Transform Task - Invest your audience

Published 01/01/2017.  Last updated 11/04/2023
sourceLearning resources categoryCreativity

Download(s)

Word file: Invest Your Audience activities (44 KB)
PDF file: Transform - quick guide (1.2 MB)

Explore the resource

Why 'invest your audience'?

There will come a point when your production/performance(s), installations and media go live in front of an audience. Remember the motto of Transform is to ‘Transform your school, transform your community, transform your life’. The more lives you touch, the more you may transform.

What are the intended outcomes?

  • Created a buzz around your Transform.
  • Created a trailblazer/teaser campaign.
  • Tickets sold.

How to 'invest your audience'

Take what you need from this list of possible approaches to this task.

  • Plan a Marketing Campaign
  • Make Your Stamp
  • Design a Programme
  • Create an Elevator Pitch
  • Trailblazers/Teaser Campaigns
  • Set up a Box-Office System.

Checkpoint

With all this done you should have an audience, a company of performers and technicians and a front of house staff to look after your audience and venue.

  • Have you reached your outcomes for this task?
  • What else must you consider now?
  • What have you discovered from tackling this task?

Download 'Invest your audience' activities

Full details of 'Invest your audience' activities.

Word file: Invest Your Audience activities (44 KB)

Support materials
PDF file: Transform - quick guide (1.2 MB)

Plan a marketing campaign

How do you want to promote or raise awareness about your Transform? There are a variety of ways to do this. Consider: publicity, press, posters, media, word of mouth and social media.

Social Media

  • Social Media can be very beneficial to your Transform project for different reasons. You can use social media as a marketing tool such as Twitter, Facebook and blogs to get information into the public domain.
  • Twitter: 140 character updates: This allows you to keep information precise and to the point. Decide on a #tag. This will allow all of your tweets to be tagged with the same word, which could mean if enough people #tag, it may trend on twitter. Trending identifies subject matters that are immediately popular.
  • Facebook: open a Facebook account for your project and have the participants and audiences debate, post and network around the ideas.
    See the Extreme Aberdeen on Facebook.
    As well as using Facebook as a marketing tool you can also create a closed Facebook group allowing your participants to keep in touch with one another as the project is developing. They can upload links, share material and generally keep in touch. It will also allow the organisers to distribute rehearsal times, changes and information quicker through the one forum. A closed Facebook group is also safe as only people you invite or add can see the information posted.
  • Word Press: You can use this blogging site to post blogs from the artists and participants. This also acts as an excellent evaluation tool.
  • Glow - Glow is Scotland’s nationally available digital environment and can support learning across the whole curriculum. Glow is not just one place or platform, instead it offers a username and password that gives access to a number of different web services. So you can set up a Glow group for your event. This can be used by every Scottish school to share work or communicate about your Transform. You can use Glow tools including Glow meet/Glow TV; you can upload documents or resources. You can post news and have a blog or a wiki that can be publicly viewable. Do people know about your Glow group? How could you spread the link? To find out more about Glow and how it is used please visit Glow Connect.

There are free tools out there, so be sure to utilise them to make your Transform as successful as possible.

Make your stamp

You can create your own imagery / logo. Have the design team work with your marketing team to decide on an image and wording that will explain what the show is in a nutshell and set up the audiences’ expectations correctly.

Examples:

  • In Barrhead, a football format was used. The cast were set as a team with the words ‘ONE - ALL’.
  • In Aberdeen, an image of a tight-rope walker was used to show the extreme nature of the show.
  • In East Ayrshire, participants put cardboard boxes over their heads with the word ‘FLIT’ to show that they were moving school.
  • In Orkney, children used painting with light.

Video: The right image

You can look at for poster image inspiration. A marketing image is vital to sell any show. You want the image to represent your piece of work. This video is a slideshow of posters designed for National Theatre of Scotland productions.

You might want to link with the Computing, Art or Technology departments in your school or to local businesses that work in the design field. Each Transform used different poster making techniques, for example light graffiti, photographs of performers etc. You can easily design a poster on Word or Publisher and print it in any size you require. Draw from the expertise within your Transform group.

Design a programme

Your programme can include your stamp. Points to consider include: Will you offer your programme for free, or at a cost that goes to charity? A programme is a helpful way of getting your message across to your audience. Creating a programme can be a worthy task for any team.

Create an elevator pitch

An elevator pitch is a short summary you can use to quickly and simply define your event. The name ‘elevator pitch’ reflects the idea that it should be possible to deliver the summary in the time span of an elevator ride, or approximately 30 seconds to two minutes. Why not try this out practically, record it and see what the outcome is?
Look for inventive ways of letting people know that there will be an event and engaging their curiosity.

Trailblazers / teaser campaigns

This is an event designed to raise awareness and provoke curiosity and buzz about the final production. It could be in the form of a performance (movement, dance, and street theatre), an extract linked to the final performance, or visual art and installations.

Example

This could be a “flashmob” done to music that will feature in your show.
Create Your Own Flashmob
Definition of a ‘flashmob’: A group of people co-ordinated by email to meet to perform some predetermined action at a particular place and time and then disperse quickly.

To see some good examples of flashmobs of various sizes, you may wish to look at these videos on YouTube:

See Christmas Food Court Flashmob on YouTube.

See Glasgow Glee Flashmob on YouTube.

A flashmob should take your audience by surprise and leave them wanting to find out more about your group, the product, the show and the reason for doing the flashmob. You do not have to have thousands of people for your flashmob to be effective.

So how do you get people to be part of your flashmob? You can have a group of participants that are planted in the crowd of the space you are going to perform your flashmob in, or you can involve other members of the community.

Check out this video out by ENABLE Scotland. They used this online video to get people to be part of their flashmob.

See ENABLE Scotland Flashmob on YouTube.

Get creative and cause a stir. Flashmobs are enormously fun things to take part in and to witness, but making them happen can take quite a bit of preparation. Here are a few tips that might help you to create your own flashmob:

  • A small group performing in a small place can look just as impressive as a big group performing in a massive space. Pick your location to suit your group.
  • You will need to gain the permission of the owners or managers of the venue or location where you want to stage your flashmob. If it is taking place in a public space, you will have to notify the Police and the local council to let them know what you are doing and to fill out any paperwork that might be required. This can take some time, so make sure you plan well in advance.
  • Different venues will have their own health and safety requirements and may require you to complete a risk assessment. Speak to someone in authority at your performance location and they will be able to advise you.
  • Decide what form your flashmob will take. Will you stand still as a statue for one minute? Will you do a choreographed routine? Will you lie down, jump around or move in slow motion? Watch some other flashmobs on YouTube to get some examples. Keep it simple.
  • Recruit your flashmob participants. It is probably best to start with people you know using word of mouth. Facebook and other internet forums are also useful for getting the word out.
  • Host a rehearsal with your participants and make sure everybody knows what they are doing.
  • If you get the chance, rehearse your flashmob in the final performance location with as many people as possible. Try to do this when it is very quiet so as not to spoil the surprise.
  • Double check that you have completed all the necessary paper work, and that you have complied with health and safety requirements.
  • Finally, turn up and go for it!

National Theatre of Scotland learned a lot while setting up the flashmobs for Extreme. If you have any questions about any of the above please contact them.

Video: Make your own flashmob

Flashmobs can be excellent marketing tools, if done correctly. This video is a guide to creating your own public event.

Other Examples

Create your own Extreme Ceilidh

  • Select your music – CDs good; live music better!
  • Rehearse traditional dances, like the Dashing White Sergeant or the Canadian Barn Dance.
  • Funk up your dances with some hip hop or street moves.
  • Teach the dances to all and practice demonstrating and calling out the dances.
  • Select a suitably large space – ask if you can hire your school hall or a local community hall.
  • Invite your audience.
  • Have the best night of your life.

Video: Make your own extreme ceilidh

A guide to making your own dance event.

Create an Installation

Your trailblazer could be an installation.

Video: Trailblazers: Installation

This video shows an installation created by children.

Video: Trailblazers: Interaction

Watch a quirky and unusual installation in action.

Set up a box office system

A box-office system need not be high-tech, but it is critical to everything going alright on the night. If audience members can both book in advance and pay on the evening, then you are likely to maximise your audience numbers. Key points to consider:

  • Are audience members aware of how to obtain a place at the event?
  • How much are you going to charge for tickets if anything at all?
  • Does your ticket price cover the cost of your production?
  • Are you going to contribute money to charity or put it in an advanced fund for another show. How are you going to record this?
  • Who is going to manage the ticket system? Consider how you will bank the money and if you are able to offer various payment methods.
  • What are your seating arrangements, for example, is it theatre in the round or promenade?
  • Is everyone going to have a seat and if so, will they be allocated?
  • Have you reserved seating areas for special guests?
    Whatever you do, make sure people know when the show is on and how they can buy tickets.

Download video transcripts

Word file: Transform Toolkit - The right image - transcript

Word file: Transform Toolkit - Make your own flash mob - transcript

Word file: Transform Toolkit - Make your own extreme ceilidh - transcript

Word file: Transform Toolkit - Trailblazers - Installation - transcript

Word file: Transform Toolkit - Trailblazers - Interaction - transcript

Transform Task - Invest your audience

Published 01/01/2017.  Last updated 11/04/2023
sourceLearning resources categoryCreativity

Download(s)

Word file: Invest Your Audience activities (44 KB)
PDF file: Transform - quick guide (1.2 MB)

Explore the resource

Why 'invest your audience'?

There will come a point when your production/performance(s), installations and media go live in front of an audience. Remember the motto of Transform is to ‘Transform your school, transform your community, transform your life’. The more lives you touch, the more you may transform.

What are the intended outcomes?

  • Created a buzz around your Transform.
  • Created a trailblazer/teaser campaign.
  • Tickets sold.

How to 'invest your audience'

Take what you need from this list of possible approaches to this task.

  • Plan a Marketing Campaign
  • Make Your Stamp
  • Design a Programme
  • Create an Elevator Pitch
  • Trailblazers/Teaser Campaigns
  • Set up a Box-Office System.

Checkpoint

With all this done you should have an audience, a company of performers and technicians and a front of house staff to look after your audience and venue.

  • Have you reached your outcomes for this task?
  • What else must you consider now?
  • What have you discovered from tackling this task?

Download 'Invest your audience' activities

Full details of 'Invest your audience' activities.

Word file: Invest Your Audience activities (44 KB)

Support materials
PDF file: Transform - quick guide (1.2 MB)

Plan a marketing campaign

How do you want to promote or raise awareness about your Transform? There are a variety of ways to do this. Consider: publicity, press, posters, media, word of mouth and social media.

Social Media

  • Social Media can be very beneficial to your Transform project for different reasons. You can use social media as a marketing tool such as Twitter, Facebook and blogs to get information into the public domain.
  • Twitter: 140 character updates: This allows you to keep information precise and to the point. Decide on a #tag. This will allow all of your tweets to be tagged with the same word, which could mean if enough people #tag, it may trend on twitter. Trending identifies subject matters that are immediately popular.
  • Facebook: open a Facebook account for your project and have the participants and audiences debate, post and network around the ideas.
    See the Extreme Aberdeen on Facebook.
    As well as using Facebook as a marketing tool you can also create a closed Facebook group allowing your participants to keep in touch with one another as the project is developing. They can upload links, share material and generally keep in touch. It will also allow the organisers to distribute rehearsal times, changes and information quicker through the one forum. A closed Facebook group is also safe as only people you invite or add can see the information posted.
  • Word Press: You can use this blogging site to post blogs from the artists and participants. This also acts as an excellent evaluation tool.
  • Glow - Glow is Scotland’s nationally available digital environment and can support learning across the whole curriculum. Glow is not just one place or platform, instead it offers a username and password that gives access to a number of different web services. So you can set up a Glow group for your event. This can be used by every Scottish school to share work or communicate about your Transform. You can use Glow tools including Glow meet/Glow TV; you can upload documents or resources. You can post news and have a blog or a wiki that can be publicly viewable. Do people know about your Glow group? How could you spread the link? To find out more about Glow and how it is used please visit Glow Connect.

There are free tools out there, so be sure to utilise them to make your Transform as successful as possible.

Make your stamp

You can create your own imagery / logo. Have the design team work with your marketing team to decide on an image and wording that will explain what the show is in a nutshell and set up the audiences’ expectations correctly.

Examples:

  • In Barrhead, a football format was used. The cast were set as a team with the words ‘ONE - ALL’.
  • In Aberdeen, an image of a tight-rope walker was used to show the extreme nature of the show.
  • In East Ayrshire, participants put cardboard boxes over their heads with the word ‘FLIT’ to show that they were moving school.
  • In Orkney, children used painting with light.

Video: The right image

You can look at for poster image inspiration. A marketing image is vital to sell any show. You want the image to represent your piece of work. This video is a slideshow of posters designed for National Theatre of Scotland productions.

You might want to link with the Computing, Art or Technology departments in your school or to local businesses that work in the design field. Each Transform used different poster making techniques, for example light graffiti, photographs of performers etc. You can easily design a poster on Word or Publisher and print it in any size you require. Draw from the expertise within your Transform group.

Design a programme

Your programme can include your stamp. Points to consider include: Will you offer your programme for free, or at a cost that goes to charity? A programme is a helpful way of getting your message across to your audience. Creating a programme can be a worthy task for any team.

Create an elevator pitch

An elevator pitch is a short summary you can use to quickly and simply define your event. The name ‘elevator pitch’ reflects the idea that it should be possible to deliver the summary in the time span of an elevator ride, or approximately 30 seconds to two minutes. Why not try this out practically, record it and see what the outcome is?
Look for inventive ways of letting people know that there will be an event and engaging their curiosity.

Trailblazers / teaser campaigns

This is an event designed to raise awareness and provoke curiosity and buzz about the final production. It could be in the form of a performance (movement, dance, and street theatre), an extract linked to the final performance, or visual art and installations.

Example

This could be a “flashmob” done to music that will feature in your show.
Create Your Own Flashmob
Definition of a ‘flashmob’: A group of people co-ordinated by email to meet to perform some predetermined action at a particular place and time and then disperse quickly.

To see some good examples of flashmobs of various sizes, you may wish to look at these videos on YouTube:

See Christmas Food Court Flashmob on YouTube.

See Glasgow Glee Flashmob on YouTube.

A flashmob should take your audience by surprise and leave them wanting to find out more about your group, the product, the show and the reason for doing the flashmob. You do not have to have thousands of people for your flashmob to be effective.

So how do you get people to be part of your flashmob? You can have a group of participants that are planted in the crowd of the space you are going to perform your flashmob in, or you can involve other members of the community.

Check out this video out by ENABLE Scotland. They used this online video to get people to be part of their flashmob.

See ENABLE Scotland Flashmob on YouTube.

Get creative and cause a stir. Flashmobs are enormously fun things to take part in and to witness, but making them happen can take quite a bit of preparation. Here are a few tips that might help you to create your own flashmob:

  • A small group performing in a small place can look just as impressive as a big group performing in a massive space. Pick your location to suit your group.
  • You will need to gain the permission of the owners or managers of the venue or location where you want to stage your flashmob. If it is taking place in a public space, you will have to notify the Police and the local council to let them know what you are doing and to fill out any paperwork that might be required. This can take some time, so make sure you plan well in advance.
  • Different venues will have their own health and safety requirements and may require you to complete a risk assessment. Speak to someone in authority at your performance location and they will be able to advise you.
  • Decide what form your flashmob will take. Will you stand still as a statue for one minute? Will you do a choreographed routine? Will you lie down, jump around or move in slow motion? Watch some other flashmobs on YouTube to get some examples. Keep it simple.
  • Recruit your flashmob participants. It is probably best to start with people you know using word of mouth. Facebook and other internet forums are also useful for getting the word out.
  • Host a rehearsal with your participants and make sure everybody knows what they are doing.
  • If you get the chance, rehearse your flashmob in the final performance location with as many people as possible. Try to do this when it is very quiet so as not to spoil the surprise.
  • Double check that you have completed all the necessary paper work, and that you have complied with health and safety requirements.
  • Finally, turn up and go for it!

National Theatre of Scotland learned a lot while setting up the flashmobs for Extreme. If you have any questions about any of the above please contact them.

Video: Make your own flashmob

Flashmobs can be excellent marketing tools, if done correctly. This video is a guide to creating your own public event.

Other Examples

Create your own Extreme Ceilidh

  • Select your music – CDs good; live music better!
  • Rehearse traditional dances, like the Dashing White Sergeant or the Canadian Barn Dance.
  • Funk up your dances with some hip hop or street moves.
  • Teach the dances to all and practice demonstrating and calling out the dances.
  • Select a suitably large space – ask if you can hire your school hall or a local community hall.
  • Invite your audience.
  • Have the best night of your life.

Video: Make your own extreme ceilidh

A guide to making your own dance event.

Create an Installation

Your trailblazer could be an installation.

Video: Trailblazers: Installation

This video shows an installation created by children.

Video: Trailblazers: Interaction

Watch a quirky and unusual installation in action.

Set up a box office system

A box-office system need not be high-tech, but it is critical to everything going alright on the night. If audience members can both book in advance and pay on the evening, then you are likely to maximise your audience numbers. Key points to consider:

  • Are audience members aware of how to obtain a place at the event?
  • How much are you going to charge for tickets if anything at all?
  • Does your ticket price cover the cost of your production?
  • Are you going to contribute money to charity or put it in an advanced fund for another show. How are you going to record this?
  • Who is going to manage the ticket system? Consider how you will bank the money and if you are able to offer various payment methods.
  • What are your seating arrangements, for example, is it theatre in the round or promenade?
  • Is everyone going to have a seat and if so, will they be allocated?
  • Have you reserved seating areas for special guests?
    Whatever you do, make sure people know when the show is on and how they can buy tickets.

Download video transcripts

Word file: Transform Toolkit - The right image - transcript

Word file: Transform Toolkit - Make your own flash mob - transcript

Word file: Transform Toolkit - Make your own extreme ceilidh - transcript

Word file: Transform Toolkit - Trailblazers - Installation - transcript

Word file: Transform Toolkit - Trailblazers - Interaction - transcript