The theatre industry has been struggling to adjust post-covid and our own margins have been squeezed more each year since the pandemic began. We’ve always been a frugal company – and good at rolling with punches – but costs have risen too rapidly in the past couple of years for us to keep up.
So, to be able to continue to pay our actors fairly and keep our shows financially accessible for the public we’re appealing for things that will help us reduce our costs. Here are the sorts of things we’re looking for:
Advertising Do you know of any great free places to advertise our shows locally? Things like parish magazines or village email newsletters? Give us a heads up – it’s hard to find them when we’re not based in an area!
Sponsors We print thousands of souvenir programmes each summer that get seen by people all over the country. Do you run a business that would be interested in sponsoring our programmes? Or do you know of a company that might be interested? If so, drop us a line!
Accommodation For safety reasons we are usually unable to put our actors up in private homes but if you run a B&B or know someone who could offer us ‘mates rates’ please get in touch.
Vehicles Every summer we hire a fleet of vans and cars. We doubt anyone has a spare van lying around they could lend us but, well, you never know! More likely someone could have a top tip of where to hire vehicles at a reasonable price? Let us know!
Word of Mouth Organic growth sounds like something to do with vegetables but it’s also the best way to increase a fanbase size – so, if you can, please try to persuade someone you know to come and see one of our shows this summer! We promise the performances will be as adequate as ever.
Cold Hard Cash Are you a Dickensian-style mysterious benefactor? Probably not. But it would be a weird omission here if we didn’t ask for donations of the monetary sort. Buying our tat quality merchandise, is also very helpful.
Please contact us if you’re able to help with any of the above or have any other money-saving ideas.
Love and hugs,
The Pantaloons