In terms of productions
we can be ready for first curtain up eight weeks after we
take control of the space, and this would give us more than
enough time to "rehearse the rest of the staff in the
other areas like restaurants and bars as well do that by
the time of the formal building opening and then the first
opening night we would be more than ready for a perfect
start.
Previews and pre-opening events will give
us time to road test our capacity and capability for proper
service, and we will continue to review and monitor our
progress with weekly departmental head meetings and quarterly
reviews.
Our production milestones are
set out in our programming schedule, and apart from additional
work which we may choose to implement once we have assessed
how well we are achieving our base goals, and the outside
productions we will seek to book once budgets and costs
have been established, it is not expected that we will deviate
from this programme.
Click
here to review the Arts Programme schedule
Timing will be crucial, and we will look
for the space to be work ready by April so that we can do
all the necessary preparation work to begin properly in
August with a strong holiday programme for young people
and solid evening entertainment, leading to the educational
and arts programmes and finally the big family show for
Christmas. This should give us a logical platform of progression.
Other department's milestones are dependent
on the production schedule being properly and strongly adhered
to.
Marketing
will be handled by the PR department working with and
utilizing the abilities
of the graphics and photography as well as all other practical
departments. Publicity will be handled on several fronts.
Press, through releases, publicity stunts and events,
and through booked advertising. A concerted poster and
flyer campaign throughout London, not just for the opening
of the Centre, but for each production we undertake, internet
marketing through our website, traded links etc., and
direct marketing through the mailing list of centre visitors
we will gradually compile.
Click
here to see examples of our show websites
Graphics for the websites are consistent with those of
the printed publicity, so these examples will also show
what the posters and fliers will look like.
The
target for our marketing strategy is to make everyone
in London aware of Balineum by the end of year one.
Our worst case scenario is
not getting the funding we need to stage the productions
on our schedule. Having to pass on the costs through ticket
charges for students would drastically reduce the amount
of students and school parties we would attract,
which would be very bad for the whole educational programme.
Our fall back option in this case would
be to do two things. Adopt a "Poor Theatre" strategy
in terms of our curriculum programme to allow us to stage
them with the absolute minimum of frills but to at least
get working productions on stage to enable the students
to learn.
Secondly we would have to adopt a far more
commercial and mercenary production attitude. This may entail
staging shows appealing to the lowest common denominator,
and would not represent the scenario of choice.
Both of these would undermine the Centre
we are trying to build and the community services we would
be aiming to provide, but would give us avenues of survival
should it become necessary.
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