To: <puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org>
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2009 23:45:51 -0500
Subject: [Puptcrit] Puppetry Awareness Projects?


This is a topic close to my heart.
I've been talking about it for years, with local and international contacts.
The efforts I've seen were mostly online, and those really help making the 
information available.

Every little step counts, but I'd like to see a stronger, more mobilized 
effort to bring Puppetry back into the mainstream of showbusiness.

What I mean by this, is I'd like to see people of every slice of society 
have the reccuring reflex of "Hey, let's go see a puppet show tonight!", 
instead of the usual movie or stand-up comic or sports event. Humans are 
creatures of habit, so those activities are already engrained in their 
thought patterns.

Puppet shows often have a hard time getting the word out, so the room is 
often far from full.
Puppeteers of international caliber operate for years in a their city, and 
the next-door neighbors don't even know about them!

The one excuse I hear all the time, from most people, is the lack of funds 
for publicity (posters, radio add, TV spots). I understand, but I also 
understand there are free ways to publicise and to make converts from 
influencial people. Once it becomes "in" to go see a puppet show, the people 
will catch on. The power of Puppetry will keep them coming back, you'll see!
After most puppet shows I attend, I hear newcommers full of wonder and 
astonishment that such Art was done locally, and how come they hadn't 
learned about it before?

It's time we started enlarging our small circle of initiates which only 
grows by word to mouth. Let's use other means as well, turning it into a 
large world of puppet enthusiasts.

What strategies can we use to make the awareness happen?
Let's share those here, and see how we can make them work.

The same strategies can work locally for small companies, and globally for 
bigger ones.



My contribution:
I have collected the following suggestions over the years, while talking 
with colleagues in person and online:

Free publicity:
.send sleek info package to newspapers for them to feature you and/or your 
show in an article.
.make something outrageous (of good taste) so that the News and talk shows 
will talk about your work and Puppetry. They'll be glad for the change of 
topic!

Cheap but powerful:
.Use the power of the Net, by updating your website into something sleek and 
attractive, with great quality pics and video excerpts.  Even today, most 
puppet sites are greatly lacking in those.

.photocopy small black and white posters of your show or workshops on 
regular sized sheets, 4 to a page, and cut by hand. Slide those into free 
newspapers, at the most used stands downtown. This is called: "Publicite 
sauvage" in French (wild publicity).

.Keep a client list protected as if it were a sacred book. Keep it updated, 
and use it wisely, to let the people now, at least once a year, what new 
offerings you are bringing. Otherwise, they forget about you, and fall back 
into their usual patterns: mocies, sports, politics, stand-up comics...
We have a lot of competition out there, it's about time we made ourselves 
seen.

.Not for our own company directly, but for the whole of the profession:
We should all individually keep a list of the high quality websites we go to 
regularly, so that we can share it with newcommers and members of the 
public, when they ask about the work.
Such a list should be well-organised and easy to consult.
Many sites are now available, but if we send people to the best that can be 
used as starting points, then we save a lot of time. I recommend: Puptcrit, 
the Puppetvision Blog, Puppetbuilding.com (will come back soon), and 
Puppethub. If they want more, let's send them to the major association's 
websites, and then Takey's website of puppetry links.

A bit more investment:
.Instead of making our next show into the artistic project of our dream, 
maybe we should create something popular that will appeal to most people. 
This would build our popularity, and people would then be curious about what 
else we have to offer. Of course, we shouldn't sacrifice quality! Just 
change the topic to something that will grab people's attention. And even 
more fun: that popular show could have our social or philosophical messages 
sneaked into it!

Let others invest:
.Associate ourselves or our company with a big event or show that already or 
surely will attract a crowd.  It could be showbiz, commercial, or 
community-based. Make it plain to see that our team can bring all the 
expertise the event needs to go to the next level.

Adjusting our mind:
.Trust the power of Puppetry: Once we get the influencial people to see our 
work, if it is truly good work, they will recognize it, and support it. 
Bring them fun, escapism, food for thought, education, thrills, nostalgia, 
inspiration, and all that comes with good puppetry, and they will pay for 
more!

."Going commercial" isn't evil in itself. It's a means to an end. Great 
works have been done commercially without sacrifice to integrity. As soon as 
we understand this fully, we will cease to be "starving artists" and start 
being an "expanding artistic and economic success".

.Money isn't bad, it's a great tool of convenience. Prevents us from needing 
to carry a goat and cow around when we need to buy a bag of potatoes!

.Money isn't going to corrupt our work or ourselves. Corruption comes when 
we let it enter.








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