The Workshop as Buzz Marketing Tool

Many of our performing arts clients, and friends of BLP, workshop their new works before a small audience before presenting them to larger audiences and taking them on the road. This past year saw workshop presentations from Catalyst Theatre (The Invisible-Agents of Ungentlemanly Warfare); Alberta Ballet (Frankenstein); Shumka (Regional Suite); Shadow Theatre (The Wrong People Have Money); and of course, the Citadel Theatre is presenting Six, arguably the biggest “workshop” presentation of the season- before it heads to Broadway.

The most obvious reason to workshop new shows is from an artistic perspective. How best to see if all the work your Company has done on paper and in rehearsal actually comes together on stage. It’s costly, time-consuming, exhausting, but well-worth it to ensure a close-to-perfect presentation and create buzz within your organization. The workshop-as-artistic tool need not start and end there. It is a valuable opportunity for marketers.

Schedule a photographer, record b-roll, capture audio, get behind-the-scenes development. Take every opportunity to capture every moment of the process for future marketing opportunities. With a head start on great visuals, audiences will be compelled to dive deeper into creative process and development stories and become engrossed in the presentation. The end-goal, as always, is to sell tickets.

Build buzz and excitement through the workshop process, not only for your Company, but for your audiences. Not many get the opportunity to generate great buzz materials. Take advantage while you can.