Does live streaming offer a new business model and a sustainable income stream for Independent Producers?
Producing a low budget show in a fringe venue has many challenges for the Independent Producer, none more so that being able to make a decent return from the effort and heartache of putting on a show with limited resources.
When you consider the barriers a Producer is up against in just mounting a show, then you start to realise why the sector doesn’t really attract serious investment, and that most entrepreneurial ‘dragons’-‘ would want ‘out’.
Firstly we learn from the Camden Fringe audiences that their average audience for a show in 2010 was just 21. This represented around a 30% capacity for their venues, with the average budget for a show under £1k and the ticket price of £7.50. This represents a nightly loss of over £800 for every Producer, and that’s without paying the actors.
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On top of this, Audience London’s work with the sector revealed that 70% of fringe audiences only come once. This reveals that there is little loyalty to the venues.
The Producer often finds that most venue managers, whilst being aware of their fickle audiences, really have no other solutions than to offer a press list and lots of advice ‘to get your product out there’, where ever ‘there’ is…
The Producer is usually left without any marketing data, mosaic profiles or inclination of an audience development strategy based around segmentations, demographics or similar past sales.
Yet Producers tend not to want to challenge the venue management for we have a culture that accepts the status quo, even if it is a dirty, inaccessible and semi squalid venue, that is not family friendly, and very often is not fit for purpose.
Without much bought in marketing support, the prospects begin to look quite bleak for a Producer looking to at least break even.
In most cases, on the fringe, it appears that the Producer has to create and drive his/her own audience, independently of any value added service that the venue may offer. This nowadays seems only to be reputation based driven. We know historically the types of audience that frequented the Drill Hall in the past but can we confidently predict their supporters now
Likewise, is it safe to assume that the audience of the Old Diorama is the same as the new one?
So why, other than for vanity reasons, do powerless Producers continually enter into making an uneconomical product, and put it in a shabby shop window that no one passes by?
Kerry Irvine from ScenePool calls these Producers ‘emotional entrepreneurs’, and argues that they are too emotionally bound up in their work to want to see the market forces at work, and the real market they operate in.
To start defining a most cost effective way of working both in a recession and in the new digital age, it seems that producers now need to re-look at their motives for doing the work, their relationship with their supporters and more importantly the way of operating with the venue,
Government ministers are already putting pressure on arts organisations to back-fill their cuts, and asking them to not only share front and backstage resources, but use the new technologies to generate an income.
A recent commissioned Arts Council paper urged more organisations to look at music company Spotify as an income generation model.
According to the Stage, the report says: ‘Developing successful, revenue-generating subscription models for the digital content of arts organisations has to be explored. Just as Spotify and Last.fm are in different ways exploring subscription or ad-based models for streaming music, so a ‘cultural’ subscription model needs to be explored, providing access to multiple platforms across different devices’
Fleming, the report author, goes on to say: “What we are not very good at in the arts is building on good practice and then translating it into different elements and different parts of the arts sector, so where we see stuff like Spotify, and we see a business model that works in that context for that sector of the arts, why aren’t we applying that and exploring what that might mean in the performing arts?”
In recession torn 2011, the challenge for Producers then is to look at how to improve our ways of working with venues, engage more with our potential supporters by putting them at the heart of a new digital audience development strategy, and use the new digital platforms to generate a new income stream.
This challenge will mean more joint working between venues and Producers, both having a stake in creating new framework agreements based around hire and marketing needs.
The sector needs to create new protocols for filming work in venues, as well as accept the rise of the role of social media strategist in creative teams, and a shift in the Producer’s role as content creator and controller of data.
Already we have seen some movement in the sector. The London Theatre Consortium, a group of Arts Council funded mid scale theatres, recently appointed a joint digital content generator.
This is a paid post created to implement their joint audience development strategies. However, their website and campaign lacked impact and evidence of a brand.
There are some theatres that are already selling their archived work online through the Digital theatre site, which is stacked with good value productions, but lacks much evidence of a large take up.
Some fringe theatres like the Bush and the Finborough have starting selling scripts, memberships and online events from their websites. Again, this is a small start in recognising the power of on line sales.
For their own fiscal survival, both the BBC and Sky Arts are at long last offering limited workshops and partnership schemes, to help grow digital learning and build digital capacity, which may eventually cover monetising shows.
Even the conservative commercial theatre sector is now marketing its shows through filmed trailers and teasers, with the TRSE even proposing an in house tweet zone to promote their shows. This sector may have the most glitzy websites to sell tickets, but most fail to do more than this.
It still seems that the larger scale venues have not yet got their heads around thinking through their policies for social media use. This includes Bill Kenwright Ltd who is still looking into how to control twitter users on tour.
However, in the small scale sector, no one appears to be working together to see how digital marketing can be fully integrated into the production process that will underpin a new model, based around live streaming with the venues as partners.
It is of course the National Theatre and The Tate who have pioneered at great costs the potential frameworks for producing a new business model. In the National’s case, this is a range of live streamed work in cinemas around the UK, whilst the Tate developed a social media campaign around its virtual gallery website.
So what can the small scale Producers learn from this costly experiment?
First, they can recognise that digital technologies are the primary drivers of change in consumer behaviour, as indentified by Molteni and Ordenini: ‘thus strategies for innovation in cultural institutions are likely to look particularly to the use of new technologies in dealing with their audiences’.
The Live NT screening of Phaedra in cinemas saw the National’s audience double in a single screening, attracting 10% of a new audience of whom, over one third were low income earners.
The audiences for live streaming were reported to be more excited and engaged by the content, with two thirds reporting to be’ transported’ and were later surveyed to be more willing to attend other NT shows, as well as other theatres.
Secondly, the report says that digital technologies have the potential to allow arts and cultural organisations to achieve a step increase in the audiences for their art, and in some cases, become major broadcasters of public service content in their own right (BIS, 2009).
Equally, within the context of their Colour Chart exhibition in Liverpool of 2009, the Tate’s work highlighted that a developed social media strategy can start to effect audience behaviour.
This campaign drove 13 percent of their visitors to their virtual gallery site. Half the visitors drawn to the site were ethically more diverse and of lower income than their known regular visitors. They reported that they engaged with a new digital audience that would be more willing to visit contemporary collections, and donate to the gallery, even though none actually did.
The lessons from both is that any new model should have an integrated social media strategy with the customer as its focus; and it should be targeting the audience that is most willing to buy in, in this case to the live streaming experience.
The live streaming experience is not an alternative to the real stage show. The recording should be able to create its own cultural worth, if it carries both an emotional and an intellectual meaning for the viewer, then it is most likely to be seen as culturally worthy
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. The Producer just has to put an economic value on that experience, and market it as an equally worthy investment.
Any sustainable model should therefore be open to driving that new digital audience to physically attend a live theatre show, as part of their’ artistic journey, from wherever they started.
When considering producing live streaming work, the Producer faces massive challenges to overcome. These include the questions surrounding ownership, even before those concerning the ones related to building a new operating model.
As the Nesta report points out, there are still threats to overcome: ‘many creative products are easy to reproduce, store and transmit through digital means, digitisation has created unprecedented uncertainties for many creative enterprises, making it imperative that they find ways to reinvent their business models to capitalise on the opportunities and avoid the threats that the new environment hold.’
So, Intellectual property (IP) rights are important here. Copyright allows artists and arts organisations to earn an economic return from their art. But where copyright is held by others, Producers must clear those rights needed to distribute their content in new ways, as well as clear performers’ rights to show productions in new digital formats.
This challenge is a very real one for small scale Producers but one that is possible to overcome with agreement from the creative teams who need to understand the impact of the digital platforms and the wider benefits for their work, their audience and their sector.
Marcus Romer’s York based Pilot Theatre company have approached the problem by offering his creative’s a ‘virtual box office’ fee, as part of their contract terms, this one off payment covers the live streaming of rehearsals, workshops and a performance as well as promotional filming. He reports that most agents don’t usually get the idea behind it, but usually take the fee.
So should a Producer armed with a general framework of how to start to develop a digital audience from the big institutions, and full of his/her own insecurities of marketing a small venue, with a low budget show, heed the challenge of Cameron’s Ministers to set out and create a new income stream from this new market?
The first response needed in answering the question, is to look at the strengths, mainly the skill set and the key relationships the Producer has in order to plan a strategy towards claiming that ‘digital dividend’.
The Producer out the outset of this challenge needs to be able to identify an audience through social media, this means-
Being able to define your brand
Knowing how to locate your audience
Has the means to create content, at the concept, planning and pre-production stages as well as during rehearsals, and performances/touring
Has the correct channel to evoke discussion and comment on your work.
Can engage with communities, particularly those of interest in you work.
Offering opportunities to invite participation
Can respond and reward.
Can build lasting relationships.-(known as creating a thick link)
This challenge in becoming social media savvy was laid down in March 2010 by the Camden Theatre Consortium when Theatre Director Ed Hall launched a new website to help get local fringe Producers promoting their shows for supporter donations through filmed trailer; pitches’, blogging, podcasts, photos, tweeting and face booking.
A year on, the organisers report that even though the site has attracted over 160 Producers, and met all its setting up costs, there is still a great deficit in the social media skills that Producers have, to be able to integrate the different channels in their work and use them at the appropriate time in the planning of their shows, that is the key to turning casual supporters into active audiences.
The Camden Theatre Consortium’s idea of incentivising Producers by offering them a theatre if they reached an agreed total fan base/ monetary target in the promotion of the show, really didn’t have much effect on driving Producers to learn these new media skills, as the venue managers throughout remained sceptical as to the amount of traffic they could attract plus the managers really didn’t see themselves as having a financial stake in the show, ‘they were just more likely to get their hire fees quicker!’ said one.
In order to get both parties to buy in to a social media strategy, both have to be partners in working out how and when the new tools can best be used to help each other, whether that is using them to save time,( a great boon to single overworked venue managers to provide capacity in running the operation) or getting both parties to open up the creative decision-making processes to each other.
How many venue managers really get involved with the independent Producer in choosing the script, casting, helping set the budget, joint fundraising, or designing the marketing?
Yet these are all potential elements that demand collaboration if a new working relationship is to be realised, because all these facets of production affect the way the customer is ultimately engaged..
The new digital tools available (see table) now make it easier for more opportunities to be created that allow a venue /Producer partnership to be more equal.
Whilst we recognise that Producers will always want to retain control on the artistic reins somehow, it is worth noting that by taking control of a customer focused social media strategy; the Producer does start to challenge the venue’s thinking about their own knowledge of the business.
It has been interesting to see how far the TRSE has gone in the last year, from having no particularly interest in social media to asking their audiences on line, as to what they want to see on stage in 2012, to letting their technical staff tweet and appointing a digital content manager, who will oversee a social media policy.
Social Media Tools for developing a strategy with Function Integration into Production Process Engagement level
www.scriptonline.net Finding a script Saves time at concept stage Means to engage venue in creative decisions.
www.camdenfringe.com Budget planning Interactive planning tool part of open book planning approach. Engages Creative teams and venues if joint planning and monitoring
www.doollee.com Getting the rights Time saving tool Can engage venue.
www.funderfinder.org.uk Raising money Essential for identifying grant funding bodies Tool for finding possible philanthropists
www.wefund.com Crowd funding Indentifying funding supporters/donors Turns supporters into donors
www.darkweeks.org Finding a venue Ideal for indentifying quiet slots in venues Good for building tours based on audience demand.
www.yousendit.com marketing File sharer Tool for sending your supporters a prospectus with pictures.
www.wordpress.org Blogging your story Tool to develop your blog Ideal for engaging your supporters with your production progress.
www.drupal.org Building a site Tool to build your website. Place for hosting your key production information
www.twitter.com Last minute offers Tool to advise on seat availability Means to sell reduced tickets
www.facebook.com Nudging family/ friends Tool for activating family networks to buying tickets. Personal approach and invite to attend.
www.youtube.com Hosting trailers Place to host teasers and trailers Trailers act as call for action.
www.spotlight.com casting Time saver Can engage venues in creative decisions
www.tmasolt.co.uk First night coordination Time saving tool First nights act as rewards for supporters.
www.stagejobspro.com Actors database Time saver Can engage venues in creative advice.
www.whatsonstage.com Review sites Good independent marketing material. Can act as motivator for driving audiences
www.theatremonkey.com Seating plans Time saver Engages audiences in planning evening
www.gettyimages.com Photo library Marketing material for eflyers/print Good images drive audience engagement.
www.camdenshares.co.uk Finding rehearsal space Time saver Can cut costs for partners.
Eventbrite.com Box office Invite and a reminder Cost effective box office that provides data.
Youropenbook.com Open book mgt Creates interest throughout run of show. Engages venues and creative team in sales and marketing.
Podcasting Promoting music Offers a marketing opportunity Creates a sales opportunity
Turn –page .com On line programmes Offers marketing opportunity Creates a sales opportunity
www.camdentheatres.com Live streaming Training and support to stream work. Helps broker deals with venues
ditto Producer networking Network to share costs Shares tips on engagement.
Once the Producer can bring a credible social media strategy to the table, then he has the means to be able to negotiate with the venue a possible partnership agreement, or at least begin to open up a creative dialogue that will get a venue manager to buy in to the strategy if it is targeted towards increasing audiences..
This relationship is particularly crucial in being able to help see a way forward in capitalising the live streaming work and fully exploit the income streams it may produce. The partnership needs to be seen in the longer term and not only as a contract hire agreement.
The Producers’ agreement needs to be seen as a set of milestones that are set long before the concept of the show is conceived, and is part of a relationship where the venue manager buys in to the skills, ideas and abilities of the Producer from the outset.
This agreement needs to include a list of financial targets that both parties need to agree that are created not only around the hire fee, but perhaps include pre sales , virtual box office fees, membership deals, online sales, merchandising and licensing deals from the digital content about to be created.
The nature of the new model agreement (as outlined below) starts to build on the NT model by recognising that the strategy is customer focused throughout, by building on customer engagement throughout the process, and that the work is able to fully integrate a social media strategy into it from the concept stage
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In order to drive change the venues need to have a financial incentive, and a stake in the Producers skills from the outset. This needs to be reflected in the agreements where both parties share the risks in setting up the infrastructure for the live streaming whilst both should be motivated to fully exploit the online sales and the Video on demand sales (VoD).
The risks of both needs to be recognised in this model,
So it begins to create a different way of working for the two parties, offering incentives towards targets seem an obvious start. By allowing the Producer to get the data from x new potential customers over x period from a test trailer feedback promotion, could be of some use for a venue to use to build up their customer intelligence as well as a database for mailing long before the season’s schedule is set.
It is worth noting that in the 2010 Camden Fringe Producer survey over 71% of Producers attracted an audience through digital means with over 50% claiming Facebook was the most effective means
Over stretched venue managers it seems, should value this data and offset the value against their committed future costs, e.g. as a deposit on the space?
This more imaginative way of working may also have a knock on effect on the creative team’s role.
They too need to be seen as having a worth as part of the new deal, as well as being an active part of a digital audience development strategy that they are helping define and create.
To help facilitate and coordinate this, the Producer may want to consider appointing a social media strategy as part of his/her team. This post would not replace the marketing specialist, but offer their skills towards integrating social media used throughout the entire production process.
One of the most important times that is often overlooked is when there is no show yet committed to, how do I independent Producers keep up their profile and their conversations with their supporters digitally?
Annette Mees. from Coney, whilst working on the Camden Players campaign this summer said, ‘what Producers really need to devise are some templates for pre production times that are not marketing but feel like talk with your mates down the pub’ they don’t want to be sold tickets, they just want to know how you are going on and have a laugh with you’.
This is the same thinking that got an online poker company to employ a comedian to blog and tweet for them; the company wanted their followers to feel good about their brand before their big push to sell, later down the line.
Coney usually employ writers with an interest in theatre to perform this role for them, including employing one of them to good effect to write a blog as fictitious character Mr Exs to engage online supporters of the Camden online game.
This pre production ‘warming up’ approach is what Producers and all their creative’s need to adopt before they start their hard sell, which means a sea change in how you use your creative team to cultivate online’ banter without it being direct marketing.
These then are some of the steps and characteristics of a possible model of agreement between the Producer and venue, which starts to offer a framework for new initiatives such as live streaming.
Proposed Producer /Venue Manager Agreement Model
Producer Venue Manager Impact of Model
Both parties set up and agree a set of key milestones that plot out a road map of their partnership.
There may be break clauses that prevent both parties from progressing if targets not met?
. Venue needs to have a number of early milestones that trigger financial returns to cover a percentage of capital outlay costs of live streaming kit.
Agreements should include a long term budget plan between the two partners that aims to recoup the full live streaming costs, venue hire and is off set against the pre sales, box office, virtual box office and VoD sales and merchandising and other licensing. Change to longer term partnership agreements rather than short term hire contracts that have key milestones that help manage the ongoing partnership maybe over 1-2 years.
Needs to offer a social media strategy that will drive supporters to website of venue long before any show is planned, just based on concept of idea.
Strategy need to have a time limit and monetary target to test validity of support and possible market for show/idea.
May want to appoint Social Media strategist as part of team. Venues need to give Producers direct access to creating content on venue website and controlling twitter/face book messages.
Venue needs to sign off Social media targets. E.g. £10k of concept panto tickets sold from- Feb- August.
Venues on a % of concept sales/interest as part of milestone
May need to redefine role of marketing agency support. Venues need to have a financial stake in the Producers’ creation of supporters from the outset.
Venues may want to take on digital content managers?
Producers are managing data, rather than venues
Producers need to test their ideas in a more robust market place by trialling shows on crowd funding sites and attracting potential funders.
Producers need to get 100% clearance from creative team for live streaming, may need to offer them a virtual box office payment as part of their contracts
A Creative Commons licence is a useful tool to demonstrate a creative team’s commitment to sharing content. Venues need to cost in PRS licences for their website for any live streamed content.
Venues may want to take% of virtual box office returns.
Venues need to draw up protocols on film teams operating in theatre spaces during the get in and for performances.
Theatre’s technical staff may need to be trained in lighting / live editing/filming shows for online streaming, and offered to Producer as part of contra?
ITC/Equity needs to explore the concept of virtual box office agreements’ as part of their wider terms and agreements?
Public body grants may need to support partnership agreements through sharing longer term risks
Producers may want to create and sell digital teasers and trailers to other Producers if own the camera kit. Venues may want to make production of digital trailers for venue promotion part of their agreement. Much more shared usage of camera kit and personnel envisaged to save costs either between venues or Producers.
Producer has the right to sell licence to other venues e.g. pubs to screen his work as part of agreement. Venues take % of VoD sales and merchandise up to two months after show.
Venues can take % of licence for other venue screening. Venues get an incentive to market and sell recorded work months after the performance.
Producer has developed supporters’ data that could be sold to venue. Agreements need to include how supporters are cultivated by venues. Data management of supporters details need to be managed by both parties under data protection act.
Agreements may want to be tracked through open book agreements. Venues could save costs by looking at open book approach to manage accounts. Digital innovation to assist in tracking and make agreements transparent
Producers may want to use creative teams to use digital formats to promote learning experiences Venues may want to exploit creative learning programmes through live streaming, including workshops sales etc. Possible markets in learning to exploit by offering learning on line for sale.
Could exploit further markets like selling/sharing content to local TV channels. Further exploitation could be stated in agreements Content could be sold on to a range of digital and non digital channels.
Could use creative team to support non direct theatre usage. Could use partnerships to develop conference streaming in venue. Facilities are available to both parties to stream non theatre work/events for extra income stream to partnership?
Live Streaming the Issues
In this model of live streaming, I am assuming that it is the Producer or a group of Producers that programme operate and distribute the content from this service; however ownership of the live streaming kit and the distribution software could equally work through joint venue/Producer ownership or with other third party involvement.
In this trial Camden Theatres a network of Producers and 14 venues owned the equipment and steered the project. Their technology provider was Ipercast ltd from April 2011-Sep 2011.
Even though there are many free or low cost live streaming service providers available to any Producer looking to test live streaming, I am focussing on a bespoke service that can be primarily be delivered with as much creatively flexibility as possible, rather than within a limited timeframe or working with pre- prescribed template constraints.
The basics required to operate a live streaming service are a digital platform, which is a TV embedded into a website, with a payment facility available to the customer, usually PayPal
At the venue two cameras are needed, that are linked up to a small editing box, that can send a picture signal to a piece of live streaming software by being plugged into a laptop, this has to have access to broadband.
Usually there are two camera operators and an editor required, to set up, check sound and light levels, mix the picture, and connect up the software before filming.
Whilst the basics sound achievable there are still many issues to overcome, i.e. that venues may not have enough broadband up load speed of 1Mb from their signal to support a broadcast.
In the early test broadcasts at the hotel based Shaw Theatre it was clear that after forty minutes into the show, demand on their Wi-Fi signal on a major international football night had an impact by freezing the images on screen. This was solved by simply limiting the signal from their guests’ use.
The long term solution was to persuade the hotel management to upgrade their broadband service, and offer it free to guests in their hotel rooms as a premiere service; this has still yet to be achieved.
For many venue managers with poor internet connections it was difficult to get them to spend on any upgrade costs without seeing the initial benefits.
The costs that are needed to set up the basic kit are outlined below, they are not out of the range of several parties coming together to share the resource and the full running costs, which could be paid over time, or through a lease arrangement.
Costs of Live Streaming to set up are based on Camden Theatres budget.
Element Cost- average Weekly unit cost
Capital costs- up front
Digital Platform £10,000 for 18 months 138.75
Archive storage £500 per year 10
Website dev and management £5000 100
Running costs
Broadband connection £30 per month 4
PRS licence £100 per year 2
Cameras x2 £4,000 80
Editing kit and accessories £2,000 20
Lap top £500 10
Operators x3 £300 per day 1500
Editing suite access £100 per day 700
Travel £ 20 per day 100
Total 2665
Average costs of one week of Live Streaming- £2665
Cost of live stream production per day £350
Cost of live stream per show x2 per day £175
Potential income
Average costs per live stream per show £3
Average costs per VoD per show £3
Break even point
Shows need to sell 58 live subscriptions or VoD daily
These working figures highlight the need over a year to try to maximise the usage over time of the kit, it is not always achievable to capture two different live shows per day, but with stacked festival programming and coverage of workshops and other theatre related events this assumption was practicable.
Once a show had been captured, it was intended to be stored for a month in an archive to be available on demand. The digital storage capacity costs were built in based around having 50 shows available at any one time.
The pricing of a live streaming show could cost between £2.99- £10, therefore an average of £3 was used as a fair indicator.
The other factors that needed to be considered before cameras were taken into the auditorium was working out a protocol of how the live streaming team would fit into to a Producers’ get in and technical rehearsal schedule.
Particularly sensitive were how the creative teams would view the introduction of cameras, and the how arrangement might work with companies coming into venues just on a traditional hire deal.
Therefore it was necessary to draw up some basic guidelines that tried to define the role and responsibilities of each party as below.
This advice was produced for Producers, Creative teams and FOH staff looking to Live Stream with Camden Theatres.
The Venue.
1 Check you have permission of the venue in writing, or as part of your contract. You will need to have access to an upload broadband speed of 1mb on site
2 You need to ensure your technicians can provide a sound feed for us, and can provide room for an editing desk.
3 You will need to provide us with an early get in time to the space, and allow us to stream up to 15 minutes before curtain up time.
4 You will need to ensure you allocate at least two seats for filming in the auditorium, make sure this is communicated to your box office staff.
5 Alert your potential audience that the show is being streamed, through your website, point of ticket sales, poster and include it on your ticket itself. Whilst your audience will not be identified on camera, it is good practice to let them know they might be seen .Put up a reminder outside the auditorium on the night to remind them.
6 Make sure the duty manager and the FOH staff explain to the audience that they will not be identified on film, (unless they want to), but maybe caught on camera. Identify seats that may be less prominent if they are cautious about the camera.
The Creative Team
1 Make sure you have the written permission of the writer, the designer, the director and all the performers to film .You can write it into their contracts as part of their duties, or get a clearance form from us.
2 We will need the consent from everyone performing before we can go ahead; this will need to be done at least four weeks before your event.
3 If there is any recorded or live music being used in the show, please ensure you have PRS or PPL clearance to us it, Check with the venue to verify your music licensing responsibilities’.
4 If you have projected images or text being used in the show, make sure you have the written permission of the author or originator to use them.
5 Please alert any of your staff’s agents, of the live streaming intentions before engagements are confirmed.
6 If your show includes performers’ under 16 year olds please allow more time to get parental permission.
7 Please note that we will only deal with the show’s producer in setting up this facility rather than any individual creative team member, unless nominated in advance
The Deal
1 The agreement is with the show’s producer only, who is responsible to ensure that the show is unencumbered and available to film on the agreed date.
2 The producer will receive free access to the film within 30 days of the show.
3 The producer will make the film available and promote it for a live streamed audience as well as for a theatre on demand audience for an agreed period.
4The producer will receive an agreed percentage of all theatre on demand sales over the agreed timescale .An individual contract will be drawn up.
5 Payment will be made on receipt of an invoice.
Marketing
The producer will be responsible for marketing the film at www,camdentheatres.com.
We encourage you to talk with your venue about devising a joint strategy to identify your supporters, and activate them through social media.
Some of the main challenges to drawing up an agreement just between Producers sharing the service, was the question of, the deal for them?
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Many independent Producers offering shows for live streaming were adamant that their role in promoting the online experience either live or downloaded was of lesser value than driving an audience to the show itself.
Many were more concerned to have editorial control of how the show would be edited, and were too caught up by the look and feel of the piece on the final download to worry about promoting it.
Again the learning of the Camden Theatre website re surfaced, did the Producers see the value of promoting their own show for a share of the virtual box office?
The seven Camden Fringe Producers who had shows live streamed did not take much ownership of the social media strategy to promote the service from the outset, it may have been a better idea to identify a social media champion within their teams and work with the specialist within?
Working with more experienced Producers it was clear that where they had professional marketing support it was a little easier to engage with them to promote the live streaming, but as in the Ballet Manila example the market turned out to be in an entirely different country from where they thought, their market turned out to be in the USA and not the Philippines itself.
Even though the live streaming was not being charged for, with the example of the London Contemporary Dance students showcase at The Place, it only took one tweet at 630pm to ensure that by 730pm there were 750 viewers watching the show, thereby matching the audience in the venue.
This company clearly had the social engagement with their audiences but hadn’t yet convinced them to buy on line.
With another two tweets this audience grew by 200 during the show, many of them returning to visit the Camden Theatres site and check out the other shows the day after.
These two examples show that both sets of Producers need to identify their supporters through social, emotional and intellectual engagement and then be able to convert them to making a purchase.
This reluctance to charge for content is still being debated by many companies who still feel they need to promote their brand first by sharing for free.
Conor Roche, digital development manager at the Roundhouse still believes in sharing content rather than selling it.
At a meeting of the Cultural Camden Digital group .he argued that until their competitors started selling then they wouldn’t, but felt the pressures of his management to generate a digital income.
The main question in charging, is how much is the online experience worth? If you charge the same price as the shows full ticket price are you in danger of over pricing the online audience by equating the two products as the same?
The willingness of different people to buy was tested out in a survey of 83 Camden Fringe theatre goers , who agreed that up to £4 was an acceptable level, thus valuing the online show as half the value of the real life experience, by the same people who told us that they were emotional and intellectually challenged by the fringe shows they saw..
This concurs with many online newspaper selling sites that tend to offer their weekly subscriptions at half the selling price.
The willingness survey also reveals a great reluctance by the already theatre going audience to buy and commit to a monthly subscription particularly older men on high incomes, but over half were happy to pay something for a monthly subscription if not the going rate.
There was also a positive feeling by the majority in the sample about the potential learning power of live screening, but less positive feelings about supporting streaming in other venues like pubs and clubs, especially with older women who are high cultural attendees.
The following are the key findings from the sample taken throughout August 2011 from actual Camden Fringe attendees.
Sample 83 Under 25s 25-44 45-64 Less than £20k £20-£49k £50+ Little Culture Moderate Extensive
Women 42 8 21 14 21 15 5 5 26 11
Men 38 6 22 6 15 15 5 7 18 8
Total 14 43 20 36 30 10 12 44 19
Willingness to pay for one off Show on line.
0-£4 £5-£9 £10-£14 £15+
Women 28 10 3 1
Men 19 8 7 0
Total 47 18 10 1
Willingness to pay for a monthly subscription
0-£5 £5-£10 £11- £15 £16-£20
Women 21 14 2 1
Men 15 13 5 0
Total 38 27 7 1
Response to willingness to watch Screenings in different settings e.g. Pubs
Strongly Agree Agree Disagree Strongly Disagree
Women 10 18 14 2
Men 3 17 11 2
Total 13 35 25 4
Response to encourage young people to learn better
Strongly Agree Agree Disagree Strongly Disagree
Women 17 19 9 3
Men 13 10 7 1
Total 30 39 16 4
For a Producer it is both the economic value as well as the cultural value that need to be balanced to create the worth..
One video on demand recording of artists Gilbert and George in discussion with art historian Tim Marlow for a ‘Timeout Live’ event from the Shaw, which attracted a full house of £10 ticket buyers on the night, failed miserably to attract much of an audience over the preceding month.
With a VoD price of £4.99- half the value of the actual show , the expectation was that with well known names and an hour long film of a current discussion, focusing on their recent work, then the download was a must for art students world wide.
In spite of promotion of the event and the availability of the download by the Producer in this case Timeout/the Shaw, the film only attracted 151 hits and no paying viewers despite a witty trailer promotion. (See table below)
Show Description Trailer hits Live viewers Charge VoD hits Profile of subscribers
Ballet Manila Philippine Ballet 63 5 £5 73 Mainly USA
The Place graduates Dance- student leavers n/a 790 Free 905 Friends of the Place attracted by tweets
Everyday Project- charity awareness event One Man in a box for 15 days n/a 6300 Free n/a Supporters of the Trafficking project
Gilbert and George An audience with 599 n/a £4.99 151 Art students
Camden Fringe
Little Bear Children’s theatre n/a 2 £2.99 47 Home Counties
Isobel’s Tree Children’s theatre n/a 2 £2.99 113 Home Counties
Snow White Children’s theatre n/a 6 £2.99 50 Home Counties
Lust Lost Love; Contemporary
Dance n/a 15 £2.99 497 Italy Poland
In the Tunnel Drama n/a 2 £2.99 138 Belgium
Mr String Drama n/a 2 £2.99 200 Spain
Choices /voices Spoken Word n/a 0 £2.99 40 ?
Hope Drama n/a 0 £2.99 219 ?
Accidental Festival
Arts Education Debate with Panel n/a 0 £3.99 71 n/a
Red Rose Drama n/a 5 £3.99 72 n/a
So was their unwillingness to pay £4.99 the barrier? This was the audience that after the event paid £40 for a Gilbert and George book, and created an hour long queue around the auditorium to get it?
It seemed that the ‘cultural experience’ here was in the seeing and meeting of the artists, and it was that what was valued more, rather than just seeing a secondary image after the event on a computer screen.
Even when that audience had the resource to afford the film, it was way down in their cultural worth list.
The anticipated market of arts students was probably too niche for the Producer to tap into as they were not necessarily their regular target market.
Again the absence of a coordinated social marketing strategy lost an audience for those Producers.
How important then is the artform in attracting an audience on line? Again a similar discussion type event on the arts live from the Roundhouse, as part of the Accidental festival attracted low hits and even lower paid for viewers, at £3.99.
As this event was free for an audience, again the question of event value comes into play for the Producer who needs to set up the debate to fully exploit audience engagement and communicate that on line from the outset
On this occasion a free panel discussion with respected arts professionals was neither offering specialist views and advice to attract a niche market, nor providing a high level of audience involvement to even to get their own drama school staff to view it, even though the Central Drama school alumni had been targeted by e-flyers and trailers in advance?
Similarly the Spoken Word event ‘Choices and Voices’ failed to take off in spite of having with live music support and a large black audience following.
It was dance that from this trial proved to be most popular in securing hits and converting them to paid customers.
Both live screenings of the Ballet Manila and contemporary dance piece ‘Love Lust Lost’ attracted the biggest paying audiences, as well attract high levels of interest and sales for VoD.
The majority of subscribers for both pieces, both quite different in style, came from abroad with USA viewers being attracted to the ballet and the European audience the fringe piece, particularly Italy, Spain and Poland.
It was not surprising to understand that there are Pilipino dance fans in the USA, which may be supporters of the company, and like wise that the family and friends of the fringe dance company have a range of connections around Europe.
It maybe that Dance as an art form lends itself better to the small screen, and that its followers may also be in that under 25, women on low income category who say they are moderate to high culture consumers, and the ones most willing to buy on line?
The Children’s events had a mixed response with an outside recording of new play ‘Little Bear’, doing less well than the traditional ‘Snow White show, the survey amongst the older women sample showed a more conservative taste for familiar shows.
This trial also included a off live showing of a man in living a box for 15 days to highlight the issues’ around human trafficking, this free live stream attracted the most hits over the period, most of which were driven by the charity behind the ‘Everyday Project’
This again illustrates the cultural worth that has to be created behind the images; the live pictures had some resonance emotionally with their supporters of the project in order to make them feel able donate later, as with the Tate example.
Either way, for the Producer there are hopeful signs that this core group of paying viewers, may be the key to growing the market, these are the ones that further work needs to be done with, especially the under 25 year old women, on low incomes who are moderate to high cultural attendees..
We still need to learn which is the best channel to converse with them and how their present attitude and behaviours affect their on line choices.
Are they stuck at home mothers longing to get involved in the arts again?
The Producer in developing work in this area also needs to understand the front and back end of the selling on line functions.
Producers need to create a hassle free way to pay on line, so they need to have a working knowledge of installing Paypal or similar service and be able to offer a variety of easy payment menus and subscriptions to fit the product, e.g. pay for view, pay for day, pay for several shows, or subscribe over a month as a member, or group member, or discount offer etc.
All these form of payments can create a good yield if linked to the right product, again Paypal costs and credit card charges, usually up to 5% need to be budgeted for in creating the sales package offer.
One good way of enticing passing traffic is to have the first ten minutes for free for an audience, before the screen is blocked, however this may effect the enjoyment of a live performance if you need to get them to login in and answer data questions.
Certainly offering the first fifteen minutes of inside the auditorium before the curtain goes up, is a good way of building excitement on line, as the entrance of an audience provides the background noise to create the pre show buzz.
The Producer also needs to be aware in budgeting terms that not only does he incur PRS charges for the venue, but needs to have a PRS licence from about £110 to cover the website on a yearly agreement. There are other licence costs for offering VoD.
As of yet there is no similar arrangement with PPL, as they have yet to catch up with the technology.
For the Producer there are several lessons from this trial that might help the Producer to rethink their approaches to using digital solutions to develop their work.
The first lesson is to realise that you can create and control audience data at a very low cost for your own ends, and that it is a useful commodity to have in bringing to the talks with a venue manager, especially if you can analyse the impact it may have on attendance and viewing habits.
Producers need to see their relationship with a venue as a long term partnership that is full of future digital selling opportunities for both parties, which could be used to capitalise joint projects. This will eventually lead to more formal ‘virtual box office’ agreements.
Producers without an integrated social media strategy are less likely to drive anyone beyond family and friends to be active attendees to their work, or find an audience for live screenings. Taking on a social media strategist may become a common feature of a creative team.
Producers need to ensure all the creative team has a role to play in the digital social media strategy delivery from ensuring lighting levels are high enough for on line viewing to see, to policy on filming rehearsals, and creating pre production creative content.
Producers working with live streaming need to ensure that it is as for them, and their audience both an economic and cultural worth.
For Producers of low budget work, there maybe a way of at last generating an income stream, that rewards their risk taking, creative talents and holistic approach to’ going digital’
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Bibliography/ References
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Camden Fringe Festival shows are the first to be streamed online for the first time this August, with many being made available on-demand as part of a catch up service.