables. Marketing: Again…
-
Tour Blog – Part 5 (Wolverhampton)
Audience: 5 (of which 2 were staff, to whom I am eternally grateful. Technical: Amazing. Genuinely brilliant, supportive. It was such a lovely easy experience – they also win the award for the tidiest cables so far. Marketing: Hard work. The venue (and Sam Fleming in particular) worked their socks off but to no avail. It’s got me…
-
Tour Blog – Part 4 (York)
Audience: 38 Technical: Again really good – Nathan was brilliant – it’s a very simple show and we simplified it even more for the lighting so that we’d have less of a rig and focus to do. The show can now be ready, from scratch in around an hour now. All the team at York were brilliant…
-
Tour Blog – Part 3 (Halifax)
Audience: 8 Technical: There wasn’t any communication beforehand so I was a bit apprehensive. I got there far too early (12pm) with the technician called at 4:30pm. However, the venue is a dream, Scott the technician was brilliant – calm, friendly and reassuring – the grid has a trampoline on it (a mesh you can walk on)…
-
Tour Blog – Part 2 (Harrogate Theatre)
Audience: 15 (sold 21) Technical: Ludicrously easy set up – Harrogate’s staff were outstanding – the show is dead simple, but it was just a nice easy enjoyable process. The venue was a pop up space, so it means you can be much more simple that I think I’d imagined and still get a nice atmosphere. Marketing: Again…
-
Tour Blog – Part 1 (Liverpool Everyman)
I’ve decided to blog about my shows on the tour of Every Little Hope – a record for myself as much as anything else, so that I can make sure I remind myself of what I’ve learnt, what was great, what worked and what didn’t. Show #1 at Liverpool Everyman in the Bistro was technically…
-
2022 Resolutions
As I get older I’ve become more and more aware that these are things to help motivate me in life. I think back to my early twenties when I dreamt of being an Artistic Director, or late twenties where stand up really entered my life, and I worry that I’ve become directionless.
-
The exhausting truth about booking a small-scale storytelling tour.
It’s been a long while since I wrote a blog post – to be honest, I’ve not written many for the past 9 months, a combination of tiredness, lack of inspiration and, well, doing other stuff. I’m in the midst of booking a tour at the moment for the show I made last year, Every…
-
I’m touring a show that’s good.
As many of you will know I wrote a new storytelling show last year called Every Little Hope You Ever Dreamed (But Didn’t Want To Mention). It did an R&D in January for a week at Theatr Clwyd and then did three performances in late July (also at Theatr Clwyd) which went pretty well*. So…
-
Performing, Panic, and the the problem with being alone.
I’ve not blogged for absolutely ages – here’s my excuse: I’ve been making a show. To give the quick intro for those who are unaware… Last year I wrote a new storytelling show, it did an R&D in January and then, last Fri, Sat and Sun I did performances in front of an audience, ostensibly…
-
Nothing to do with Arts Marketing.
Astute regular readers of this blog will have noticed that, well, there’s been nothing regular about this blog for a while now. There’s a few reasons but most notably it’s this – I’m doing a show. Now straight away I can sense a bit of tension, “doing a show” you ask, “what does he mean…
-
Arts Marketing: Preparing For What’s Next
Or ideas of things to do over the next couple of months… I’ve been in a weird mood since Christmas – a kind of grumpy, unfocused, curmudgeon, working hard but also not feeling like, well, I’m actually making a difference. Now, of course, some of that is the destabilising effect of being in lockdown, missing…
-
Five Thoughts For Friday (19 Feb, 2021)
I was reading a blog of someone who, since lockdown, has written down 7 things every day, keeping a record of their thoughts and how it’s all been going. Now I totally don’t have enough thoughts to reach 7, but I thought I’d give it a go! Some are about arts marketing, some are about…
-
New Year’s Resolutions 2021
Well fuck me thank God 2020 is over right? I mean don’t get me wrong – there was some nice bits in 2020 – friends had kids, I bought a coffee machine and Newcastle didn’t get relegated. But overall, on balance, not a terrific one. Regular readers (by which I mean all four of you…