Category: Fundraiser

So that’s it, the shows over and Sherbet Lemon Theatre have retired, for now. The Truth About Bedtime… was a success and we as a company are overwhelmed with the response we have received. We have received feedback from our friends, family and even members of the pubic as to how entertaining they found our performance and how much they enjoyed it, giving us confidence to perhaps pursue our show further in the future. I am so proud of everything we have achieved over the past four months and wouldn’t change this experience with these girls for the world.

Now we have reached the end of the process it seems appropriate to evaluate the success of our debut performance and consider how I may have improved in my role as performer and fundraiser to further our success.

In relation to my role as a performer, I felt happy with the performance I had given on the night of our debut show. However, there is always room for improvement and I feel for myself this is in the form of projection. When performing in a large space, such as the Lincoln Performing Arts Centre auditorium, it is essential that actors project to be heard by all audience members. The nature of our seating meant that if I hadn’t projected it would have more than likely been difficult for those who were not sat on the first row to hear me when I spoke. I received feedback from an audience member regarding a difficulty in hearing all that was said throughout our performance. Whether this was on my part or on the part of my fellow cast members it is certainly something to note for the future.

   (Sired, 2018)

(Sired, 2018)

(Sired, 2018)

In regards to my role as fundraiser this was mainly a role I took on throughout the creation process rather than on the day of the show. However, it was my fundraising events that raised the money required to put on our performance, providing the funds to buy the set, props and costumes. We were fortunate enough to have raised enough funds to buy everything we felt we needed in order to perform our debut show, therefore, I would say my role as fundraiser was a success. For the future, taking our performance further, I would perhaps aim to raise more funds dedicated to dressing the seating area. We decided to place blankets and pillows on the seating in order to create the comfy and cosy environment we desired. For our debut performance this was successful, however, in the future if we took our performance to larger spaces we would require more to dress a bigger seating area.

(Sired, 2018)

(Sired, 2018)

(Sired, 2018)

Our debut performance of The Truth About Bedtime… was on the whole successful and hopefully you haven’t seen the last of the Sherby Lems yet.

E.R.

Sired, K. (2018) Projection 1 [image].

Sired, K. (2018) Projection 2 [image].

Sired, K. (2018) Projection 3 [image].

Sired, K. (2018) Dressing the set 1 [image].

Sired, K. (2018) Dressing the set 2 [image].

Sired, K. (2018) Dressing the set 3 [image].

Now that fundraising is over and we have entered the final few days before our show, it seems appropriate to evaluate the success of our campaigns. Attached below is a document outlining the locations in which we ran our competitions, with a break down of time spent there and how much money was raised. This has allowed me to examine the success of our competitions in the various locations (also within the document attached) and reflect upon how I could improve in the future.

When we analyse the statistics given it appears approaching our friends through parties and societies was in fact on average the most successful way to raise funds. These statistics show they raised almost £4 more that the university locations in relation to the time spent there and amount of people fundraising. It would realistically make sense for this to be the case as we were targeting our personal friends within these locations, who are more likely to donate when asked. We can also see the next most successful approaches came from our friends and family and setting up in Lincoln Performing Arts Centre. This would again make sense as we were asking those wanting to support their family and those aware of the need for fundraising on the Theatre Company module. By targeting those who would be most willing to donate to our cause, we were able to obtain the most funds from the people and locations we were familiar with.

Going forward, this would be something I would focus on should we choose to take the performance and my role as fundraiser further. Although I am aware we can’t ask our friends and family for money forever, this process has taught me that by targeting people who are invested in and understanding of both the arts and our company, we can optimise the amount of funds we can raise for future productions.

E.R.

Analysis of events

Hey Guys, it’s me again! Firstly I would like to say thank you to everyone who has donated to our fundraising campaign and has made our debut show possible so far. We have been so grateful for all the generosity we have received here at Sherbet Lemon Theatre and can’t wait for you to see the final product that your kind donations have helped create. Moving forward I am here to tell you about our latest fundraising campaign, Guess the name of the Bear! Our company mascot is lonely and in need of a name and a home. We will be providing a list of names and for £1 you can guess which you think suits our bear the best. When the competition ends we will put the names through a random generator and if your guess is picked you will be the new owner of our huggable friend.

(Liddle, 2018)                                                (Hutchinson, 2018)

If you would like to take part in our newest campaign and be in with a chance of winning this cutie, then head down to Zing Café next Wednesday (9^th May) between 9am-12pm to make your guess. Alternatively, you can make your guess via our social media pages, where you will find a picture of a fury friend and you can make your choice. Our company members will also be around the campus as we enter the last two weeks of rehearsal for our debut show, so if you see one of us and would like a guess just give us a shout.

This competition will be running for one week (until Wednesday 16^th May) for the final push up to our show. If you would like to see how we have used your donations there is still time to grab a ticket for The Truth About Bedtime…

https://lpac.co.uk/event/the-truth-about-bedtime/

 

Thank you again for all your support and get guessing!

E.R.

Liddle, E. (2018) Our Mascot [image].

Hutchinson, E. (2018) Family Bear [image].

As we are currently in between fundraising campaigns, whist we work tirelessly on creating our debut show, I thought I would take this time to draw your attention to our Go Fund Me page. As you may have noticed under the Donate tab on our blog you can find the link to a Go Fund Me page set up in order to raise further funds for our company. When it came to deciding how much money we intended to raise towards our production, it soon became clear that we would in fact need a substantial amount to fund the set and prop heavy show we aimed to create. I had, as previously discussed, intended to run the events relating to our company of ‘Guess the amount of Sherbet Lemons in the Jar’ and ‘Guess the name of the Bear’ with the aim of promoting our brand through our fundraising. However, in discussion and practice of the former of these events, we realised that our target audience was widely reduced due to access only to the university campus and our friends and peers on a personal level. Therefore, by setting up a Go Fund Me page we allowed our friends and family not local to Lincoln, as well as anyone who may encounter our company online, to donate if they wished. This also helped our marketing as we were able to promote our brand to a wider audience through our fundraising techniques.

(Go Fund Me, 2018)

E.R.

Go Fund Me (2018) Sherbet Lemon Theatre [image].

When working on fundraising ideas it felt important to me that our events not only raised us money but promoted both our show and Sherbet Lemon Theatre as a brand. As a new and emerging theatre company we were faced with the task of promoting our brand before we had a product to give us a name, therefore, needing establish our company ethos through our marketing. Working with our Lead Marketer (Emily Liddle), we quickly established that fundraising would be an ideal outlet in which to promote our company brand in person and to a wider audience. In today’s environment it is “increasingly difficult and uncertain” that a company’s “success [can be] based only on product quality” (Todor, 2014, 59). Therefore, by using our fundraising events to promote the Sherbet Lemon Theatre brand, we were able to establish ourselves with the university community and create a lasting impression on those we encountered.

In relation to marketing, we also tailored our fundraising events to relate to our brand and our debut show. Our first event was ‘Guess the amount of Sherbet Lemons in the Jar’, which immediately linked to our company as we were using the sweets from which we obtained our company name. We then proceeded to run a ‘Guess the name of the Bear’ competition which again linked to our company brand as we placed the bear in a company t-shirt, but also linked to The Truth About Bedtime… as many people can relate a teddy bear to sleep. When running these competitions we also thought carefully about how the location of our events would promote our brand most successfully. We learned that “a brand can not function without a strategy” (Todor, 2014, 59), therefore, running our competitions in the locations that would strategically allow us to raise the most money and promote our brand to the widest audience. We placed our competitions in three main locations: Zing café in the Lincoln Performing Arts Centre, Ground floor of the University Library and the Students Union Reception, as we felt these locations provided optimum opportunities for reaching the widest audience. Each member of our company took part in our fundraising events prompting our ethos of a close working ensemble, all wearing either our company t-shirts or the colour yellow in order to make us recognisable. The tables on which we placed the jar and bear were decorated with sherbet lemon sweets, our business cards and yellow ribbon in order make us stand out in each location and all the event promotional posters housed our logo to keep everything brand related. Through this we were able to market Sherbet Lemon Theatre as a fun and approachable company, enticing the public and consequently making them more likely to donate to our cause.

 

(Round, 2018)                            (Round, 2018)                             (Round, 2018)

Alongside both of these competitions we also ran a Go Fund Me campaign, that allowed anyone outside of personal reach to our company the ability to donate if they wished too. This, therefore, allowed our company brand to be reached by a wider audience outside of our local market.

E.R.

(If you wish to gain more information on our fundraising events, please see the posts entitled Competition time!, Competition time! part 2 and reaching a wider audience, under the ‘Fundraiser’ tab. Also If you would like to examine the success of our competition locations please see the post entitled Analysing our fundraising campaign, under the ‘Technical Documents’ tab.)

 

Round, E. (2018) Guess the Name of the Bear [image].

Round, E. (2018) Sherbet Lemons on Display [image].

Round, E. (2018) Student Union Reception [image].

Todor, R.D. (2014) The importance of branding and rebranding for strategic marketing. Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Brasov, 7(2) 59-64. Available from http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.proxy.library.lincoln.ac.uk/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=2&sid=f0b26e6b-d5cf-484e-8788-c89d603be781%40sessionmgr4009 [accessed 12 April 2018].