Posters and publicity material
For the main show, these should ideally be done by Christmas so that they can be distributed early in the new year. For Ruddigore, the poster designs got sent off to the printers halfway through week 1, so you'll need to have the designs finished by Week 10, ideally.
Try to use a graphics package like Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw (the latter is available on campus computers). Avoid programs like Microsoft Word as they are not designed for graphic design and will give a less professional result from the printers.
If the show has major sponsorship from anyone (typically Boyes) be sure to include somewhere 'In association with' then the company logo. Previous P&P officers should have a copy of the Boyes logo and the advert page they use for programmes, so you don't need to ask them for that.
If you want full page printing then you will need to set a couple of options in the graphics package (probably in the 'Print settings' dialog or similar) - tell it to output printers marks (the circles and crosses that tell their equipment where to cut) and set a bleed of roughly 0.5mm (this makes it output a 0.5mm band of the artwork outside of the print area to avoid a white border on the page).
It is normally a good idea to get a mixture of A3, A4 and A5 posters, in increasing quantities.
Consider roughly 30 A3, 10 A4, 200 A5 as an initial run (this was quoted at £76 from Reprotech in January 2007). Reprotech should be able to do additional runs with no additional set-up charge.
Checklist of what to include on the poster:
- The society name / logo
- The names 'Gilbert and Sullivan' (especially for a less well-known show)
- The show's main logo
- The dates
- The times of performances (make sure it's clear that there are two performances on the Saturday)
- The location (intelligible by people from outside the university)
- Ticket costs
- Where to buy tickets
Programmes
Liase with Reprotech early on about programmes to establish what format they would prefer. For Patience 2005 we created a Microsoft Word document and sent Reprotech a file with each A5 page sequentially (front cover, inside front cover, … , back cover), but your program of choice might be able to handle booklets automatically.
We in the past have had the inner and outer covers in colour and everything else in black and white which seems to give an acceptable balance of attractiveness and cost.
Pricing is a matter for the committee decide but IMHO1 you shouldn't be afraid of charging £1+ for programmes. MUGSS2 charged about £2 (if memory serves) for programmes for Utopia Ltd..
Merchandise
Sponsorship
In terms of sponsorship, ask anyone and everyone. Boyes will usually give us a voucher for around 100 pounds, so be sure to contact them first, but otherwise it's a free-for-all. Write to take-aways, restaurants, bars, companies, etc., and mention that they'll be able to put an advert in the programme which should get them publicity. Just a few possible examples of the above:
*Take-aways: Efe's, Golden Grill, Vikings Kitchen, basically any place that drops of menus by the porters' lodges
*Bars: The Nagshead, The Priory, Yates, Nexus, Toffs, Gallery, Rumours, Ha! Ha!, Dusk, Wetherspoons, Vodka Revolutions, Orgasmic
*Companies: Deloitte, Watson Wyatt, Clifford Chance
Most of these places advertise with other student societies, such as the York Union, so they should also be interested in advertising with us.
On the subject of sponsors, don't forget to write to them after both the summer and the main show to thank them for their support and ask if they'll continue to do so for the next show. Boyes' address is on their website (http://www.boyes.co.uk), and obviously you'll have to get the address if anyone else who sponsors us.
Advertising
A lot of advertising for the main show - particularly internet related - can be done during the Christmas holidays, or very early in Term 2.
One of the main things you'll need to do for the main show is make sure we're in Local Link, as for both Pirates and Ruddigore, a large percentage of the audience (other than our own friends and family, obviously) found out about it there. Go to http://www.yourlocalweblink.co.uk and you'll find out more about the website and magazine. To advertise with the magazine, email ku.oc.knillacolruoy|ofni#ku.oc.knillacolruoy|ofni. You can pay to advertise with them, but it's quite expensive (they estimated me an advert would be something like £70 for a quarter of a page, I think) so when you email them, just explain that you usually ask just to get a mention in paragraphs about what's on, and in their pages on upcoming events.
In the email, include a copy of the logo (probably in jpg, gif or png format), a quick synopsis, our website address, details of when and where the show is, how much tickets are and where to get them, and our email address, so that they can include whatever they've got space for. Also, make sure the details are right. It can't really be helped if they misread things, but it's probably best if you make it easier and don't tell people the show starts half an hour earlier than it actually does.3 Also, if any site you advertise with asks for a mobile phone number and you give your own, try to remember this when customers start phoning and asking you for tickets. Otherwise, it all gets a bit confusing. Particularly when you're in the middle of a seminar group. Trust us; we know.
For Ruddigore, we also advertised with www.wherecanwego.com. The advantage of that is that it's free, you get on their website, and it's also the website that feeds the Daily Telegraph's 'Family Days Out' feature. I'll keep my opinions on the Daily Telegraph to myself, but any publicity we get free is good.
On that note, a diary of every Gilbert and Sullivan show going on in the world at any given moment is kept here: http://savoyopera.co.uk/. If you email David Sandham, whose address is somewhere on the website, then he'll put our show up there in the right month for no charge. Again, email everything you did for the Local Link, but without the logo, and don't forget to say you're from the University of York Gilbert and Sullivan Society.
You should also send out emails to The York Press, as well as all the campus newspapers. For the Press, send all the same stuff in case they've got the space. You don't need to bother for the on campus things, but just tell them it's on and offer them free tickets to come and review it. Nouse, the Yorker, and the Zahir have all done it for us in the past.
This one's already been handled for the summer show, but watch out for emails from the Societies and Communications officer coming into the society account about the YUSU term planners. They let us put in events on those, if you tell them what week and days, what time, what it is and which society you're from, and give them a logo of the show. If you can catch it over the summer, they're particularly good for putting in when our first meeting and auditions are in the Autumn Term (all the freshers get the term planners at Freshers' Fair) and for the show in the Spring Term.
Awards
See Awards. The P&P team are generally responsible for creating awards and voting slips to be voted on by the cast etc before the last night of the show.