Publicity Manager

Introduction

The role of the publicity manager is to take the publicity designers designs and translate them into actual physical objects. This can require printing on Athena or Copy Tech, ordering postcards, or acquiring t-shirts. This document will first examine the forms of publicity that should be used every semester, as well as some general notes about standards for publicity management.

Originally compiled by Hanna S. Kuznetsov in February 2009

Nota Bene: publicity changes with changing times. explore your options. be clever.

Ensemble Logo

Another note: The Ensemble has an official font. It is called “The Real Font.” This should ONLY be used for the words “The MIT Shakespeare Ensemble”. It should under no circumstances be used, ever, for any other text. This is called “branding”. It is our logo. You should own this font file, and you should use it when using our group name on any and all publicity. You should also make sure that the Publicity Designer has this file, and that he/she is aware of the branding rule.

Publicity Materials

Teasers

1. Black and white, sized 8.5 x 11, unless you have magical access to other printers.

2. Print using athena printers.

3. The main goal of the teasers is to grab people's attention, not to give people detailed information. They should definitely include group name, production name. They can include show dates, websites, and location.

4. These should posted around campus starting a week before put-in. They can continue going up throughout the production, even alongside the real posters.

Posters

1. These are color 11x17 prints. Make sure the file is a flattened image, saved as PDF, and at least 300dpi (pixels per inch).

2. To print them, email or otherwise talk to June Milligan at Copy Tech and tell her to set up our usual ad swap, whereby we get 200 free color posters in return for putting the copytech ad in our program. Also request tickets when setting up the ad swap. Email her 1-2 weeks before you actually print posters at copytech to give her warning.

3. Submit the file to be printed on the copytech online form. Be sure to choose "other" and write "11x17 color prints". Don't tell them they're "posters" because they think those are glossy plasticky things, not what we want.

4. Sometimes it is a good idea to get just one printed and look at it, decide you like it, then go for all 200.

5. Start putting these up around campus starting at put-in and continuing until the show closes. People need to help, but it's hard to get them to help. we decided at some point that people could get generic "hours" for postering, especially if they're low on some other form of "hours".

6. Everyone in the production can have 1 for themselves, but no more than that.

T-shirt

1. People pay for them themselves.

2. The earlier people get them, the earlier walking talking publicity bodies will start roaming around campus. Aim for them to arrive by at least the Friday before put-in.

3. Shirts should include the name of the show, "MIT Shakespeare Ensemble" and other relevant information as the publicity designer requests. Tradition holds that the shirt includes a quote from the show and some pretty drawing. Assume these will be printed in one color ink on one color shirt.

4. Good places to order from include NEDesign and QRST's. NEDesign is usually cheaper, but a little less reliable. QRST's has been known to give discounts if you may them in cash.

Postcards

1. This will use up the bulk of the publicity budget

2. Vistaprint or overnightprints are usually good options. Choose between them based on who has the best discounts at the moment. Hint for vistaprint: you can often get a better deal on vertical orientation postcards by rotating the image instead of the postcard.

3. If you google "cheap custom postcards" or "custom postcards free" or "custom postcards discount", you'll get the magic discount version of postcard websites that aren't necessarily available if you just go straight to their URL.

4. I usually get 1000 postcards. the next increment down from that is 500, and i find that i can usually get rid of at least 800, which means it's worth getting the larger amount. but if they're not discounted that semester, then just go with 500.

5. When postcards arrive, give at least 10 to each actor, if not more. Tell them to give them to friends. drop them around campus, in athena clusters, next to stacks of the tech. also keep a lot of them in booth and spread them out so people grab them. try to get rid of as many as possible!

Email

Spam is your friend. people will probably reply to you complaining, but not that many. you'll also get some bouncing emails and "away from office" emails. but it's totally worth it.

BCC is your friend. this will hide the fact that you are misusing MIT mailing lists.
Lists to send emails to should include:
<ensemble@mit.edu> - members of the ensemble
<ensemble-new@mit.edu> - shakedartes and other people who were interested at some point to be on our mailing list
<town-crier@mit.edu> - a not well known ensemble list that has people who just want show publicity, and no spam about being involved in shows.
<mtg-social@mit.edu>
<gsp-cast@mit.edu>
<gsp-prod@mit.edu>
<dramashop@mit.edu>
<mitcp@mit.edu>
<rkb@mit.edu>
<arts-announce@mit.edu>
<ta-performances@mit.edu>
Recent and current Ensemble show lists.

Lists to spam less often:
<ensemble-alum-ma@mit.edu> - ensemble alums in the boston area
<ensemble-alum@mit.edu> - ensemble alums all over (it's good to remind officers to update both of these, as they often forget)

Dorm Lists:
<ec-discuss@mit.edu>
<senior-house@mit.edu>
<random-hall-talk@mit.edu>
<bexley-minus-fascists@mit.edu>
<baker-forum@mit.edu>
<bc-talk@mit.edu>
<mccormick-announce@mit.edu>
<macgregor@mit.edu>
<newhouse@mit.edu>
<next-forum@mit.edu>
<sponge-talk@mit.edu>
<fenwayhouse@mit.edu>

Other options:
Go through the internet and find various boston-area theatre departments at different schools, also boston-area community theatres, professional theatres, whatever. no need to spam them continually, one publicity email should probably suffice. just try to get it out to people. high school theatre and literature teachers are good targets, too, because sometimes they bring their whole class on a field trip. what i've done in the past is send one email to boston area theatre people, and one specially written email to boston-area teachers, inviting them to bring their classes of students to see our play. if you want to do that, you should do it in the beginning of the semester, because field trips take a while to organize.

sidenote: the theatre arts mailing lists change often. keep track of them. currently, they are: ta-performances, ta-auditions, ta-crew, and ta-academic. in case it's not clear, these are, in the following order: show publicity, auditions announcements, techies wanted, and academic stuff within the department. don't misuse them, otherwise the theatre lady will yell at you. these have changed twice during my time at MIT. these might change in the future

A sample Email blurb:

The MIT Shakespeare Ensemble presents

The Tempest

By William Shakespeare

Directed by J Paul Nicholas

Our last performance is tonight!

Reserve Tickets at http://web.mit.edu/ensemble/www/tickets/

Magic and mischief abound when the Queen of Naples and her court find themselves mysteriously shipwrecked on a deserted island. Join us for a night filled with sorcery, alcohol-inspired homicidal plotting, and young lust.

*Performances*

March 24 at 8:00pm

La Sala De Puerto Rico (MIT Student Center)

84 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge MA

MIT, Harvard, Wellesley Students: $6

MIT Community, Seniors, Other Students: $9

General Admission: $12

The Interner

There are many other places on the internet (both inside and outside of MIT) where you can put up advertisements. We're supposed to only advertise to the MIT community. But some places are definitely fine:

netheater411.com (super straightforward)

MIT Events Calendar

Others places you stumble across. find them, use them, put up ads, reuse the blurb, put up a little graphic image if you have one.

MIT Publications

* Photos *
Contact both The Tech and Technique to have someone take pictures. They need to be warned ahead of time and told that they should come for the final dress rehearsal. It is too distracting to have them take pictures during a show, this should be avoided at all costs.

*Reviews*
Request a reviewer from The Tech by emailing their arts department. bribe them with 1 or 2 comp tickets. it is very possible that no one will come. Even in the best case scenario, a review won't come out until Second Friday at the earliest. Evidently we've also gotten Larry Stark's "Theatre Mirror" to come review our shows, but we haven't done this in a while.

Program

There used to be a program designer position. because of my overenthusiasm during the tempest and taking 5 prod positions, a lot of them got mushed into one. so now, either the publicity manager or publicity designer or a third person makes the program. Make the program in powerpoint. Hunt down old programs to get a sense for the formatting.

Important Things to Include in the Program:
Program Cover
All the ads you’ve arranged for ad swaps: LSC, MITA/V, Copytech, and upcoming theatre @ MIT
Cast & Crew bio’s
Director’s note (Optional)
Dramaturg's note (Optional)
Synopsis (Optional)
List of Scenes (Optional)
About the Shakespeare Ensemble (Optional)
Special thanks / acknowledgments

It's important that the program takes up an full number of printer pages. This can make formatting quite difficult. Play around, and stick in some pictures if you need some filler. These can either be printed through copytech, or discreetly using Athena Printing.

Suggested Deadlines

Because the main graphic used on the posters is reused on pretty much everything else, it's important to get the teasers and posters done as early as possible, to leave time for shipping of postcards and t-shirts (which can take anywhere between 1 and 3 weeks, depending on issues).

Deadlines go vaguely in the following order:
1. Semifinal Teaser
2. Final Teaser, Semifinal Poster
3. Final Poster, Postcards
4. T-shirts
5. Ads

You don't have to make things due on a prod meeting day, you can choose deadlines based on shipping, etc. it's important that you do your homework and figure out what the deadlines are going to be really early so you can tell the producer, so he/she can put it in the designer's contract.

That's easy to do for the spring show, since you can just come up with it over winter break and send it out at the beginning of IAP, giving everyone a good month to work on it before the semester even starts. that's important because the spring rehearsal period is only 4 weeks before put-in, which means that IAP is a really good time for the designer to start working (and prod meetings start about halfway through IAP anyway). The fall rehearsal period is 6 weeks before put-in, which gives you buffer time, especially if you only become publicity manager at the beginning of term as opposed to over the summer.

In either event, you should coordinate with the Publicity Designer and the Producer when forming deadlines.

Make sure that you have an extra plastic table, with a table skirt, available for front of house. In order to run box office, you will need:

* A cash box, with change. You can get $1 bills from Bank of America in the Student Center, and will typically need $200 - $300 dollars in change, assuming we still charge $6 for tickets.

* Programs. Printing takes a long time, so don't do it right before the show.

* Reservations transferred from the internet into a physical piece of paper. Consolidated into one list is useful, and alphabatized would be especilaly sexy

* Tickets. These are printed at copy tech. It's probably best if you get them printed when you get the posters printed. Talk to June Milligan. Also see if they'll cut them for you- it's quite the pain if you have to cut them yourself. Templates can be found in the Ensemble Locker. Good luck getting them to work.

SOMEONE MAKE THIS PRETTY

Lobby 10 Booth

Contrary to the name, this does not always happen in Lobby 10. Make sure that you reserve a space, the earlier the better. This can be done through Virtual EMS. Everyone involved in the show is typically required to sign up for some number of hours. Do your best to get everyone to sign up. Starting at 9am can be tricky for some, so it's usually helpful to send out a reminder each day, just so veryone's aware of what happens. There should also be an Officer of the Day. Make sure that they're doing they're job as well. Needed at booth are:
* The Publicity Board, so people know what group is being advertised
* Show Posters, so they know what show is goint up.
* Postcards, so they remember what show is going up.
* Reservations Binder, so they can reserve tickets for the show
* Tickets and Cash Box, so they can buy tickets for the sho<del>w
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* <del>Shot Glasses</del> Toothpick Holders, so they remember us fondly.
To make life easier, all this should be stored in one spot in the office during prod week. That way we don't have to get CAC to let us into West Lounge every morning.
Contrary to the name, this does not always happen in Lobby 10. Make sure that you reserve a space, the earlier the better. This can be done through Virtual EMS. Everyone involved in the show is typically required to sign up for some number of hours. Do your best to get everyone to sign up. Starting at 9am can be tricky for some, so it's usually helpful to send out a reminder each day, just so veryone's aware of what happens. There should also be an Officer of the Day. Make sure that they're doing they're job as well. Needed at booth are:

* The Publicity Board, so people know what group is being advertised

* Show Posters, so they know what show is goint up.

* Postcards, so they remember what show is going up.

* Reservations Binder, so they can reserve tickets for the show

* Tickets and Cash Box, so they can buy tickets for the sho<del>w

</del>

* <del>Shot Glasses</del> Toothpick Holders, so they remember us fondly.

To make life easier, all this should be stored in one spot in the office during prod week. That way we don't have to get CAC to let us into West Lounge every morning.

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