October 7, 2008

Free Night of Theater 2008 Participation Guidelines

Theatre Communications Group | Managing Partners | Theatre Companies

Participation in the Free Night of Theater 2008 program is not available for open enrollment - participation will be linked to potential partners’ agreement to meet the participation criteria outlined below. (If you've missed the deadline and would still like to be considered to participate, contact Phillip Matthews at pmatthews@tcg.org)

The deadline for new organizations (or theatre companies) to contact TCG about participating in the Free Night 2008 program is June 27, 2008.

 

If you would like the participate in the program, please contcat your regional representative.

For a list of regional representatives, please click here.

TCG's Free Night Program Responsibilities:

TCG will design, manage and oversee all aspects of the national Free Night of Theater 2008 campaign.  As part of the program administration, TCG will:

  • Disseminate 2008 program information to local management partners and/or individual theatre companies
  • Approve participation in 2008 program of all interested parties
  • Facilitate regularly scheduled program teleconferences and committee meetings
  • Provide management support and program updates through the Free Night web pages located at www.tcg.org
  • Manage and assume fiscal responsibility for all programmatic research and analysis performed by Shugoll Research
  • Manage advertising agency relationship
  • Assume fiscal responsibility for design and creation of advertising elements per advertising Scope of Work agreement
  • Work with advertising agency to design Free Night information on the TCG website and all collateral materials
  • Approve all final elements of the national advertising campaign
  • Provide management partners templates of all advertising elements
  • Design, host and maintain the Free Night of Theater 2008 website (www.freenightoftheater.net)
  • Manage online ticketing reservation system through national site
  • Assure that the program information is available and current, as well as linked to managing partner organization websites Back to Top

Managing Partner's Responsibilities:

In the program's first three years, Free Night of Theater has helped fulfill the missions of our managing partner organizations by increasing their membership, providing new sponsorship opportunities (corporate, foundation, government and in-kind) and significantly expanding local media exposure.

Managing partners are responsible for all aspects of the Free Night of Theater 2008 in their area and agree to:

  • Recruit and manage the participation of local theatre companies
  • Disseminate 2008 program participation criteria to individual theatre companies
  • Provide prominent billing (with links to the national Free Night and TCG websites) on local organization websites
  • Use the national website for online ticket reservations (unless agreed by TCG that org’s existing website can handle reservations in same manner as national site)
  • Use the national online ticket reservation survey provided by TCG
  • Participate in post-event program evaluation conference calls scheduled by TCG
  • Provide post-event local program summaries as outlined by TCG, including:
    • - Demographic Survey results
    • - Theatre "no-show" rates
    • Program overview

Best Practices

Past Free Night campaigns have shown that program success is directly linked to the commitment of organization resources by our management partners. Free Night partners agree to:

  • Assign specific staff to assist in the day to day management of the program
  • Commit modest financial resources to support the ongoing management of the program
  • Pursue local funding opportunities to support the production of the campaign
  • Create local media plan publicizing Free Night
  • Create local public relations plan to promote the Free Night campaign
  • Hold a press event to launch the campaign
  • With appropriate sponsorship, consider the following:
    • - Place prominent advertisements in local papers
    • - Create a printed program listing all participating theatres to be distributed in advance of the event
    • - Provide posters and/or banners to be displayed in participating theatre lobbies
    • - Place ads on billboards, bus and telephone kiosks and local mass transit system
    • - Create e-mail flyers promoting the event
    • - Print postcards to distribute through community specific ticket outlets, local postcard distribution networks and 2007 participating theatres
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Individual Theatre Company's Responsibilities:

Free Night of Theater has a proven track record to attract new theatregoers which can lead to increased ticket sales, diversified as well as broadened theatre audiences, deepened relationships with audience members, expanded media exposure for local theatres, and offers new funding opportunities (corporate, government and foundation), while promoting collaboration among theatres through participation in this national program.

In order to participate in the 2008 program, individual theatres agree to:

  • Offer Free Night of Theater on or about, but no earlier than October 16, 2008
  • Offer any additional performances within a timeframe TBD (most likely 2 weeks)
  • Issue a 48-hour email reminder to Free Night patrons (automatic through the national website)
  • Manage post-performance no-show list
  • Fill out attendee ‘no-show’ document provided by TCG within TBD timeframe
  • Participate in national/local post-event surveys and research studies (facilitated by managing partner and TCG)
  • Provide all available single ticket inventory outside of subscriptions
  • If single ticket inventory is unknown, or for theatres without subscriptions, then at least 25% of the house (a larger % is greatly encouraged)
  • Offer tickets through the national Free Night ticket reservation system
  • Release tickets at an agreed upon time before curtain
  • Capture name/addresses/email of anyone accessing free tickets (automatic through the national website)

Best Practices

Past Free Night campaigns have shown that individual theatre success is heavily influenced by the commitment and direct participation of the local theatre company. Theatres reporting the highest level of satisfaction and success with the Free Night program have implemented effective promotional strategies. Theatre companies should:

  • Assign box office and/or administrative staff to management of the event
  • Promote the campaign in their production programs prior to the Free Night launch
  • Include program inserts (template provided by TCG) on day of performance
  • Present theatre curtain speech welcoming new theatregoers to the theatre "family" on the day of the event performance
    (this has been the single most effective tool to get patrons to return and purchase tickets)
  • Create a prominent lobby display advertising the event for at least four weeks prior to the Free Night event
  • Distribute an e-postcard (template provided by TCG/ local organization) promoting the event to the company's email list
  • Publicize the event on the company website with a link to the managing partner, national Free Night and TCG websites
  • Distribute event postcard (template provided by TCG/local organization) to audience members
  • Communicate with their subscribers to encourage them to attend another theatre on that night and to enlist them as advocates in encouraging their friends and neighbors to participate

Contact

For more information on how to participate in Free Night of Theater please contact Phillip Matthews, 212.609.5900 x230.

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