Hi! I’m a producer and marketing bod for Strike A Light: a charitable Arts organisation based in Gloucester, working in partnership with Battersea Arts Centre.
We’re made up of five kick-ass women who have been striving to bring accessible, high quality, professional performance to a city which currently has absolutely zero year-round theatre/performance programming (no, really!).
We have worked with Unlimited to bring in small pots of money to allow us to pay for a BSL interpreter for one of our shows each season.
However, I’m having a little trouble and I thought you might be able to help. I came across Limping Chicken through a tip-off and the lovely Charlie suggested I reach out via this blog.
In April we had the incredible ‘Bucket List’ by internationally renowned theatre company, Theatre Ad Infinitum. A political thriller about one woman’s revenge on the US president (very timely, I must say). The show was on for two nights at Gloucester Guildhall, one of which was BSL interpreted with an integrated signer, Jo Ross.
Tickets to this performance were up to £10 – we always like to keep our performances financially accessible and refuse to charge, as other venues might, upwards of £10 for a performance of this calibre.
“Great!”, I thought, “a brilliant performance for next-to-nothing, coupled with BSL Interpretation that’s fully integrated. This should be an easy push”. How naïve I was…
Here’s a few of the avenues I tried to publicise the BSL performance:
*Print distribution & social media
*Becoming a paying member of Signed Culture (plus ‘phone calls with them about engaging audiences)
*Sending info out through the Gloucestershire Deaf Association
*..and through the Deaf groups at our local colleges
*Contacted Jenny Hopkins, CEO of GDA
*Targeting every Gloucestershire and slightly further afield (Bristol, Herefordshire, Worcestershire) group that I could, via Facebook
*I direct messaged someone about the show who had, quite rightly, complained to a local Gloucester cinema via Facebook back in 2015 for removing their subtitled screenings
*I approached a table of people I saw signing in the Watershed in Bristol by signing “sorry” and then handing them a note with details about the performance on….
I’d also organised a fantastic woman called Lesley Reeve from the BSL college to welcome any Deaf and hard of hearing audiences on their arrival at the venue, who was briefed to answer any questions our audiences might have, and I had ensured we’d had the hearing loop checked properly before the festival.
To mine and Lesley’s knowledge, we didn’t have a single Deaf or hard of hearing audience member in for that performance and it felt deflating to know that, despite all best efforts, I’d not managed to reach any local communities.
Now, none of us are Deaf or hard of hearing at Strike A Light and I know that having an ‘in’ to a group or community is the most effective way on reaching the right people.
It feels really important, not just to sell tickets to our performances, but to ensure there is an offer of culture to as many of the right people as possible during our festival.
I’d love to hear any comments / advice on how we might build our audiences to include Deaf and hard of hearing individuals.
Our next BSL interpreted performance is award winning ‘Ross & Rachel’ by James Fritz Thursday 12 October 8pm at Gloucester Academy: https://www.strikealightfestival.org.uk/events/ross-rachel/.
The signing is not integrated this time as it’s a one woman show set in a shallow pool of water and we felt a bit mean asking Elizabeth, our signer, to don her swimming costume for the evening…!
How do I reach you and what would make you come to a high-quality night of performance?
Thank you so much in advance.
Yours desperately,
Ellie Harris – ellie@strikealightfestival.org.uk
Ellie Harris is a freelance Events Manager and Producer working in the Arts, based in the South West. She’s currently Strike A Light Festival’s Marketing and Events Manager, Green Man Festival’s Settlement Manager, and is currently producing Bristol-based company Wattle & Daub, as well as Bootwork’s Theatre’s new show The JukeBoxes. Outside of work she likes to spend her time swimming in the sea and eating crisps (not at the same time).
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Beth
September 11, 2017
The vast majority of people with hearing loss don’t use BSL. If you have a limited budget and want to reach as many deaf/hard of hearing audience members as you can, why not put on a captioned (subtitled) performance? That is likely to reach a far wider deaf audience than BSL, which can only be used by a minority of deaf/hard of hearing people. Not to say that you shouldn’t run a BSL interpreted show AS WELL – that would be good practice.
It would still be difficult to track how many people attended the show specifically to use the captions (or BSL) though.
Ellie Harris
September 25, 2017
Hi Beth, thanks for taking the time to reply. This is hugely useful o know and for next season (Spring ’18) we’ll be looking into funding streams to enable us to offer captioning.
Thanks!
Sylvia Webb
September 11, 2017
Oh how I agree!!! If your target audience are BSL signers (well under 1/2 million UK wide, and that’s exaggerating, last time I checked), make it obvious. But if it is for BOTH SIGNERS & NON-SIGNERS — MAKE IT EVEN MORE OBVIOUS!!!!!!!! You then have up to 10 millions UK-wide to target, but sadly many of those millions don’t even know captioning exists too!! I totally agree too, about providing both captioning/BSL at the same time, tho I recognise there could be technical difficulties with this, as well as finances. Perhaps you could provide somewhere on the tickets for feedback, and an obvious place to which to return these …… may be on the way out?
Ellie Harris
September 25, 2017
Hi Sylvia, thanks for replying! Point taken on the making it obvious for non-signers and signers and yes you’re quite right about finances being stretched(!). It’s definitely something I’m looking into for next season, though.
We do have an interactive feedback collection after each event and could include something on there – do you think that it’s okay to say “Did you benefit from the BSL interpretation and/or the hearing loop during this performance”? I want to make sure my wording is correct!
Thanks so much!
mjfahey
September 11, 2017
I agree with Beth above, whilst the majority of hearing impaired do not use BSL…. a significant number do. So if you want to target both deaf and hearing impaired you need to cover both access needs. You need to look at text based access, lipspeakers, BSL, vibration producers….etc. If you want to monitor how many hearing impaired people are attending there has to be a different ticket offered to that particular group (maybe with a discount?)That way you will be able to see the uptake. One thing to think about is that people with hearing impairments are a very visual group, so everything visual is much appreciated… and so, one way to attract those people is to go online and look for deaf groups of all abilities ( BSL and HoH) because online IS visual/ text based and is where you will find us. For example PARDON facebook group is mostly HOH. Thank you for reaching out and attempting to improve accessibility… it is appreciated. 🙂
Ellie Harris
September 25, 2017
Hiya, thanks for getting in touch 🙂
Luckily this show takes place in a pool of water so it’s quite visual but that’s really useful to think about when deciding what is BSL interpreted for future programming! It’s not something I’d have necessarily considered.
I’ve requested to join PARDON on facebook so hopefully can share once I’m ‘in’.
I’ll have a think about tickets. I want to avoid ‘book here if you’re Deaf / HoH’ (I know that’s not what you’re suggesting!) and we already heavily subsidise our ticket prices so it would just be about the wording for a discounted £.
Lots of food for thought! Thank you 🙂
Claire smith
September 11, 2017
Hi Ellie – very interesting to read comments above – I lost my hearing almost completely and suddenly in my left ear about 18 months ago and as an avid and regular theatre attender I have become more and more disenfranchised. So I am at the beginning of my journey around how I continue to enjoy theatre whilst struggling to hear. My expensive inner ear hearing aid can’t tune into hearing loops which makes things really difficult. I am not sure if I fall strictly your target group but I know there are a great deal of people in the same boat. Not sure how you target people like me but would love a devise similar to that enjoyed by some members of my family who visited Old Trafford cricket ground recently. They purchased an ear piece that relayed the commentary – and what was said on the field of play.
I am working with Strike A Light anyway so could give you a ring –
Ellie Harris
September 25, 2017
Hi Claire, thanks for getting in touch – I’d really like the chance to chat if you’ve got the time? I’m in the office on Weds or drop me an email ellie@strikealightfestival.org.uk and we can sort a time that works for you?
That’s interesting to know about the different types of hearing loops and it would be good to get some more detail from you about this.
You definitely fit into our target group and it would be great to find out what you think could make performances like Ross & Rachel more accessible for you and for the others in the same boat.
We’re looking into captioning for next season (Spring ’18).
Thanks!
Erin Hutching
September 11, 2017
I’d strongly recommend enlisting a Deaf BSL user, perhaps an actor, to make a BSL video to share on social media particularly in Deaf groups on Facebook.
Ellie Harris
September 25, 2017
Hi Erin, thanks for replying ! I’m definitely looking into this. We had Jo Ross make a video last season which was really nice and am following up with our BSL interpreter Elizabeth Oliver for this performance. Thanks!
Blue roses
September 11, 2017
You have to engage with the audiences on a wider level. Being from the area there is little up take in theatre by the general community let alone the Deaf or disabled Community. You can’t just expect them to come to an event when they may have never been to the theatre before. Many people prefer the musicals or panto in Cheltenham and will pay to go to these. Go and meet these people, attend the local Deaf club, hook up with other theatre companies in the area who specialise working inclusively or using creative access. Theatre is never built in a day. Captioning is a great place to start.
Ellie Harris
September 25, 2017
Hiya, thanks for responding!
We have seen a big take-up for our theatre and dance events (not specifically Deaf & HoH) each season at Strike A Light festival (ie we’ve also set up GL4 Festival in the Matson community in Gloucester who are getting sell out shows which is incredible) so we’re still working on that general wider audience but seeing really positive numbers. It’s really the BSL interpreted performances that needs a lot more perseverance and work to build trust and relationships with to develop any sort of audience that will benefit from accessible performances.
I’m looking into funding for Spring 2018 to see if we can get captioning – this seems , like you say, a great idea and I was really surprised on writing this that not many people use BSL.
I’d be really keen to know of / be introduced to some Gloucester Deaf clubs, if you know of anyone I might be able to contact?
I have had some terrific responses from theatre bods, a Deaf club at the Sherman theatre etc. so hopefully these direct conversations can start up.
I’m also going to look at PS swaps with other South West venues to reach their Deaf & HoH audiences.
Am fully prepared for a long journey and not a quick fix and very much looking forward to it! 🙂 Thanks so much for your suggestions
Beth
September 25, 2017
Ellie, re captioning I would suggest you contact STAGETEXT direct if you haven’t done so already. They work with theatres to develop audiences as well as provide the hardware/software and captioners for the performance. They will possibly have contacts in the area you wish to target. Good luck!