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| Stats. from The Stage newspaper. |
The six week Pantomime ( Panto) period over the Christmas
season is a critical selling window for theatres across the UK. Last year Pantomime productions accounted for
16% of all tickets sold in regional theatres in 2014 – more than 2.7 million,
making almost £52 million.
Sales Growth
The 200 member organisations of UK theatre increased their
ticket sales by £4.5 million from 2013 to 2014. UK Theatre’s data reveals that
almost 100,000 more tickets were sold for pantomimes in 2014 than in
2013
Up to 60% of tickets have been sold up to the beginning of
December most producers can accurately predict sales turnover for the period so
long as the season is not hit by heavy snow. ‘Dreaming of a white Christmas’ is
a nightmare for the Pantomime business.
“Don’t let it snow, Don’t let it snow, Don’t let it snow !”
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| Aladdin at Camberley |
Panto is the goose which each year lays golden eggs. Whether local theatres
consider Panto as their Cash Cow or Cash Horse, the revenue it generates is lifeblood
to many local theatres.
The market leader in Pantomime productions is Qdos
Entertainment which this year is producing 24 shows . Another provider FFE has
a 2015 programme which features the customary schedule of recurrent favourites:
an Aladdin, a Sleeping Beauty, and two
productions each of Dick
Whittington, Snow
White, Cinderella
and Peter Pan.
Panto can teach us
all lessons in selling.
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| Jack and the Beanstalk at Guildford's Yvonne Arnaud Theatre |
As well as being an entryway to the theatre, the stories of
traditional Pantomime can also be an early introduction to the world of selling
for better or ill for youngsters going to their first experience of live
theatre.
Selling narratives
Many of the stories
have a cautionary moral concerning business conduct. They tell how riches can be earned in a right
or wrong way rudimentary ethics even today’s business could still pay heed to. They
also show the contrast of good and bad personal behaviour in conducting our
affairs. For example:-
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| Aladdin at Oxford's Playhouse |
The story of Aladdin has the wicked
sorcerer , Abanazar, inveigling into the
family posing as Aladdin’s trusted Uncle
who offers to set up the young near-do-well lad as a wealthy merchant. This tale from 1001 Arabian nights teaches us
all to be wary of offers that too good to be true. Aladdin’s wife is enticed by
the offer or ‘New lamps or old’.
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| Jack and the Beanstalk at Basingstoke's Anvil theatre |
Similarly Jack in Jack and the Beanstalk
appears another naive negotiator when he exchanges his family’s cow ( their only source of income ) for a few
worthless supposedly ‘magic’ beans.
However as we know those worthless beans grow overnight into
a huge beanstalk. We in selling maybe
can learn to have patience to let our prospective beans grow and then emulate some
of Jack’s courage in venturing up our equivalent beanstalks and overcoming the objections
of a yelling Giant to achieve the objective of the Giant’s bag of golden coins.
“Fee-fi-fo-fum!
I smell the blood of an Englishman,
Be he alive, or be he dead,
I'll grind his bones to make my bread.”
The Pantomime of Dick Whittington
follows the classic basis of Fairy Tale, and indeed does many a pantomime. The
Poor boy makes good through some heroic or magical deed. By rewarding others he
achieves his target or sales objective -a Kingdom, a Princess, Untold wealth,
or, in the case of Whittington he becomes fabulously rich, and is made Lord
Mayor of London three times.
The pantomime of “Mother Goose” in the
form we know it today was written in London in 1902 by J.Hickory Wood who created a new pantomime especially for the
leading comedian of the day- Dan Leno. It has the biggest part for a Dame in
any pantomime.
Dan Leno created a poor woman who befriends a magical goose
that provides her with Golden Eggs. She is rich, but there is something she
wants more than money- she wants to be young and beautiful.
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| Sleeping Beauty at Woking's Victoria Theatre |
The pantomime has a strong moral- Beauty & Wealth alone
seldom bring you happiness.
In Beauty and the beast the
Beast (a ‘cursed’ prince) can only break
the spell by learning to love another and earn her love in return before the
last petal from his enchanted rose falls, which would bloom until his
twenty-first birthday.
In the beginning
Beauty views him as nothing more than a monster, he views her as difficult and
stubborn. But the two soon taste the bitter-sweetness of finding you can change
and learning you were wrong. Perhaps we
as sellers, can draw some parallels on the skills of relationship building both
with co-workers and clients from the story.
In Snow White the proud,
overbearing and beautiful Queen of the Grimm brothers cannot bear to be
surpassed in beauty by anyone. In her several attempts to kill off the young
and beautiful Snow White at the house of
the seven dwarfs she manages to be allowed entry to the house through her sales
pitch:-
“ Fine wares to sell. Fine wares to sell” “ Good wares, fine wares laces of all colours”.
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| Aldershot's Princes Hall is presenting Cinderella |
Pantomime is family entertainment which enchants children
through the magic of the fairy tale, and adults through the humorous risqué
double entendres which are supposedly above the children’s heads.
Of 16 theatrical genres analysed by UK Theatre, pantomime
achieves the highest capacities, and is matched only by comedy, recording an
average capacity of 73% in 2014.
The Theatre’s own ‘Cinderella’
When compared with other theatre art forms, Panto starts
looking a bit more serious. Last year across the UK, plays achieved 52%
capacity, with contemporary dance attendance falling from 59% in 2013 to 42% in
2014.
Panto productions may not feature in the glamorous award
ceremonies such as the BAFTAs , the Evening Standard Drama or Olivier awards yet but for the sales of
Pantomime tickets UK theatres would be all the poorer and quite possibly out of
business. They also play a part in the cross sell to live drama.
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