EC PAPERS NOVEMBER 2017

5

Liberating Arts

The programme came together relatively easily and on budget. There was great enthusiasm from the creative and academic communities towards the event and professional artists were equally keen to be involved. By early May we had an initial line-up that was widely praised as being both interesting, popular and comprehensive. Initial marketing was launched in June on social media and with articles and advertisements in the Morning Star and Red Pepper who had come on board as our ‘media partners’. Over the summer GFTU affiliate unions and TUC affiliate unions were contacted and asked to pass on information about Liberating Arts to their members. We were given active support by the SERTUC and Midlands TUC Creative & Leisure industry Committees and by the SW TUC Regional Secretary, Nigel Costley. As well as online marketing physical leaflets were distributed at a number of events including the Tolpuddle Festival, the SERTUC Show Culture Some Love Conference and the TUC Congress. However, by the time of the TUC Congress on 10 th September it was clear that ticket sales were going very slowly and that trade unions were almost entirely failing to engage. We had literally only sold 20 tickets and were looking at costs of over £30k. It was decided that we would give one big final marketing push to try to get ticket sales up to 125 by 12.00 pm on Sunday October 1 st but if we were unable to do so we would have no choice but to cancel the event. By the deadline of October 1 st we had sold 60 tickets and the rate of sales was remaining steady at 2 or 3 a day. The Producer had made contact with a social media sales consultant who felt that for £1000 it would be possible to significantly increase sales using Facebook marketing.

Over £10,000 had already been spent on Liberating Arts and this was unrecoverable. Thus on the 6 th October it was decided to extend the deadline to 20 th October and invest £1000 in FB marketing. It was also decided to open up the tickets to include individual sessions and performances, allowing us to market the festival on FB with tickets starting at £5. 5 Producer’s Report 06/11/2017