Here are a few tips for successfully flyering at a Fringe Festival. There are, of ciurse, many more nuggets of fringe wisdom you will pivk up on your fringe journey. These are the half dozen that I have picked up again and again since my first fringe in 1999…
1. Make your flyers useful (include a map of the town on the B-Side, or useful telephone numbers, web addresses, beyond your own show’s details. People will then keep your flyer and subliminally read it more than once. They may also reward the gesture of giving them useful information by coming to your show. Another way to make flyers useful isto provide a bit of white space for people to write onto. People are busy at Fringe Festivals, looking for shows to see, meeting up with friends – your flyer could become the note paper for the day.
2. Don’t make your flyers too large or some silly shape that is hard to put in a pocket or fold up. A6 is ideal.
3. Don’t overpopulate your flyer with too much information. Just the bare essentials and no more than 2 or 3 press quotes. Don’t use hackneyed words like “amazing” or “hysterically funny” – these are cliches and tend to switch on cynical responses from potential audience members.
4. Find a street corner slightly off the beaten track where there is smaller but regular traffic of passersby. Use good eye contact and make a CLEAR gesture of offering a flyer. Don’t just stand there with your hand out. For example, there’s much less flyering down on New Road in Brighton but some well placed, committed flyering there can reach an entirely new audience.
5. Try to get talking to people about your show. If people show an interest, before you give thema flyer, write a “thanks” and your name on the flyer with a nice blue pen – make it personal.
6. When talking to people about your show share two vital pieces of info: a very brief history of what brought your show to the Festival and also what your aspirations/hopes are for it beyond the festival. That way, the person is invited to support YOU by attending, not just your show, without you having to ask directly. Sometimes people like to support aspirations and missions rather than just single events.
