How helpful was winning the £500?

Winning the Edinburgh Marketing Fund was terrific. It allowed us to be a little bit more creative with our marketing – but it’s surprising how cheap some of the things we’ve come up with have been.

For example, we had a big rubber stamp of the Dumbshow logo made for us by a company we found on the internet. The stamp was only £20, and it’s something the company will have forever. “Stamping” people with pink and red ink on the Royal Mile is something I’ve never seen any other theatre company do before!

We also had 3,000 raspberry-flavoured sweets made that have “Clockheart Boy” [show pictured above] written on them, and we’ve been giving them out. They were not expensive: again, we ordered them over the internet. We had Clockheart Boy badges made too, and plenty of leaflets to give out in costume on the Royal Mile of course.

What advice would you give to other young theatre companies taking shows to Fringe?

The best thing you can do is to exploit all of the talents within your group. Get together and brainstorm and see what you can come up with. Within Dumbshow, plenty of us have other careers besides theatre. We’ve got TV people, journalists, a bit of everything. It’s about making the most of all those skills. 

For example, Jack Howson is a BBC radio producer, so he’s helping to put together a weekly podcast featuring interviews with different people at the Fringe like director Alexander Devrient and poet Richard Marsh. We’ve also been writing a daily blog on our website that tracks our progress as we go.

What new technologies have you been using?

Our artistic director Michael Bryher is a genius at design and our composer Rollo Clarke works in IT. Between them they were able to put together QR codes, which we’ve put on all our printed materials. QR codes are barcodes which link directly to the show’s trailer when scanned with a smartphone.

Theatre companies seem to shy away from certain new technologies like this, and I’m not sure why. They’re not expensive or difficult to use and they’ve got great potential. We also brought an iPad onto the Royal Mile [pictured above] to show people clips of the show – it really caught people’s attention.

How important is social media in marketing?

More than anything, social media is a great way of building creative partnerships with other people working in the industry. I think it’s important for companies to work together more. On Facebook and Twitter we recommend shows we’ve seen that we really liked and chat to other people in the industry. It’s all about becoming more of a “presence” at the Fringe.

For more advice, interviews and reviews, visit our Edinburgh microsite. 

Image by Camilla Greenwell.