kids theatre?

*Cringe*

...this is the reaction many people have to the prospect of going to see a bunch of children performing theatre, but our little (and grown,  we have an age range from 6-19) actors have the skills and talents of professionals.  Many of our students have gone on to university training and/or professional theatre. Our kids win regional and even provincial competitions.  They sometimes have to split rehearsal time with us and a local and quite famous professional theatre.

But despite the talent, we have a major problem filling seats.  The families of our students come to the shows, sometimes a few of their friends will join the audience. But typically we are way under our desired goal in this respect.  While this is not the only way we gain an bit of an income for our not-for-profit organization, the lack of an audience is contributing greatly to our slight financial peril.

Any ideas, tips or advice on how to fix our 'Bums in Seats' problem?  We dont have lots of money and few actullay ACTIVE board members to help us, but any suggestions you have would be greatly appreciated.

 Thanks in advance!

--Just found this site and am so relieved to see that other groups struggle as well, we are not alone!--

Sorry, I have included this in both sections of administration, didnt realize it was more suitable in this section...

Hi Jenniz! Glad to have you aboard! You didn't say, how many shows do you do, and over what time span? Is it a large cast? That might be the difference. If you did less shows, then the houses would be bigger.

I have quite a bit of experiece with this subject. I direct children's drama workshops in the summer months. We only do 2 shows per workshop, maybe that is the difference. We have not experienced any difficulty in filling the seats for our youngest group of kids shows (age 6 - 13). In fact, we have to give ticket vouchers out to make sure that every parent can buy tickets before they are sold to the public. We sell out every year and have had to turn people away. As far as the high school aged (age 14 - 19) group goes, we have decent houses, but don't sell out. We draw kids from about a 30 mile radius. I put a press release and photo in all the area newspapers the week before the shows open.  I also have the kids put posters around their towns.  PM me if you would like to network.

I also direct children's theatre, and we fill the seats there too. It never fails, in our area, you put kids in a show and the people will come! We live in a rural town of about 7,000. Our venue is a lovely historic Opera House that seats 300. Our CT's problem is filling the seats for the adult shows!

Thanks for responding,

  Our shows run in December and May/June-ish. We run each play usually once (or twice if we have two different casts for one show.) In the winter the shows vary from Arthur-ian legends, to originals written by the Artistic Director, to Robin Hood and this year our school is doing is first ever Commedia dell'Arte production.  We usually have the full school in this performance.  In the spring we always do Shakespeare and each class does their own show edited to their skill and experience. Each cast in the spring is about 10-15 actors.

 We send the children out with posters, we go around ourselves handing out posters to local businesses to display, etc.

Since we put all the ages together for our shows in December, there is not so much of a problem getting a turn out, but our Shakespeare season is more of a difficult show to sell. 

*sigh*

Welcome to the forum!  I'm in the same boat as you and Suzicue ... children's theatre!  A couple of suggestions for you.

1)  Try something well-known for a while, to draw a crowd.  I'm doing "children's literature" until we're better established and then may branch out.  You know, stuff everyone's familiar with.  Not as exciting, but it sells, especially in a small town.

2)  I once worked with a group that had the kids go out and sell tickets.  Okay ... it was really the parents selling tickets to their friends.  They were asked to sell 10 tickets, with a prize going to the top three ticket sellers (usually these were donated prizes for pizza, movie rental, etc.)

Any other ideas, folks?  We could all use them!  :O)

I am the new VP on the board for our community theater. We have a large lobby area that typically goes unused during the shows. For our upcomming childrens theater I am reaching out to the local schools to conduct a childrens art show. I am getting local businesses to donate prizes such as free roller skating and ice cream for the child artists that show up for the production. I am also giving special recognition to those children who show up prior to the start of the show. I have had overwhelming success with both the schools and businesses I have contacted. I hope to get more and different people to our theater by hosting such an event. It is only costing us some labor on my part to organize it. The show is March 18 19 and 20 lets hope I get the desired result.